The House on 92nd Street (Fox Film Noir)
by Henry Hathaway
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Gene Lockhart, Leo G. Carroll, Lloyd Nolan, Signe Hasso, William EytheDirector: Henry Hathaway
Brand: EYTHE,WILLIAM
Cinematographer: Norbert Brodine
Editor: Harmon Jones
Producer: Louis De Rochemont
Writer: Barré Lyndon
Writer: Charles G. Booth
Writer: John Monks Jr.
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 1.0; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0; German (Original Language); English (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 1.0; Spanish (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 1.0
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Dubbed, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 88 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-09-06
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Movie Reviews of The House on 92nd Street (Fox Film Noir)
Movie Review: Not a Noir, Not a Documentary, But A Great Film
Summary: 5 Stars
"The House on 92nd Street" -- the first film made with the cooperation of the FBI -- tells the story of the FBI's bust of a Nazi spy ring who'd tried to steal the plans for the atomic bomb. The hero, Bill Dietrich, is an American of German ancestry who was approached by the Nazis to spy for their regime. Instead, he volunteers his services to the FBI and becomes a double-agent. After training at a Nazi school in Hamburg, Dietrich returns to the US as paymaster and radioman for the Nazi spy faction operating in New York. This group, run by the hard-as-nails Elsa, controls other agents and informants and, in turn, is controlled by the mysterious "Mr. Christopher". The intriguing and fast-paced story leads to a surprise ending that does not disappoint.
This film was the first-ever "semi-documentary." It has aspects of a documentary: true-life footage inside FBI headquarters, genuine footage of Nazis in the US and their arrests, and G-men playing for the screen the same roles they took in solving the actual crime. The plot is interrupted, now and then, by documentary-like stentorian narration. It is, however, a dramatization and the screenwriters took minor liberties with the facts (i.e., certain of the actual villains were married.) It can also be seen as a commercial for the FBI, and 1945 audiences no doubt were left with a gee-whiz feeling when they saw the footage of the largest file room in the United States, with its millions of fingerprints; the detailed files on all potentially-troublesome foreigners (supposedly rounded up in one day); the FBI's one-way glass mirrors; the elaborate shortwave radio set-ups and the like. Those who have seen episodes of "The FBI" have seen this sort of thing before, but it was designed to awe (and reassure) the film's post-war audience and jolt America's enemies.
The DVD includes erudite commentary by film noir historian Eddie Muller. As Muller points out, this film is not an actual noir. Rather than focusing on one individual and his reactions as events close in on him (think "Sorry, Wrong Number," or "Crossfire") this is a straightforward account. Indeed, much of the plot is driven by the desire to show off the technology. That does not mean that the plot is not extremely engaging -- it is. The actors, including the minor actors, do a terrific job. It is very easy to overplay evil spies so that they almost become caricatures (there is a "we have ways of making you talk" scene) but overall, they do a fine job with the material. And the direction and photography are first rate.
Watch the film once through, then watch it with the insightful commentary. Take a look at the press book (included) and the photos. I recommend it highly.
Summary of The House on 92nd Street (Fox Film Noir)
An FBI agent goes undercover to spy on American Nazis working within the American homefront in World War II.Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: NR
Release Date: 6-SEP-2005
Media Type: DVD
The House on 92nd Street has solid claims to a place in film history, and not just as an engrossing true-life counter-espionage movie. Its working title was "Now It Can Be Told," and its story--about the F.B.I. smashing a Nazi spy ring in New York--involved the stealing of atomic secrets. That surely upped the topical ante for 1945 audiences (who, we may assume, had a lot less ambivalent feelings about the F.B.I. than latterday viewers).
Of more lasting significance, the movie pioneered a salutary postwar trend in American filmmaking: forsaking the Hollywood soundstages and back lot to tap the freshness and palpable authenticity of real-world locations. Shot mostly in New York City, House was a collaboration between 20th Century?Fox and Louis de Rochement, the documentary producer renowned for his "March of Time" newsreels. The working formula of House and its successors was to fully incorporate documentary techniques into the storytelling, and to "film where it actually happened." That included using some nonprofessional performers, sometimes people who had been involved in the case. Fox went on to embrace this aesthetic in not only the de Rochement?produced 13 Rue Madeleine and Boomerang! but also the gangster movie Kiss of Death, the journalistic detective story Call Northside 777, and another F.B.I. case history, Street With No Name. Even the storybook fantasy of the studio's 1947 Miracle on 34th Street was charmingly validated by setting Kris Kringle down amid real New Yorkers and real Gotham grittiness.
Noiristes should stand advised that House on 92nd Street, a key influence on film noir, is not quite a true noir itself (whereas Anthony Mann's T-Men is noir to the max). Even as a German-American double agent, hero William Eythe is unburdened by neurosis or doubt, and the stylistic keynote is documentary gray, not black--though a murder in a railroad yard and the final showdown are memorably stark and dark. --Richard T. Jameson
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