I'm kind of confused as to what exactly this movie wants to be. Half of the film is done in a kind of documentary style. A narrator telling you the activities of the FBI, what technology they're using and how they're monitoring the Nazis who happened to be organizing within their country. While the other half of the film is a kind of dime in a dozen crime drama where a man has to infiltrate a criminal organization (Or in this case the Nazis) in an attempt too disorganized and possibly destroy the group itself.
personally I would have preferred a pure documentary approach. Utilizing testimonies from real-life FBI agents and real life footage of German operatives spies and a disturbing amount of increased Pro German nationalized White supremacist so prominent in the United States leading up to the war.
But then a lot of this information may still have been in the prohibited if not Restricted Section of FBI intelligence. Perhaps the only way to tell the story was through Hollywood dramatization.
Of course a movie based purely on the investigative drama could have been okay too. The most entertaining parts of the entire film what are the dialogue scenes where the group of national socialists start to question their strange American agent who just came over the sea from Hamburg.
And all the different events showing how people transferred information secretly. Like our main FBI agent purposely getting arrested by the police so he can talk to his boss inside a prison where it's guaranteed to be safe from German spies. Or the transferring information on microfilm that people have to keep hidden inside their watch. The different ways they transfer this information to each other for the FBI can simultaneously retrieve the information alter the information and return it to our key FBI agent all without the German the knowing. Thus keeping the illusion going for as long as possible. That is until the ending with the inevitable guns and cannons climax.
It's kind of funny how the only key female roles in this movie happened to be three different people who are all working for the Nazis. Nazi women of course are always portrayed as arrogant, beautiful and extremely dangerous. Sometimes they're the ones that are secretly running the entire operation. Isn't it funny how Hollywood always gives women more power and presence in the Nazi regime than the actual Nazis ever would*.
Really the only other interesting thing of note is knowing in hindsight the amount of information that's not known to them now. Such as the British Ultra project which was used to spy on just about everybody but especially the Nazis. Or the creation of the CIA only a few years later which will dwarf the FBI's responsibility in American Affairs.
*I suspect women like ''Axis Sally'' where a big reason for this depiction in Hollywood.
Comments
Post a Comment