13 Rue Madeleine (1947) - film review

During the later years of WWII, Bob Sharkey has the job of training spies in the American Strategic Services.  His boss informs him that one of his latest recruits, Bill O’Connell, is a Nazi agent.  The plan is to allow O’Connell to take part in a bogus mission, so that he will feed false information to the Germans ahead of an allied invasion.   When one of his agents is killed by O’Connell, Sharkey decides to take his place, accompanied by another of his students, Suzanne de Beaumont.  Their mission: to capture Duclois, the French scientist who is assisting the Germans in building V2 launch bases along the Normandy coastline.   They succeed, but Sharkey is captured and faces interrogation at the feared Gestapo headquarters, 13 rue Madeleine, Le Havre...

13 Rue Madeleine is an informative documentary-style drama that was intended to promote the wartime exploits of the Office of Strategic Services (which became the CIA in 1947).   It followed a similar style of film made by the same production team on a similar subject, The House on 92nd Street (1945).  Despite its propaganda angle, which is apparent in its laboured voice-over introduction, it is a surprisingly bleak film and gives a chillingly realistic portrayal of what many service personnel experienced during the war.

It is to be regretted that the characterisation and dialogue are generally pretty weak, but the performances just about make up for that.  James Cagney ought to be implausible in his part of a spy instructor, but he somehow manages to pull it off – it’s not his best performance, but he strikes the right balance between charm, tough guy bravado and compassion.  13 Rue Madeleine has something of the character of Henry Hathaway’s better film noir dramas – a sense of brooding menace and highly tense situations, punctuated by some moments of abject darkness.

© James Travers 2008

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