The House on 92nd Street (1945) - film review

During WWII, brilliant university graduate Bill Dietrich is recruited by the FBI to help uncover Nazi agents working in the United States.  Dietrich must infiltrate a German spy ring and determine how the Nazis are managing to smuggle state secrets out of the US.  Posing as a German spy, Dietrich is tasked with collecting Nazi communications from a house on 92nd Street in New York, coding them, and transmitting these by wireless to Germany.   In fact, Dietrich’s messages get no further than a nearby FBI station, where they are modified to mislead the Nazis and relayed to Germany.  Dietrich is involved in a dangerous game but his country’s security, indeed the outcome of the war, may depend on the success of his operations...

The House on 92nd Street was a groundbreaking semi-documentary spy drama which helped to usher in a new era of realism in American film noir thrillers.  Real locations are used in place of the cramped (and often unconvincing) soundstages, whilst non-professional actors (in this case real FBI staff) in the supporting roles contribute to the film’s authenticity.  Whilst the film is laughably dated by its bombastic and didactic voiceover narration (which makes it look more like an FBI public relations film than anything else), it nevertheless does provide a valuable insight into the activities of America’s security services during the Second World War.  The film is stylishly shot in the the familiar shadow-laden noir aesthetic, lending it a chilling menace and an almost unbearable tension in places.

The House on 92nd Street was the first in a series of successful docu-dramas produced by Louis De Rochemont, who had previously been responsible for the long-running March of Time newsreel series.  Similarly styled films produced by De Rochemont include 13 Rue Madeleine (1947) and Boomerang! (1947).  The film was directed by Henry Hathaway, who helmed several notable film noir thrillers of this era, including The Dark Corner (1946) and Call Northside 777 (1948).  Interestingly, the film was made before America detonated its atomic bombs over Japan, so the original script made no reference to America’s atomic research activities.  Just prior to the film’s release in September 1945, the narration was modified to make the theft of atomic research secrets a central plot point, Project 97 being an obvious alias for the Manhattan Project.

© Steve Chandler 2011

Write a review for this film...

What do you think of this film?