Espionage Agent (1939)

User Rating:

5.8/10   

Director:

Lloyd Bacon

Writers:

Robert Buckner (story)
Warren Duff (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

30 September 1939 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Romance | Thriller | War

Plot:

When Barry Corvall discovers that his new bride is a possible enemy agent, he resigns from the diplomatic...

Plot Keywords:

Espionage | Ticker Tape | Code | German | Passenger Ship

Cast

Joel McCrea	...	Barry Corvall
Brenda Marshall	...	Brenda Ballard
Jeffrey Lynn	...	Lowell Warrington
George Bancroft	...	Dudley 'Dud' / 'Donald' Garrett
Stanley Ridges	...	Hamilton Peyton
James Stephenson	...	Dr. Anton Rader
Howard C. Hickman	...	Walter Forbes (as Howard Hickman)
Martin Kosleck	...	Karl 'Müller' Mullen
Nana Bryant	...	Mrs. Corvall
Rudolph Anders	...	Paul Strawn (as Robert O. Davis)
Hans Heinrich von Twardowski	...	Dr. Helm (as Hans Von Twardowski)
Lucien Prival	...	Decker
Addison Richards	...	Bruce Corvall
Edwin Stanley	...	Secretary of State
Granville Bates	...	Phineas T. O'Grady

Runtime:

83 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Sweden:(Banned) | USA:Passed (PCA #5412)

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

Some cast members in studio records/casting call lists did not appear or were not identifiable in the movie. These were (with their character names, if any): Lloyd Ingraham (Woodrow Wilson), Alex Melesh (Headwaiter), Eddie Acuff (Taxi driver) and Mary Forbes.

Goofs:

Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): George Bancroft is credited onscreen as Dudley Garrett, but radio announcer Wendell Niles introduces him as Donald Garrett.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Shining Through (1992)

Soundtrack:

Gschichten aus dem Wienerwald (Tales from the Vienna Woods), Op. 325

Got Their Wars Mixed Up

Warner Brothers really could have used a better script for this mishmash of a movie which managed to juxtapose the events of World War I into the days before World War II.

The film opens with a description of the famous Black Tom explosion of a munition factory located on an island in the middle of the Hudson River. You can still see the remnants of it today. This occurred before World War I and was traced to German saboteurs then.

The message is quite clear, America needs to have its own espionage agency and we got one with the formation of the Office of Strategic Services as World War II broke out. Until then such distasteful spying matters was handled within the State Department.

Joel McCrea is a foreign service officer who marries refugee Brenda Marshall. Problem is that Marshall had gotten help from the Germans and they expect some help in return. Of course she's in love with her new husband and she refuses and exposes their contact man, Martin Kosleck.

With McCrea's dismissal from the foreign service, the newlyweds decide to form there own plan to expose the German's secret espionage network with a little spying of their own. How they manage is the rest of the film.

For a film that supposedly takes place before American entry into World War I, why is that everyone is dressed in the Nazi uniforms of the Thirties? Everything is there but the swastika. There's not even any kind of effort with music or sets to set the film in its proper time frame.

The only reason this gets as much as three stars is a tribute to the players involved. Joel McCrea was simply in a dress rehearsal for the far better Foreign Correspondent he would do the following year.