(1946)
2
Bob Mastrangelo
This superior WWII espionage thriller finds Gary Cooper on a secret mission to find details on the German effort to build an atomic bomb. The story is pretty far-fetched, and there is little real chemistry between Cooper and leading lady Lilli Palmer, but it is all presented in a believable enough fashion. Of the supporting cast, Marc Lawrence has a notable role as a vicious pro-Nazi Italian who has an especially brutal fight scene with Cooper, Helene Thimig appears as a German physicist who has escaped to Switzerland, and Dan Seymour gets a rare break from playing henchmen to actually be one of the good guys. The script touches all the important patriotic buttons that one would expect from a film such as this, but fortunately for the audience, it is more concerned with making a good caper. Much of the script's original political content was reportedly diluted, but there is an effective scene where Cooper forcefully tells spymaster Colonel Walsh that if the government spent as much money and effort on finding a cure for tuberculosis or cancer as it does on making a bomb the world would be better off. Fritz Lang's direction, as always, is filled with atmospherics, a preoccupation with secret dealings and dangerous activities, and wonderful little touches that are more important to the plot than they at first appear to be (such as Cooper covering his face when a photographer tries to take his picture when he arrives in Switzerland, spurring all sorts of suspicions and setting the plot into motion). Cloak and Dagger is worth a look just to see Cooper as an atomic scientist, but beyond that novelty, it is the sort of tale of international intrigue that Lang clearly relished making.
cast-crew for Cloak and Dagger on AllMovie
Cloak and Dagger (1946)
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