There was an assassination attempt on German ambassador Franz von Papen as depicted in this film. It occurred on February 24, 1942 and was carried out by the Soviet NKVD. However, in reality, the bomb malfunctioned and killed the would-be assassin - he did not get away by car as shown in this film.
After turning down The Maltese Falcon (1941) and All Through the Night (1942), as a condition for doing this film George Raft demanded his character be changed to an undercover FBI agent from the simple salesman he was in the 1937 source novel, where suddenly things begin happening to him that he doesn't understand and he gets pulled into espionage, à la North by Northwest (1959). After production wrapped on this film Raft bought out his contract with Warner Bros.
The last scene of the plane taking off is the same scene used in Casablanca (1942) when Rick and Captain Renault are sitting outside discussing women. Both are Warner Brothers pictures.
Third of nine films in which Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet both appear, released from 1941 to 1946, all from Warner Bros.
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