The House on 92nd Street

"The House on 92nd Street" is a 1945 film about the FBI's attempts to break up a spy ring during the war. A young man, William Dietrich (William Eythe), who has been recruited by the Nazis as a spy, informs the FBI of this and becomes their mole inside the organization. One of Dietrich's goals is to get the identity of the mysterious "Mr. Christopher" who gives all of the orders.

This is a black and white film with strong narration that probably had a great impact at the time of its release. Though the machinery used in the movie looks archaic now, back then it must have been fascinating for an audience to watch and seemed very high-tech. Plus some of the material being transmitted had to do with the top-secret atom bomb, which at the time of the film, had just been dropped.

The cast is small, consisting of Eythe, Lloyd Nolan, Leo G. Carroll, Signe Hasso, Gene Lockhart, and Lydia St. Clair. They're all solid. For a change, the women, Hasso and St. Clair, have the strongest roles in the film, and they give striking performances. Eythe was getting the big star build-up at 20th Century Fox. Since it was wartime, he could have made a place for himself at the studio the way that Dana Andrews did. However, when gay rumors reached Darryl Zanuck, Eythe's path became a rocky one, leading nowhere, as the studio continually demoted him and eventually got rid of him.

Well worth seeing.