User reviews

1948 saw two major studio films dealing with anti-Semitism, "Gentleman's Agreement," which garnered three Oscars, and the noir drama, "Crossfire." The former dealt with the disguised, serpentine social prejudice of the upper class while the raw bigotry that leads too often to violence was the subject of the latter movie.

Exploring the huge selection of $4.99 "B" (and worse) DVD selection at a Manhattan store today I discovered 1948's "Open Secret," a meant-to-be second feature capitalizing on, I'm sure, "Crossfire."

With only the prolific and now venerable John Ireland as a recognizable star, a very decent cast directed by John Reinhardt brought a fairly - for the times - offbeat story to the screen with good performances.

Ireland plays Paul Lester, just married to the quite pretty Nancy-Jane Randolph, a comely young actress who enjoyed a brief cinema semi-ascendancy before giving up acting for the life of a trans-Atlantic socialite. The newlyweds are invited to stay with Paul's army pal who has to run an errand, which turns out to be his last, before the couple arrives. They settle in, awaiting the buddy's return.

It quickly develops that a set of photographs taken by the now missing friend may blow the cover of a small gaggle of gross bigots who rail against the newly arrived "foreigners" in the neighborhood. Men, wives and even the little kids are inculcated with hatred for people who, we're told, should go and live with their "own kind." To make sure no one misses what the Neighborhood Hood Watch means, the "foreigners" have Jewish names and, insuring viewers get the point, they're referred to as "kikes," a word rarely then found in scripts.

Despite an intrusive and boring score that never lets up, there's real drama here as the crypto-Nazis desperately seek the photos and negatives that even these morons understand may spell their undoing. Paul and Nancy are repeatedly forced by the script to assert their tolerance for all minorities. Thankfully the repetition doesn't detract from the unfolding story as Paul gets closer to the secrets, Nancy drifts towards danger, a good detective sergeant (reminiscent of Robert Ryan in "Crossfire") tries to uproot hate and a beleaguered Jewish storekeeper has a chance to show his mettle.

Also very unusual is a portrayal of spouse abuse - wife battering - and its soul-deadening effect that was way ahead of its time.

With a fairly low budget and some pretty cheap sets, this "B" feature garners a "B+" as well as a place in the history of film for contributing to the unmasking of anti-Semitism in postwar America.

7/10

The opening shot is an underlit traveling crane shot, followed by an upward-tilting Dutch angle of a series of backlit faces pronouncing "Guilty." It's an open secret this film was released in 1947, when every mystery was a film noir and every decent little guy faced a faceless conspiracy.

Charles Waldron Jr. tells his landlady that his old friend, John Ireland and his new bride, Jane Randolph, will be staying with him a few days. Then he hides a roll of film in his drawer and goes out. Eventually his houseguests notice he's gone and call in police sergeant Sheldon Leonard and gradually get entangled in a web of....

It's not the most subtly plotted of film noirs, and there's little mystery about what sort of nasty people are behind the evil doings, but it's certainly beautifully shot by horror-movie specialist George Robinson, and well performed by all hands. Director John Reinhardt was an Austrian actor who had switched to directing Spanish language movies for Fox in the early 1930s.

... in its exploration of anti-Semitism in a small town.

John Ireland and Jane Randolph play a pair of newlyweds who arrive in an unnamed town and are invited to stay at the apartment of an old service buddy of Ireland's. Only the buddy isn't there (they're told he'll be back by the landlady who lets them into his apartment). But as time passes the friend is a no show and there's a growing feeling that something sinister may have occurred, especially when the couple discover some white supremacist pamphlets hidden in a drawer.

In the early stages, the film hints at the prejudice in the town, with talk about "foreigners" and "staying with their own kind". Later, though, it becomes more blatant, with "a certain word" making no doubt about the object of the hatred. That bigotry insidiously trickles down to the neighborhood kids, too, slashing the tires of a car of a Jewish merchant (George Tyne in a quite effective performance), as well as preparing to throw rocks through his window.

The film has the visual elements of noir with its shadowy photography, appropriate for such a dark subject. The overall effect of the messaging in this film is, unfortunately, rather muted. The performances are adequate but restrained. However Roman Bohnen is appropriately loutish as a drunken bigot who strikes his wife (Ellen Lowe) across the face in a tavern.

And here this little "B" briefly, and tellingly, raises another ugly subject rarely broached in '40s dramas, spousal abuse. That is never more poignantly apparent than in the dialogue Lowe later delivers to Ireland in one powerful scene:

"Tell you what? How for the last five years he hasn't drawn a sober breath? How he beats me to prove that he's better than I am? He's a man. How he throws out the few flowers I pick, says they stink up the house. How he can't keep a job? Always blames it on (others)... never on to himself. How he's broken me. Torn me to pieces. Is that what you want me to tell you?"

Dialogue like that still has a strong impact, in combination with the tired anguish of Ellen Lowe's face and delivery.

1947 saw the debut of the film "Gentleman's Agreement" in which Gregory Peck pretended to be Jewish in order to feel what it's like to be a Jew in America. Naturally, he experiences some discrimination but it's mostly very proper ('nice' anti-Semitism) and the leading man quite handsome. It was NOT particularly gritty and I always thought the film was amazingly tame...and a bit overdone. Here, a year later, a low-budget studio had decided to do a film like "Gentleman's Agreement"--but with more normal looking folks (no handsome Peck or John Garfield here) and in a more working-class neighborhood. And, in addition, the level of hate was ratcheted up...a lot. In fact, in this sick little town, a local hidden hate group has gone so far as kill Jews! John Ireland infiltrates this group of sickies and the film lacks the pretty polish but also seems a bit more gutsy and violent. Oddly, despite the publicity for the earlier film and critical acclaim, I prefer "Open Secret" as it is much more exciting and more like a variation on film noir. A great film? No...but it certainly is interesting and the problems don't seem so mundane as those in the Gregory Peck film. As a result, it shows a seedier and uglier side to ethnic hatred.

The late 1940s saw a brief spate of message movies dealing with anti-semitism, most notably the fantastic film noir thriller CROSSFIRE and the more famous but somewhat tepid GENTLEMAN'S AGREEMENT (both 1947). OPEN SECRET, from 1948, shares more in common with CROSSFIRE given its noir trappings and thriller elements. John Ireland plays ex-GI Paul Lester who, along with his new wife Nancy (the very alluring Jane Randolph) arrive in town with the hopes of visiting Paul's old army buddy, Ed Stevens. When Ed turns up missing, Paul and Nancy are tossed into the middle of a dark mystery involving a neighborhood hate group whose targets are ethnic immigrant residents and business owners. Chief among them is Harry Strauss (George Tyne) a Jewish camera shop owner who figures prominently in the search for Ed who, it turns out, has been hunted down and killed by the hate-mongers because of incriminating photographs involving a previous killing that were in his possession. The direction (by John Reinhardt) of the film is considerably more lively than most ultra-low budget thrillers and the issues it brings up are actually on the level of those tackled in CROSSFIRE. Much of the dialog is quite intelligent and pungently written, dealing with delicate issues in a frank, straightforward way. Other notably interesting people in the cast are Roman Bohnen (the well-respected left-wing blacklisted actor) as an alcoholic wife-beater and member of the hate group, Sheldon Leonard (a veteran of tons of "B" noirs) as a sympathetic cop and, in a background bit part, King Donovan (from Don Siegel's "Invasion of the Body Snatchers"). OPEN SECRET has recently been released in a budget-priced DVD and I strongly urge fans of this hybrid noir genre to check it out.

John Ireland and Jane Randolph star in "Open Secret" from 1948, featuring Sheldon Leonard and Arthur O'Connell.

Nancy and Paul Lester (Randolph and Ireland) arrive in town and call an old friend of Paul's, Ed (Charles Waldron Jr.) who invites them to stay in his apartment, as hotel rooms are scarce. However, he has to go out, so the landlady lets them in.

They never do see Ed - he seems to have vanished. They find some White Supremacist pamphlets in his apartment. When Paul wants to have some of his photos developed, he finds some rolls of film in a drawer and decides to get them printed for Ed. He goes to a film developer, Strauss. They meet a woman on the street who says she never goes there, "you know why."

Turns out the town is rabid with anti-Semites, who have a secret grouup that kills Jews. Ed, it seems, was investigating them.

This is a low-budget answer to "Crossfire" and "Gentlemens Agreement," but it had a sinister undercurrent and unpleasant tone throughout. You really wanted this newly married couple to leave town.

I unfortunately saw a very poor print of this that had a lot of dark scenes that were hard to see. However, it was well-directed and the acting was good.

Amazing to think we still have to deal with this in the U. S. today.

"Open Secret" certainly owes a debt to "Crossfire," which came out a year earlier, but it stands on its own low-budget merits as not only a solid entry into the small field of 1940s films that dealt openly with racial and religious prejudice, but a very respectable noir thriller. The sets are simple, and there is no location footage at all -- but the director made up for that lack by using a great cast of character actors to portray some very hard-bitten men, women, and children, and, more unusually, he used sound in a dramatic way that continually moves the story forward while keeping the viewer in a state of jangled nervousness. Oh, yeah, its a very cool movie about antisemitism, of course; that goes without saying. But if you want to see it in purely filmic terms and don't care about the "message," it is equally cool. Watch for the fine low-key lighting and strange angle shots -- one of the best set-ups is Sheldon Leonard lounging akilter on a couch in his entry scene with a hugely close-up lamp and telephone in the foreground -- but also LISTEN for the doors opening and closing, telephones ringing, people screaming, sirens, noisy children, mumbling landlady, things dropping, drawers slamming; the sound effects are almost a Hitchcokian element in their own right. And pay attention to the continually changing status of the apartment door -- locked, unlocked, oops she forgot the key, locked, oops she left it open! -- there is a rhythmic and frightening quality to the door's continually shifting security status that is heightened by the always jarring sounds of intrusive door knockings and unexpected telephone rings. Considering what these folks had to work with, i think they succeeded admirably.

I agree with boblipton about the opening sequence with its crane shot and lighting. John Reinhardt as with many of these old directors could teach the newer lot about composition and atmosphere.

I was shocked by the anti-Semitism that evidently existed in America at that time.

The players were very good with John Ireland and Jane Randolph to the fore.

Cinematographer George Robinson was an experienced lensman whose work in the horror genre gave a dark strength to this film.

This is a creeping thriller of some very unpleasant character, as it gets worse all the time. The newly wed John Ireland visits a friend on his honeymoon, but as he reaches the friend's apartment, the friend is gone and lost, while his apartment is constantly being haunted by guys looking for something. It proves to be pictures, which are far too revealing for the taste of a criminal gang trying to develop into new nazis. The thriller is very well composed, it is logic and realistic all the way, the suspense keeps increasing as the plot thickens without mercy, and finally you'll even get the sensation of seeing John Ireland fighting with his hands pinioned - few actors have done that on the screen. John Ireland seldom got the opportunity to play the lead, he was usually cast as second hand gangsters, but here he actually shows off, and it might be his best picture. The terrific music adds to the atmospheric tension of the film.

In the late forties, theatre owners such as Harry Brandt made some feature films such as OPEN SECRET. The cast has some well known character actors, and the plot line is very interesting. However, two films with Humphrey Bogart had more dynamic punch to them that carries the same message through to today. BLACK LEGION is the premiere film in exposing the hate and venom of individuals who misunderstand the basics of the "American Way". ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT brings the message of Nazis and anti-semitism in the United States to a slightly less strong level. OPEN SECRET would be considered an attempt to emulate the work shown in the two above films. Viewed today, it looks like a low budget "B" movie.

The 3 Film's Mentioned Above All Dealt with Anti-Semitism.

"Open Secret" is the Poverty Row Version.

A Low-Low-Budget Movie with John Ireland and Joyce Randoph Heading a Supporting Cast of Low-Life "White Knight" Gang of White Supremacists.

Although the Main Thrust of the Movie is Focused on the "Jews" there is also a Mention of "Foreigners" and "Wops".

Sheldon Leonard is the Cop on the Case.

Filmed with Limited Light with the Frame in Near Darkness Most of the Time.

This Film-Noir is One that Filmed-Dark, to Go with the Obvious Dark-Side of the Human Condition.

Wife Abuse is Given a Gut-Wrenching Scene where the Spouse of an Alcoholic White Knighted Bares Her Soul to Ireland about How Her Husband has "Broken Her".

Gritty Goings-On from the Get-Go the Movie Barely Let's-Up On the Hate Filled, Murderous Bunch of Bigots Doing Their Dastardly Deeds.

The Film-Noir Tropes are Working Overtime Delivering the Bleak Street-Life in the Big City where the Hate is an "Open Secret".

The Overall Production is True to the Dark Material and the Minimalism Works its Magic with a Good Script...

White Knight to Jew: "Why don't you go back to where you came from?" Jew: "You mean a block away where I grew up?"

Powerful Message Movie On-a-Shoe-String that Packs a Punch.

An offbeat thriller,which is also a plea for tolerance and a strong indictment of ordinary anti -Semitism , shortly after WW2 (two of the characters ,including the principal ,are former army pals ; the prologue, which ends with an ominous word (guilty) , the shirt, the booklets John Ireland finds in the drawer ("he may use them to wrap up his rubbish") , and a menace hanging in the air , these criminal people always called "they" , all this makes a fine film noir.