Walk East on Beacon!

Director Alfred L Werker stands as an indefatigable worker of B pics and he does not disappoint in WALK EAST ON BEACON! - a rather unusual title for a propaganda and FBI procedural piece.

Apart from the professional actor George Murphy and the rather biblical Finlay Currie (who played the part of Peter in QUO VADIS one year earlier) with a Russian or German accent, no known actors, but the action is riveting enough to remove any pressure from generally satisfactory and unassuming acting.

Good photography, tight and believable script (though I failed to grasp the repeated interest in the lady who walked with a "lope", nothing comes of it in the end) and pertinent voiceover.

No masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination, but interesting to watch as a capsule of a time when politics interfered with the life of citizens and everyone suspected everyone else of commie sympathies.

May the world never have to go through that again... now that Big Brother is watching everyone every minute of every day!

WALK EAST ON BEACON! Is a thriller from 1952 that feels like it was made as a propaganda piece for the FBI. Hoover features in archive footage and from what we know about the communist witch hunts of the era it all feels more than a little queasy. The story involves the usual heroic troupe of FBI agents who are hunting for a sleeper cell of Russian agents working out of Boston. The cast are competent but the film sort of plods along at its own speed without ever truly engaging the senses or indeed the imagination. While it's nice to see a film not set in New York or Los Angeles for once, this really doesn't have all that much to offer.

An hysterical anti-communist screed dolled up in the drag of a police procedural, Walk East On Beacon simply isn't up to the task of alerting us to the dangers of a Fifth Column in our midst. Well filmed but weedily written (and based on a magazine article by the Dark Prince of the F.B.I., J. Edgar Hoover), the film stars Republican senator-in-waiting George Murphy as a G-Man hot on the heels of a Red sleeper cell. Murphy was never much of an actor, and here he's strictly in Jack Webb just-the-facts-ma'am territory. Location photography in Boston gives the film a boost, but overall Walk East On Beacon! can't match either the red hot emotional power of Pickup On South Street or the creepy intensity of My Son John, two other Red Menace films of the period.

PLOT: Commy spies attempt to gain secrets.

a docu-drama style movie~ This starts as the FBI receive a hot trip about a Communist cell in Boston. WE see the newly arrived KGB contact played by Karl Stepanek who urges the spies to even more ruthless means to get secrets. Finley Currie as the Professor Kefer who is being black mailed by the spies with his son being captive in Berlin by the REDS. MADE with the cooperation of the FBI. Some of the men are actual FBI agents. BASED on story by J Edgar Hoover himself the Crime of the Century a short story in the Readers Digest. BETTER than I expected. Moves along very well and the ADDED "dedication" of the spies to the RED commy cause at times is comical and interesting. MADE at time of the RED SCARE (COMMUNIST) days of the 1950s. I give this 7 out of 10 for interesting COMMY spies inside the USA. Also recommend is the HOUSE on 92nd STREET.

"Walk East on Beacon" is a 1952 film starring George Murphy, about a G-man after a Communist sleeper cell. Set in Boston, it's a dry, unexciting look at police procedure, which we all know is plodding to begin with.

Narrated by Westbrook Van Vorhees, the film uses a documentary style often used for this type of film in the '50s. It usually signals an unexciting film, which this is.

George Murphy wasn't a great actor, but he was certainly charming. He isn't able to use much of his charm in this. The theme of the film isn't uncommon and has been better done.

The Boston locations were fun, but that's about it. If you're looking for thrills, go elsewhere.