The House on Carroll Street

Many of us are too young to remember the McCarthy era, but that doesn't mean we should not be aware of it because many of the actions occurring during that time have been going on the last seven years.

Kelly McGillis, who did a great job in Witness with Harrison Ford, is Emily, a woman caught up in the witch hunt that occurred during that era. Quite by accident, she stumbles on a plot by these same people in power to smuggle Nazi war criminals into the country, using the names of dead Jews, if you can believe that.

Mandy Patinkin plays a great evildoer in the government, and he even looks like the former President that made his reputation during this time.

Jeff Daniels (The Squid and the Whale , Good Night and Good Luck) is very good a a farm-boy turned FBI agent who falls for Emily and helps her uncover the plot.

In the absence of CGI and FX, it was great acting that really made this an enjoyable movie.

This is a wonderfully Hitchcockian, quite realistic, but also nostalgic return to the time when some people were looking for Communists under every bed, as well as in Hollywood and =Life= magazine. Kelly McGillis is terrific as the idealistic civil liberties type who discovers Nazis in the garden and her own personal SS man in a Senator's office. Mandy Patinkin is really convincing as the Senate staffer who hounds McGillis from her job. He even looks a little like a famous politician with the initials RMN. For a bang-up thriller without any shooting, car chases or explosions, this is one of the best videos around.

Excellent and entertaining movie in many regards. The 1950's atmosphere is caught very well: elegant clothing, superb cars, leafy New York streets, New York's Grand Central Station and a cameo role for the shiny Chicago Express. The OST by George Delarue too is worth while listening to. It does more than just underpin the action in the movie, it stands perfectly well on its own legs.

I've noticed some reviewers made a link between the looks of Ray Salwen (Mandy Patinkin) and a young Richard Nixon, who was heading the House on Un- American Activities Committee (HUAC) in the early fifties. I'd rather compare the smug Salwen figure with Roy Cohn, McCarthy's right hand and ax man. (Patinkin would have been a perfect choice for the main role of "Citizen Cohn" in 1992, although James Woods too did a nice job) As other reviewers have pointed out, there are indeed some similarities with Hitchcock movies from the 1950's. All shots show clean streets, nice looking people, shiny cars… You won't see any hoodlums, hobo's, mean looking motorcycle gang members. There's not even the page of a newspaper pushed around by the wind in the New York streets. Even the bad guys that kill the German young man with a knife are dressed up as if they come from the horses or some fancy restaurant. The romance between McGillis and FBI man Cochran (Daniels) too is treated in a very 1950's way. To many viewers, this will be seen as a lack of chemistry between the two main characters. However, to my h.o. an all too steamy relationship would have somehow spoiled this elegant movie, and especially slowed down the pace considerably.

OK, there are a number of weak points in the scenario: it's highly improbable that a hush hush operation of smuggling Nazi's into the US would have used such an "unsafe safe-house" as the one in Carroll Street. ID papers would have been arranged for, while those war criminals were still in Europe, to reduce as much as possible the risks. And it's rather silly seeing a Senator's aide going as far as entering into Emily's bathroom. Very intimidating, OK, but I'd rather think this kind of a job would have been left to some low ranking goons. And finally, what the heck is he doing on the roof of New York's Grand Central Station ??? Still, nobody complains about similar weaknesses in let's say "North by Northwest", or "Sabotage". Indeed, this movie doesn't pretend being a semi-documentary, like De Niro's "Guilty by suspicion" (1991) or Citizen Cohn are. And as pure entertainment, House on Carroll Street does a nice job. I'd rate it 8/10

Although the film's story-line is fiction, the facts of this low-key thriller are based on truth and provide a 'what if' scenario that keeps the viewer engaged. The director, Peter Yates, captured a style of filming and cinematography that makes it feel almost like an undiscovered Hitchcock film. Kelly McGillis is believable, although perhaps not quite the typical Hitchcock blonde, and Jeff Daniels may sound a bit too modern in some of his speech inflections, but Everything else about this film reeked of authenticity, from the genuine feel of the sets and authentic but real clothing, to the dialogue. I don't know why this film rated only a middlin score with viewers - perhaps they were expecting more of an action thriller,rather than the political intrigue style of thriller that it is.

The House on Carroll Street is a movie that knows what it is like to be a movie from thirty years before it.

It is a delicious throwback to the days of Alfred Hitchcock. In fact, there are only two items in the House on Carroll Sreet to suggest that this movie is NOT a product of that decade. A) the cast of this movie were just being born when Hitchcock was in his prime. and b) there is a bit of frontal nudity. Needless to say, you would never see that in Hitchcock's days (in fact before he made Psycho it was considered indecent to show qa toilet being finished on screen, or so I heard)

The makers of The House on Carroll Street have a great eye for detail, and they recapture the period beautifully. Everything has been carefully assembled, down to the last fat stripped tie. If the House on Carroll Street was released thirty years earlier, it may have been a classic, but by the 1980's the Hitchcock/film-noir formula had become somewhat generic. There are still great movies like Chinatown, but there are a lot of critically bashed items as well such as Brian de Palma's work. The look of this movie took me back, but not the storyline. It feels shallow, derivative and also rushed, so it's not as great a movie as it could've been. It's just a good movie.

Leading the cast is Kelly McGillis. Her performance is not that great, but her screen presence is interesting. She plays the role with a sort of Grace Kelly mindset, and she knows how to act with her face (although the makeup job deserves a bit of credit there too). In terms of character, she doesn't have a whole lot to work with, in fact most of the characters in the film are genre stereotypes. On screen, this film is full of life, but on the pages it could use a bit more strength. The House on Carroll Street is not great, but it's enjoyable.