Escape in the Fog

On a foggy San Francisco night, dreamy Nina Foch (as Eileen Carr) takes a melancholy walk on the Golden Gate Bridge. The beautiful young woman is suddenly witness to a terrifying confrontation. Apparently, it ends with a murder, but Ms. Foch wakes up just before the deadly knife takes its final plunge. Fortunately, it was only a dream. Unfortunately, it begins to come true. Foch's wakening scream draws the attention of a man in the inn where she is staying. He looks exactly like the victim, William Wright (as Barry Malcolm), from her dream. Foch has never met the man before he appeared in her nightmare. He's a spy for the US, soon to receive a summons from agent Otto Kruger (as Paul Devon). After showing a romantic interest in Foch, Mr. Wright must deliver a top secret packet to Hong Kong...

With a skillfully conceived story by Aubrey Wisberg, "Escape in the Fog" is an entertaining spy thriller. Director Budd Boetticher gets attention with the nightmarish opening and Foch delivers a fine characterization. On the downside, her romance with Mr. Wright is not initially believable; perhaps, if the actors had more quality time, the coupling would click. Most interesting is the fact that Foch's character has a supernatural power (seeing future events in her dreams). The explanation appears to be post-traumatic stress suffered during her stint as a nurse in World War II. Although this aspect of Foch's character is dispensed with early, she maintains interest. Watch for young starlet Shelley Winters as a hotel taxi driver and veteran D.W. Griffith player and "Tarzan" portrayer Elmo Lincoln as a lawman.

****** Escape in the Fog (1945/04/05) Budd Boetticher ~ Nina Foch, William Wright, Otto Kruger, Konstantin Shayne

Another wartime programmer that Hollywood was turning out by the hundreds. The only unusual angle is the mixing of espionage with psychic dreams, apparently an everyday occurrence in this scripted world. Except for the bland male lead (Wright), it's an excellent cast of stereotypes, including professional Hollywood Nazi, Ivan Triesault who made a career of these cruel types. There's also the incredibly smooth Otto Kruger playing a good guy, for once, but then who could do oily villains better than his smiling cobra. And what guy wouldn't like to partner-up with newcomer Nina Foch in an extended game of mixed doubles. With his penchant for cool blondes, I wonder why Hitchcock didn't enlist her obvious talents at some point. Anyway, cult director Boetticher helms in efficient style, the fog machine gets overtime, and a number of practiced players do their thing. (In passing, note how slickly Boetticher stages the shootout near movie's end—a foreshadowing of the classics to come. Note too, that Malcolm represents a generic federal agency and not the FBI by name. That way possible legal problems are avoided.) Nothing exceptional here, just a demonstration of how the studio assembly line turned out an entertaining product even under straitened wartime conditions.

This one starts out with such promise, but gets bogged down near the end. Still it is unique enough to be worth a watch. Nina Foch is walking along a bridge in the fog in the middle of the night, looking over the side, when she encounters a policeman. He asks if she is alright, asks her if she is contemplating jumping. She says yes to the first question, no to the second. He tells her to go home, that this is no place to be hanging around at this hour. She walks down the bridge a bit further when a car stops near her. Three men are fighting - actually two are attacking the third man. As one man gets ready to plunge a knife into the heart of another Foch's character screams loudly and repeatedly. And then she awakens. It has all been a bad dream.

In burst the innkeeper where Eileen Carr (Nina Foch) is staying, and by his side, the guy (William Wright as Barry Malcolm) who was about to be stabbed in the dream! What IS going on here? Well, Eileen and Barry are instantly drawn to each other, and it turns out Eileen is a nurse suffering from shock from being in a shipwreck of an American navy vessel. She is at the inn for a long rest. Barry is more illusive about what he is up to. He asks her to spend a couple of days with him in San Francisco and says that she can stay with an aunt of his there. She agrees.

Well it turns out Barry is a spy/courier for the allies, and while in San Francisco he goes to the house of wealthy Paul Devon (Otto Kruger), who gives him sealed orders on the coordination of the underground in Japanese occupied China with the final stages of the attack on Japan. Devon mentions that this mission is so super secret, that no matter what trouble he gets in he is not to contact him after he leaves his house. A car will pick him up at midnight at his hotel and then on to a plane to start him on his way to China.

In the meantime Barry and Eileen are falling for each other, although this must be entirely chemistry because there is no time for character development here. At one point in the evening she even calls him "darling"? Hey Nina you didn't know this guy 24 hours ago, isn't this going a little too fast, even for wartime? Foiling the plans of our young lovers and the allies are two nasty Nazis who have found out what is going on and plan to kidnap Barry by being in that car waiting to take him on his mission. How will this all work out, watch and find out.

I will tell you this much, these spies are VERY persistent. They do believe if at first you don't succeed try try again. It also involves grandfather clock repair, watertight buoyant envelopes, secret Navy experiments going on in San Francisco Bay, and, remember that dream Eileen had? It turns out to be a premonition.

Just a couple of questions for both sides. For the allies - why was it necessary to list the names of the members of the underground - which is what the Nazis are after. After all, the members of the underground know who they are, they don't need a role call! As for the Nazis, why are they doing all of this work for the Japanese? Couldn't they be bothered to try and stop the invasion of their own country? Inquiring minds want to know but will never find out. Well folks, you can't say this one is a paint by numbers war picture, and it has ace direction from Budd Boetticher, here at only age 29 and his third year of directing. Notice how the cinematography sticks to close ups so Columbia's low budget roots do not show.

A woman dreams of a man being murdered, and later she experiences the scene in real life. Before he made his name with the Ranown series of Westerns, Boetticher churned out a skein of low-budget programmers for Columbia and Monogram, many of them well above average. This mystery, while no masterpiece, nicely illustrates what Andrew Sarris called "the beatitude of the Bs". With typical B movie non-logic, the intriguing dream-coming-true angle is taken at face value and never explained. There are a couple of clever escape scenes, and the stylish 40s wardrobe (wide lapels, pin-striped suits, floppy hats) rivals the sartorial splendor of a Hawks movie. Second-string stalwart Nina Foch, more alluring than usual, gives another intelligent performance despite the plot holes. An even finer second-feature from the same director, Behind Locked Doors, has recently received mainstream video release.

This wartime thriller follows conventional plot directions, but the framing of its story in a dream of murder makes it pretty interesting. Foch is excellent and very sexy. The suspense lags after the dream occurs in real time, and we have to see Foch tied up as Kruger (excellent as always) tries to find a missing envelope. Nicely photographed and directed; if only more thought had gone into its conception.