1h 47min || 10 January 1942
Director: Vincent Sherman
Stars: Humphrey Bogart, Conrad Veidt, Kaaren Verne, Jane Darwell, Frank McHugh, Peter Lorre, Judith Anderson, William Demarest.
Genres: Action | Comedy | Crime | Drama | Thriller | War
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034449/
Another bad disc, but it plays on computer.
The next 5 names in the cast list were familiar too.
Is this good propaganda: giving a comic slant to chasing Nazis on US soil who are actively doing damage to US military ships in harbor? Then again, the comedy comes from the bumbling, cowardly characters working for HB. The bad guys are not played comically, nor are their actions minimized. But when HB and WD attend a planning meeting for the sabotage, they double-talk followed by Sieg, Heil, which the others repeat enthusiastically, and it's comedic. My favorite joke: Phil Silvers, one of HB's pals, standing on the sidelines of a large scale fight, to decide if he should hit a guy who crossed his path, first asked "sieg heil?" Each man replied with an affirmative heil, and got conked.
Also on the dvd: a newsreel showing damage to a military vessel by Nazi subs off the Atlantic coast, another vessel by collision with a freighter due to nighttime blackout protocols, and the launching of a new destroyer at dawn. Of course, this was selected by the dvd creation team, not necessarily what would have been shown with this film at the time.
Commentary track states this film was completed before Pearl Harbor.
This is a very enjoyable film. Entertaining, well-photographed, well-paced, with a lot of terrific character actors.
Warner, dir. Sherman; 7
