Main Cast: Gary Cooper, Lilli Palmer, Robert Alda, Vladimir Sokoloff, J. Edward Bromberg, Marjorie Hoshelle
Release Year: 1946
Country: US
Run Time: 106 minutes
Plot
Inspired by actual events, Cloak and Dagger was first major "atomic power" melodrama of the postwar era. Gary Cooper stars as bookish physics professor Alvah Jesper, a character obviously based on A-bomb codeveloper J. Robert Oppenheimer. Pressed into service by the OSS in the last months of WW2, Jasper is sent to Europe in search of Dr. Polda (Vladimir Sokoloff), an atomic scientist held captive by the Nazis. In Switzerland, Jesper quickly runs afoul of enemy spies who murder the only person to know Polda's whereabouts. Moving on to Italy, he links up with the partisans, falling in love with gorgeous resistance fighter Gina (Lilli Palmer). Adopting a disguise, Jesper finally locates Polda and spends the last few reels in a desperate dash to freedom. Screenwriters Albert Maltz and Ring Lardner Jr. had originally intended Cloak and Dagger as a warning to a complacent America. Director Fritz Lang recalled in later years that, as conceived and filmed, the ending was to have occured after Jesper and a group of Allied soldiers stumbled upon the ruins of a secret Nazi A-bomb factory, as well as evidence that the German scientists had fled to parts unknown with their atomic secrets intact. "It's day one of the Atomic Age", Jesper was to have noted ruefully, "And God help us if we think we can keep it a secret much longer." This lengthy coda was removed from the final release print, transforming a thought-provoking drama into a mere romantic thriller. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
This superior WWII espionage thriller finds Gary Cooper on a secret mission to find details on the German effort to build an atomic bomb. The story is pretty far-fetched, and there is little real chemistry between Cooper and leading lady Lilli Palmer, but it is all presented in a believable enough fashion. Of the supporting cast, Marc Lawrence has a notable role as a vicious pro-Nazi Italian who has an especially brutal fight scene with Cooper, Helene Thimig appears as a German physicist who has escaped to Switzerland, and Dan Seymour gets a rare break from playing henchmen to actually be one of the good guys. The script touches all the important patriotic buttons that one would expect from a film such as this, but fortunately for the audience, it is more concerned with making a good caper. Much of the script's original political content was reportedly diluted, but there is an effective scene where Cooper forcefully tells spymaster Colonel Walsh that if the government spent as much money and effort on finding a cure for tuberculosis or cancer as it does on making a bomb the world would be better off. Fritz Lang's direction, as always, is filled with atmospherics, a preoccupation with secret dealings and dangerous activities, and wonderful little touches that are more important to the plot than they at first appear to be (such as Cooper covering his face when a photographer tries to take his picture when he arrives in Switzerland, spurring all sorts of suspicions and setting the plot into motion). Cloak and Dagger is worth a look just to see Cooper as an atomic scientist, but beyond that novelty, it is the sort of tale of international intrigue that Lang clearly relished making. ~ Bob Mastrangelo, All Movie Guide
Ludwig Stossel - German; Helene Thimig - Katerin Loder; Dan Seymour - Marsoli; Marc Lawrence - Luigi; James Flavin - Col. Walsh; Pat O'Moore - Englishman; Charles Marsh - Erich; Robert Coote - Cronin; Elvira Curci - Woman in Street; Yola D'Avril - Nurse; Vernon P. Downing - British Sergeant; Claire Du Brey - Nurse; Eddie Dunn - Radio Operator; Ross Ford - Paratrooper; Arno Frey - German Soldier; Holmes Herbert - British Officer; Leon Lenoir - Italian Soldier; Bruce Lister - British Officer; Rory Mallinson - Paul; Eddie Parker - Gestapo; Gil Perkins - Gestapo; Otto Reichow - German Soldier; Hans Schumm - German Agent; Lotte Stein - Nurse; Don Turner - Lingg; Douglas Walton - British Pilot; Frank Wilcox - American Officer; Clifton Young - American Commander; Peter Michael - German Agent; Lillian Nicholson - Nun; Michael Burke - OSS Agent
Credit
Max Parker - Art Director, Michael Burke - Consultant/advisor, Leah Rhoads - Costume Designer, Russell Saunders - First Assistant Director, Fritz Lang - Director, Christian Nyby - Editor, Max Steiner - Composer (Music Score), Leo F. Forbstein - Musical Direction/Supervision, Perc Westmore - Makeup, Sol Polito - Cinematographer, Milton Sperling - Producer, Walter F. Tilford - Set Designer, Harry Barndollar - Special Effects, Edwin DuPar - Special Effects, Francis J. Scheid - Sound/Sound Designer, Boris Ingster - Screen Story, John Francis Larkin - Screen Story, Ring Lardner, Jr. - Screenwriter, Albert Maltz - Screenwriter, Corey Ford - Book Author, Alastair MacBain - Book Author
As planned by Lang, the film had a different ending. Cooper lead a group of American paratroopers into Southern Germany to discover the remains of an underground factory, the bodies of dead concentration camp workers and evidence the factory was working on nuclear weapons. Cooper remarks that the factory may have been relocated to Spain or Argentina and launched a diatribe saying This is the Year One of the Atomic Age and God help us if we think we can keep this secret from the World![1] Producer Milton Sperling who had frequently quarreled with Lang on the set thought the final scene ridiculous as the audience knew the Germans had no nuclear capacity.[2]
Radio show
A 1950 NBC radio show of the same title based on Ford and MacBain's book lasted 26 episodes. Cloak and Dagger began with actor Raymond Edward Johnson asking "Are you willing to undertake a dangerous mission for the United States knowing in advance you may never return alive?"[3]
Notes
^ p. 197 Frayling, Christopher Mad, Bad and Dangerous?: The Scientist and the Cinema 2005 Reaktion Books
^ p.101 Kalat, David the Strange Case of Dr. Mabuse 2005 McFarland
^ pp66-67 Britton, Wesley Beyond Bond: Spies in Fiction and Film Greenwood Publishing
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