The House On 92nd Street (1945)

STORYLINE

Preface: a stentorian narrator tells us that the USA was flooded with Nazi spies in 1939-41. One such tries to recruit college grad Bill Dietrich, who becomes a double agent for the FBI. While Bill trains in Hamburg, a street-accident victim proves to have been spying on atom-bomb secrets; conveniently, Dietrich is assigned to the New York spy ring stealing these secrets. Can he track down the mysterious "Christopher" before his ruthless associates unmask and kill him?

SYNOPSIS

In 1939, due to increasing hostilities in Europe, the Federal Bureau of Investigation intensifies its observation of foreign nationals living in the United States. The F.B.I. finds a valuable ally in Bill Dietrich, a German-American college student who has been approached by a German Bund and promised a good job in Germany. When a suspicious Bill reports the incident to the F.B.I., Inspector George A. Briggs tells him to cooperate. After Bill is sent to Germany and enrolled in a specialized spy school, a hit-and-run automobile accident in New York City becomes the catalyst for one of the F.B.I.'s most complicated cases. In the morgue, the attendants discover that although the accident victim has a Spanish passport, he was carrying a notebook filled with German writing. The accident is reported to the F.B.I., which concludes that the man is German spy Franz von Wirt and then decodes a letter he was carrying. The letter, which states that "Mr. Christopher will concentrate on Process 97," alarms Briggs, for Process 97 is the U.S. military's most carefully guarded and important secret: the development of the atomic bomb. Briggs is instructed to make the Christopher case his top priority, and after Bill completes his training in Germany, he returns to New York, where Briggs helps him establish a decoy office. Bill contacts Elsa Gebhardt, a German agent posing as a couterier, at her house on 92nd Street. There, he also meets spies Max Coburg and Conrad Arnulf, and Gestapo agent Johanna Schmidt. Bill pretends to build a shortwave radio station, with which he is supposed to transmit Elsa's information to Hamburg. Actually, Bill's messages are relayed through an F.B.I. radio station, which keeps Briggs abreast of the latest developments. Elsa is suspicious of Bill's credentials, which were altered by the F.B.I. to state that he is authorized to contact all agents known to her, but because she cannot contact Hamburg directly for confirmation, she must trust him. Bill receives information from Col. Hammersohn, a professional spy, but he rebuffs Bill's attempt to learn the identity of Mr. Christopher. Hammersohn introduces Bill to Adolphe Klaen, another member of the spy ring, and Bill witnesses Johanna's ruthlessness when she orchestrates the murder of Klaen's drunken informant. While Bill continues his investigation, the F.B.I. intensifies its efforts after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Many suspected foreign agents are rounded up, although some, such as Elsa and Hammersohn, are allowed to go free in the hope that they will reveal Christopher's identity. Bill is able to obtain an important clue in the form a lipstick-stained cigarette left in Elsa's shop by an acquaintence of Christopher. The F.B.I. uses the clue to track down Luise Vadja, another German agent, who leads the federal agents to Charles Ogden Roper, a scientist working at the Appleton Laboratory, out of which the information is being smuggled. Briggs learns that Roper is a "memory artist" and has been memorizing complicated Process 97 plans and passing them to Christopher. When confronted, the naïve Roper confesses his complicity and says that one of his drop-off points is Adolphe Lange's bookshop. The F.B.I. establishes a survelliance operation opposite the bookstore and identifies Christopher as a man seen at Elsa's building. Meanwhile, Elsa receives a copy of Bill's credentials from Hamburg and thereby learns that the information he gave her was forged. He is brought to her house and is drugged, questioned and beaten by Elsa, Johanna and the others. Briggs and his men surround the house and order the spies to surrender, and when they refuse, they throw tear gas. During the ensuing confusion, Elsa removes her blonde wig and makeup, then dons the men's clothing she wears while enacting the role of Christopher. Due to the tear gas smoke, however, Arnulf does not recognize her, and, believing her to be a strange man, shoots and kills her. The federal agents enter the building and rescue Bill, then round up the rest of the spies. With Christopher's identity revealed and the case closed, Process 97 is safe and the F.B.I. continues its fight against foreign agents.

Cast & Crew

Henry Hathaway Director
William Eythe as Bill Dietrich
Lloyd Nolan as Inspector George A. Briggs
Signe Hasso as Elsa Gebhardt, also known as Mr. Christopher
Gene Lockhart as Charles Ogden Roper
Leo G. Carroll as Col. Hammershon
Lydia St. Clair as Johanna Schmidt
William Post as Walker
Harry Bellaver as Max Coburg
Bruno Wick as Adolphe Lange
Harro Meller as Conrad Arnulf
Charles Wagenheim as Gus Huzmann

Release Date Oct 1945
Color/BW Black and White
Sound Mono
Production Dates 16 Apr--late Aug 1945
Duration (in mins) 88-89
Duration (in feet) 7,900
Duration (in reels) 10
Premiere Information New York opening: 26 Sep 1945
Los Angeles opening: 18 Oct 1945
Distribution Company Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp.
Production Company Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corp.
Country United States

MOVIE REVIEW FROM NY TIMES PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 27, 1945

The House on 92nd Street (1945)
NYT Critics' Pick This movie has been designated a Critic's Pick by the film reviewers of The Times.
September 27, 1945
THE HOUSE ON NINETY-SECOND STREET
By Thomas M. Pryor
Published: September 27, 1945

Like the Army and the Navy, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has a story to tell about its wartime activities, and that story, as it unfolded yesterday on the screen of the Roxy in The House on Ninety-second Street, is every inch as inspiring and thrill-packed as the battle documents. For had the FBI failed in its protection of top military secrets there is no telling what the consequences might have been on the battlefields. The House on Ninety-second Street barely skims the surface of our counterespionage operations, but it reveals sufficient of the FBI's modus operandi to be intriguing on that score alone.

Since the picture, produced by Twentieth Century Fox with full cooperation from the FBI, was completed some months ago, the secret of the atomic bomb has been revealed. Now the picture carries a simple and restrained foreword explaining that the "Process 97" which the Nazi agents are attempting to steal was in reality a part of the atomic bomb formula. It is to the producers' everlasting credit that this information is not sensationalized in the film. The story is a composite account of Nazi espionage, based on official records, and it is told in a simple, terse manner which rings true and is, therefore, highly dramatic.

Louis de Rochemont, the producer, and his director, Henry Hathaway, have achieved a most successful blending of the documentary and conventional techniques, thus proving that realism can be entertaining, too. Most of the story was reenacted in the vicinity of the actual locales where Nazi agents operated in this city and on Long Island. The illusion of reality is further heightened by the fact that the players are mostly unfamiliar, having—with the exception of William Eythe, Lloyd Nolan, Signe Hasso, and Gene Lockhart—been recruited from the stage here. The FBI agents, other than Mr. Nolan, are genuine and his performance is so restrained and unimposing in a theatrical sense that one accepts his Inspector Briggs as being the real thing. This is an instance wherein the performers were picked to suit the script rather than the other, and customary, way around.

William Eythe slips easily into the identity of one William Dietrich, a student of German parentage in a Midwest college, whom the Nazis prevailed upon in 1940 to visit Germany. He communicates his suspicions to the FBI and thus he becomes a counterspy here after completing a course at the Pension Kloppstock in Hamburg. His later dealings with ruthless Nazi agents in New York are fraught with tension, and there is pulse-quickening drama in the revelation of FBI procedure which keeps enemy operatives under constant surveillance.

Much of the story has a headline flavor. Indeed, many of the incidents portrayed in The House on Ninety-second Street have been disclosed during trials here of captured enemy agents. However, it would seem from the picture that a benevolent providence had as much to do with the protection of "Process 97" as FBI alertness. For it develops that the enemy agents—through a most ingenious means—were learning within forty-eight hours the progress our scientists were making toward splitting the atom.

About the only concession the producers have made to theatricalism in this splendid film is the rounding up of the Nazis in their Ninety-second Street lair. This is strictly a "showmanship ending," but the film is so remarkable in other respects that this shortcoming can be readily excused. As the ring leader of the spies, Miss Hasso tends to be over-domineering at times, but the other enemy agents of assorted wiliness are excellently drawn by Leo G. Carroll, Lydia St. Clair, Harry Bellaver, Conrad Arbulf, and Alfred Linder.

 
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