Whatever Works

"And Sometimes, Finally, a Cliche is the Best Way to Make a Point"
or
"Mommy, That Man is Talking to Himself" ("Come Along, Justin")

Boris Yellnikov (Larry David) is a genius. A misanthropic genius, to be sure, but a genius; he's only too happy to tell you that he almost won a Nobel Prize for his work in quantum mechanics, specializing in string theory. He's also only too happy to tell you that you're sub-normal, a microbe!, an inchworm!, a potzer!, a troglodyte!, a mouth-breather!—and in fact, at a couple points during the film he turns to the audience and turns on them...us...to tell us what he thinks of us. A lot of movies choose to insult its audience these days (sometimes directly, sometimes by what the makers think they can get away with), but Yellnikov has the courtesy of treating anyone who chooses to listen to him the same disparaging way. He has a lot of views about quantum theory, the Heisenberg Principle, but never mentions the Konigsbergian Bubble Theory, in which the world is essentially a sub-set of forty individuals restricted to a single geographical point, 15 of whom have speaking parts.

"Whatever Works" is a return to Woody Allen's World, and its story of a young girl turning the heart of a beast is familiar ground, coming across as a "Woody's Greatest Hits" film—you'll find bits of "Annie Hall," "Manhattan," and particularly "Hannah and Her Sisters" with its scenes of turmoil in the marriage between intellectual Frederick (Max von Sydow) and sensitive former-student Lee (Barbara Hershey). And "Whatever's" Melodie St. Ann Celestine (Evan Rachel Wood) is the latest in a long string of naive young waifs portrayed by Diane Keaton, Mariel Hemingway, Mia Farrow, Mira Sorvino, Samantha Morton, Juliette Lewis, and Scarlett Johansson. One could make some excuse about Allen returning to themes he explored earlier in order to form a more perfect coalescence of his ethos and it would be as pretentious as it sounds. Allen says that "Whatever Works" is an early screenplay he wrote in the 70's with the intention of it starring Zero Mostel. When Mostel died, Allen shelved it. So, the truth is Allen has been cherry-picking from this script for years to make some of his earlier, better pictures.

Although this is one stretch of New York City pavement worn a bit thin, there is something unique about it. One thing you can count on in Allen's movies is his autobiographical characters, the passive aggressive smart-asses played by Allen or a surrogate (past stand-in Woody's have been Mia Farrow, Mary Beth Hurt, Kenneth Branagh, John Cusack and Edward Norton). But Yelnikoff isn't passive at all, and David plays him as he does much of his work...at 110%. This should get tiring, but it doesn't, and that's a very tricky thing to pull off. Mostel could do it, with his razor's edge timing and comic flailing, but David doesn't have his gifts as an actor. David merely sends off "vibes" that he could actually be this self-absorbed (he did create "Seinfeld," after all), and as with George Costanza, the entertainment value is in watching the train wreck. He's the reason to see "Whatever Works" (and his character is of the opinion that's the main motivation of the audience).

So, if you're going to go, go already, but understand that you'll see a lot of the same themes that have come before: of the chameleon nature of personality due to environment, of universal impermanence and the embracing of it, that it's a long, long way from May to December, and that it's not such a stretch for a physicist to move on from string theory, and pursue post-doctorate work on the ties that bind.

"Whatever Works" is a Rental (Better yet, rent "Hannah and her Sisters!")

Away We Go

"We're Completely Untethered, Burt!"

Burt Farlander (John Krasinski) and Verona de Tessant (Maya Rudolph) are two professionals in their mid-30's living in a single-wide in the woods—he sells insurance futures, she illustrates medical texts—he wants to get married and she doesn't; they're having a baby. That almost changes everything. They go and break the happy news to his parents (Catherine O'Hara and Jeff Daniels) who have suddenly decided to live in Belgium a month before the baby is due.

That changes everything. Because without grand-parental responsibilities*, Burt and Verona can live anywhere in the world with their kid, near anyone they want to. And so begins an Odyssey of sorts to find the perfect place to be a family.

"Away We Go" is a bit of a deceptive title. There are several ways they can go, and the film boils down to episodes where they can look on with horror at possible futures.

1. "Away to Phoenix:" they visit Verona's former editor (an hysterical Allison Janney) and her family; the kids are off-world zombies, paid no heed by the parents who are crass alcoholics with no life.

2. "Away to Tucson:" they visit Verona's sister (Carmen Ejogo), who works at a resort, attachment-proof, and has the impropriety to bring up Mom and Dad to Verona.

3. "Away to Madison:" they visit an "aunt" LN (Maggie Gyllenhaal), whose life-style is healthy, pretentious and stifling—"No separation, no sugar, no strollers" (sure, it sounds good, but in practice it's a fascist nightmare)

4. "Away to Montreal:" they visit college friends (Chris Messina and Melanie Lynskey) who have an adopted, well-adapted multi-cultural family for whom the parents are caring and giving but conceal a secret pain.

5. "Away to Miami:" Burt's brother (Paul Schneider) has an emergency—his wife has left him, leaving the care of his young daughter solely to him, which terrifies him.

The scenario's veer from the uproarious to the melancholy, each one holding up a mirror to Burt and Verona about nightmare scenarios that could conceivably be their future. The laughs are plentiful, pierced occassionally by sadness. Sure, it's a Sam Mendes film ("American Beauty," "Road to Perdition," "Revolutionary Road"), but it's the first time Mendes has directed out and out comedy—you can't expect him to go completely slapstick after those studies in tragedy.

But, it's the sweetness you remember—Mendes is the most heavy-handed of directors to the point of oppression (and he still can't go a whole movie without his cold null-center compositions), but "Away We Go" breathes a bit with the light touch that consummate ad-libbers Krasinski and Rudolph bring to the playing. The other characters verge into caricature (with O'Hara and Daniels together, how can it not?), but Mendes' two stars have quicksilver abilities to exploit the comedy in potentially sticky situations. Krasinski's man-boy who likes to play grown-up is a perfect match for him, and Rudolph is one of the few SNL alum's who can sustain an entire character for an entire movie. It's a trifle, but it's the first movie the director has made that makes you want to order a bullet chaser with your popcorn.

"Away We Go" is a Matinee.

* "It's not like your parents are doing anything," Burt deflects Verona. "My parents are dead," she reminds him. (pause) "Still..," he starts to argue.

The Long Goodbye

"The Long Goodbye" (Robert Altman, 1973) Wise-acre. Ass-hole. Cutie-pie. Philip Marlowe's called a lot of names, but in Robert Altman's version of "The Long Goodbye," he's also "The Marlboro Man, The Duke of Bullshit."

As Elliott Gould's Phillip Marlowe says again and again "It's okay with me."

It was supposed to be a straight-ahead adaptation of the Raymond Chandler novel. Leigh Brackett, who had written a lot of Howard Hawks' films (including his adaptation of Chandler's "The Big Sleep") changed the ending, added some characters and complications and Hawks was contacted to direct. Nope. Then Peter Bogdanovich, who also passed, but who mentioned Robert Altman for director. Altman loved the new ending, mentioned Elliott Gould for Marlowe and a deal was made.

And that's where the changes come in. Because the last adaptation of a Chandler Philip Marlowe story was the somewhat irrelevent "Marlowe" starring laconic James Garner in the title roll. Created deep in the 60's, that film feels old-fashioned and a bit musty (even with Bruce Lee kicking apart Marlowe's office!). But for "The Long Goodbye," Altman was going to drop Marlowe into early 70's era Los Angeles, where everybody wore caftans and bushy sideburns, were into macrobiotics, EST and pot—a post-hippie era of conspicuous consumption that had trickled down from Marlowe's beat (problems with the rich) to the exotic dancers and truck-drivers of the pre-disco era.* Marlowe and his code of honor would seem out-of-touch in such a world.

Then throw in Elliott Gould's rat's nest interpretation of the character and you get a completely other sensibility—one begins to suspect Marlowe of being incompetent in such a world, unable to function (he can't even find his own cat), but he does, snapping to whenever some dies (or is about to). And another nice touch is Gould's mumbling patter along the way, supplying his own first-person narrative, ala Chandler.

L.A. in twilight is still the same and the supporting cast of hoods and thugs as menacing as the time the Marlowe books encapsulated (late '30's to mid-50's), but now they're more than just socially deviant, they're demonstrably sociopathic in the form of Marty Augustine (director Mark Rydell), with twisted justifications for their actions, which can sometimes be just a sadistic play of power. And that's what makes Leigh Brackett's screenplay a bit different than the tone she took away back in 1945 when she and William Faulkner adapted Chandler's "The Big Sleep" for Howard Hawks and Bogey and Bacall: there's no sense of right and wrong, it's a sense of right and wrong for "me." And Brackett allows Marlowe to make a final statement condemning that world. It's the only way that this Marlowe...in this world...can "make it right."

There are problems—some stunt-casting—Nina Van Pallandt (mistress of Howard Hughes scammer Clifford Irving) and Jim Bouton (former Seattle Pilot and author of "Ball Four!")—call more attention to the actors than the characters and Altman regular Henry Gibson has no steel core to speak of for his predatory doctor, but throughout, Altman and ace cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond bring a formal off-the-cuff look to everything in L.A., culminating in two beach shots reflected in windows that present two perspectives on conversations, while in a push-focus the audience is clued in to happenings going on at the surf's edge, one inconsequential, the other, irretrievable. It's a fine example of Altman's ability as a seamless film-maker making his movie in the camera and relying less on the unique art to film-making of editing.

Two posters/One film: Two stories
The original film-poster that confused L.A. audiences into thinking they'd be seeing a straight-ahead thriller. The film was withdrawn for six months and re-instated with the above Jack Davis-designed "Mad" style poster for the New York run, where it was very successful.

* And in a running gag, the percolating presence of a mordant "Long Goodbye" theme (written by Johnny Mercer and John "T." Williams--two years before "Jaws") pervades everything in Los Angeles—right down to the mantras and door-bells. Good thing there weren't cell-phones back then.

The Stranger

"The Stranger" (Orson Welles, 1946) Fairly conventional film from Orson Welles, which means it's a surrealist experiment in style for everyone else. Welles did this one under a time-constraint (which might be why the thing looks lush and complicated at the beginning and a might skimpy towards the end). It's Welles' least favorite of his films and the only film he directed that turned a profit at the time of its release.

Here, Welles is having fun with the idea of a Nazi war criminal hiding in plain sight in a small American college town. He's become a professor—college prof's being allowed certain eccentricities, like a secret allegiance to Der Fuehrer—and he has wooed and become engaged to a Supreme Court Justice's daughter (Loretta Young with her "deer-in-the-headlights" look). But for Nazi's it's safety in numbers, usually in concentric patterns. So when another war criminal is allowed to escape as bait by a War Crimes Commission, he heads straight for Harper, Connecticutt, picturesque in Fall, and his superior, Franz Kindler (Welles), hiding as Professor Charles Rankin, hoping to start a Fourth Reich. As the professor is a clock-hobbyist, Kindler's precise deceptions begin to ungear. His current project, the old school clock tower with its carouseling angels and demons in pursuit high above the town is his refuge.

He should be keeping his eyes on the ground and the dogged—one might say pugged—pursuit by War Crimes investigator Wilson (Edward G. Robinson, whose good "badness" is used to great effect). Welles and his screenwriters (with an assist by John Huston) have a lot of fun with the global affairs effecting a small town and its eccentric collection of rubes, who prove to be inconveniently adept at things: the busy-body checkers hustler has a good memory and the town gossips are good sources of information, especially when they're in the dark about what secrets they have. Pretty soon, suspicion is sewn and in a small town, word gets around.

Welles manages to make a propaganda film, a detective story, a woman-in-jeopardy tale, with elements of comedy, AND show concentration camp footage all in one storyline (filmed in 1946!), couched in a popular entertainment (for George Schaefer who brought Welles to Hollywood) and knock it out before heading to Rio De Janeiro to film "The Lady from Shanghai."

It's lower-tier pulp Welles, which still puts it far above Hollywood's average.

Shadows of "The Stranger"
Loretta Young's shadow of a doubt about her new husband (Welles) who's just come home.

"Use Gym Equipment at Your Own Risk" says a sign.
Edward G. Robinson is about to get clocked with a ring.

An informant is faceless and anonymous.

A Nazi criminal is on the run, and gets his picture taken for a fake passport.

Welles' shadows turn that same Nazi...into Adolph Hitler?

But don't take my word for it! As "The Stranger" is in the Public Domain,
you can watch it or download it here.

The Taking of Pelham 123 (2009)

"If You Don't Need it, Leave it!"
or
Hip-Hopping Right off the Tracks

"The Taking of Pelham One Two Three" was a 1973 best-selling novel by John Godey that was snapped up for the movies almost immediately. The resulting 1974 film by the efficient Joseph Sargent benefited from an energetically entertaining script by Peter Stone and good performances by Walter Matthau and Robert Shaw. Stone ("1776," "Charade"), being a student of Hitchcock, understood that a good thriller is more fun if you can enjoy it, rather than identify with it, and his script bristled with a sarcastic brio that played with the rich ethnicity of New Yawk. It was filmed again for television in 1999 with Edward James Olmos and Vincent D'Onofrio that nodded to advances in technology a bit, but lacked energy and suspense.

There was no need for a further sequel, let alone one that would cost upwards of $100 million dollars—most of which seems to have gone to New York location taxes and helicopter rentals—but the Scott brothers evidently felt the need, this one directed by brother Tony in the same needlessly overt style that characterized his last few pictures. Scott's direction has always emphasized flash over substance, and here the film unnecessarily employs MTV cutting, streak shots, ramp-edits and cutesy sound design (a cranked up helicopter shot of a dawn New York skyline punctuates the sun blasting between skyscrapers with first two subway whooshes, than a horn) just to establish location.* This new version of "The Taking of Pelham 123"** is all over the top, set to a hip-hop beat, and it's only at the end that it's clear why Scott is being so aggressive with these techniques—he'll need them again to convey a sense of speed for a subway car supposedly out of control, but in the location shots looks soothingly like it would never leave the tracks.

And if Stone's 1974 screenplay is an example of subtlety, the script by Brian Helgeland (and uncredited David Koepp) is a chunk of concrete, dropping so many f-bombs that it passes for humor in a script devoid of it—one of the very first examples of dialogue is a string of them in a sentence devoid of any meaning, but is merely an example of macho puffery, representing in microcosm both the script and film. Ethnicity is also made a factor in this script, but where Stone's punctured attitudes and stereotypes, in the 2009 script ethnicity defines you and can be used against you (and yet tries to imprint the message that you can "adapt"—interesting. Mixed message, and racistly judgemental...but interesting).

The performances are credible, although I've always had problems seeing John Travolta as a bad guy (thoughtless, yes, but never deliberately malicious). Denzel Washington sinks into his role as everyman, caught in a circumstance he didn't walk to work foreseeing and doing his best to punt. James Gandolfini portrays a subway-riding mayor and the actor shrugs power. John Turturro has a smallish role as a police negotiator, and the highpoint of the film for me is a long held shot of Turturro reacting to the death of a hostage—his eyes portraying shock, and behind them simultaneously trying to pull himself out and consider his next step.

The cumulative effect is numbness and dumbness. A firefight between perps surrounded by a ring of cops turns into a multi-camera squirt-a-thon nightmare. It looks impressive, you start to wonder how none of the police shoot any of the cops opposite them. For all the attempts to update, "The Taking of Pelham 123" is a downgrade in quality, suspense and effectiveness.

Let's see, the Scott brothers managed to mess up "The Andromeda Strain," and "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three," what other 70's thriller can they destroy?***

"The Taking of Pelham 123" (2009) is, generously, a cable-watcher.

* In the "Rail Control Center," digital effects are used to make the display board more like a video game with zoomed graphics both in the display, and created for dramatic uses by cutting out little windows in the film itself.

** Criminy, even the name is simplified and spoon-fed, lest anyone not "get" it.

*** That question is already answered: Ridley Scott is shooting "Robin Hood." Interesting story: the original script, called "Nottingham," focused on the Sheriff of Nottingham, caught in a struggle between a corrupt King and anarchists with the people's support. Russell Crowe was signed to star. In the interim, the script morphed into Robin being the Sheriff of Nottingham (?), now it's back to the old traditional—and umpteenth—version of "Robin Hood," and Maid Marion are the good guys and the King and Sheriff are bad guys. We've seen it before. Again, the question is: why? Probably because Hollywood can't get enough of the delicious irony of making money on a story about a guy who "steals from the rich and gives to the poor."

It's too bad—I'd have liked to have seen "Nottingham," not another retread.

Don't Make a Scene: Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

The Story: There are probably 25 scenes I could use from "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," but for this July 4th week-end, I'll use the least likely one, the one with the fewest words—a diversion from the story—a montage, in fact, created in the studio, lasting about two minutes, and at its densest, comprising three images fading in and out of each other. Frank Capra didn't even create this, although I'm sure he had a hand in shooting the location footage, and supervising the edit.

The name of the man who put this montage together is not a household name, demonstrably so, because you'd remember a name like Slavko Vorkapić. He's obviously, like Frank Capra himself, an immigrant to the United States, both finding prominent livelihoods in "the pictures." No wonder there's such feeling in this sequence—they're both thankful, grateful.

It begins on a tour-bus (the music starts with a rousing version of "Yankee Doodle went to town...") with Smith rubber-necking the D.C. buildings, The Supreme Court, the White House, the Capitol—the three branches of government—to the statues of "the framers" in the rotunda.

At that point, the sequence becomes something more than a guided tour. It is a phantasmagorical combination of iconography, historical recreation, and a background of a ringing Liberty Bell and a wind-blown American flag.

The missing element from this presentation here is the music, a melding of American folk music and standards,*** that reaches its emotional peak with a keening violin when Smith turns to look back at Lincoln in his shrine. His shrine. One could feel uncomfortable with this sequence with its emphasis on cold marble—one could say it displays "an edifice complex"—but one must remember the year this was made. 1938, pre-World War II. Nazism was on the march, and Leni Riefenstahl was its chief propagandist, and this sequence borrows from her play-book.

But it ends up with words—and a general acknowledgment of sacrifice—before Smith ends up at the temple-like Lincoln Memorial—there are shots of the Arlington National Cemetery and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers, and the sequence ends with a cross-generational reading of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, one of the humblest of acknowledgments of sacrifice. Again, words...that define a spirit, a cause...chiseled into that cold marble lest it fade from memory, but also spoken aloud and re-affirmed by a child to whom that legacy is being handed down.

"Capra-corn" is what the director inventively called the sentimentality in his pictures, but that didn't stop him from filling them with heart and feeling, anyway. And this sequence will be called back during the course of the film, even at its darkest moments.

Now, for the cynical side. That inserted shot of the old black man's face when the little boy says "Freedom?" It lasts just as long for the boy to say that—that way if any theaters in the South objected they could just clip those 12 frames out...you could say "with extreme prejudice." And I know I'll break a couple hearts saying that James Stewart was the second man to be offered the role of Atticus Finch in "To Kill a Mockingbird" (the first was Universal contract star Rock Hudson). Stewart said "no" to the part, saying that the script was "too liberal," and that the film would be too controversial. Stewart was a rock-solid conservative—he just didn't make a big stink about it. The part went to the third choice—Gregory Peck—who considered it "a great gift."

The Set-Up: The junior senator from an unnamed state has died, and the area's political machine run by Boss Jim Taylor (Edward Arnold) has already decided on the patsy to fill the seat. But under pressure from constituents (and his family) Governor Hopper (Guy Kibbee) decides to appoint Jefferson Smith (James Stewart), leader of his state's Boy Rangers but a complete babe in the woods to politics. He's also the son of a good friend of the state's surviving Senator, Joe "The Silver Knight" Paine (Claude Rains) who has presidential aspirations. Things, however, don't go according to plan from the get-go—once the Senators get to D.C., Smith follows his patriotic bliss and goes AWOL aboard a site-seeing bus.


Boy(reading): ...that from these honored dead we take increased...

Boy(reading): ...devotion to that cause for which they...

Boy(reading): ...gave the last full measure of devotion...

Boy(reading): ...that we here highly...
Grandfather: ...resolve...
Boy(reading): ...resolve...

Boy(reading): ...that these dead shall not have died in vain --

Boy(reading): ...that this nation, under...

Boy(reading): ...God, shall have a new birth of...

Grandfather: ...freedom --

Boy(reading): ...freedom --

Boy(reading): ...and that government of the people...

Boy(reading): ...by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.



"Mr. Smith Goes to Washington"

Words by Abraham Lincoln (edited by Sidney Buchman)

Pictures by Joseph Walker and Frank Capra and Slavko Vorkapich

"Mr. Smith Goes To Washington" is available on Sony Home Video.

*** The music is composed by Dimitri Tiomkin, a Russian immigrant who, ironically, is most synonymous for composing scores and songs for westerns, like "Rio Bravo," "Red River," "Duel in the Sun," the song from the television series "Rawhide" and the source for his greatest hit, "High Noon," for which he composed "Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darling," based—it should be pointed out—on a Russian folk-tune. The music he weaves for this sequence includes "Yankee Doodle," "America," The National Anthem, The Battle Hymn of the Republic, Taps, and "The Red River Valley," which dominates the Lincoln Memorial section.

Happy 233rd Birthday, America!

Junebug

"Junebug" (Phil Morrison, 2006) Indie drama about a newly-married couple (Embeth Davidtz, Alessandro Nivola) who take advantage of a business trip to visit his emotionally stunted family in South Carolina, where the worldly Davidtz character must learn to cope. There's the sad, sweet father (Scott Wilson) who offers nothing. The matriarch (Celia Weston) who rules the roost. Brother Johnny (Ben McKenzie) is a diffident passive-agressive jerk with anger-control issues, and his wife Ashley (Amy Adams), nine months pregnant and with a natural ADD that has nothing to do with hormones.

Director Morrison knew that he caught lightning in a bottle with Amy Adams—her character is introduced with a humongous close-up that conceals the character's pregnancy, but can't contain the aggressively up-with-people attitude of the one vibrant person in the house. You just know that given a huge pile of manure, she'd start digging through, looking for a pony. Adams takes the script and whip-saws from subject to subject along high emotional peaks—watching her performance is a bit unnerving and thrilling at the same time, like watching someone drive fast around precipitous mountain curves.

You also know, that, like they said in high school, she's cruisin' for a bruisin,' such a bubble of high-spiritedness has to be popped in a drama, especially in the subgenus of indie dramas that thrive on lessons learned from disappointment.

The movie isn't disappointing, though. Morrison has created an austere environment for his piece giving a sense of everything being "just so" on the surface. In the meticulous casting there are delights of nuance and subtlety across the board that reveal hidden truths behind the "settled" behaviors. I was particularly charmed with character actor Scott Wilson (he played Richard Hickock to Robert Blake's Perry Smith in Richard Brooks' "In Cold Blood" and has made a career of playing distressed rural types), whose sad-eyed father appears to be a study in lethargy, but is quietly aware of everything that goes on in the house. When his wife wants him to have a "talking to" with Davidtz's Madeleine, he greets her entrance with a hand-wave that's more warning than greeting. A tiny moment, in a movie bristling with them, fleeting truths that arrive and disappear...like the seasonal annoyances the movie is named for.

Coming Attractions: We're going to change things up a bit schedule-wise, making this a short review week due to the long July 4th week-end. Tomorrow, we're going to present an Independence Day "Don't Make a Scene" that will last through the weekend—and it's an interesting one, consisting mostly of screen-shots, and a bit of dialogue with the most unlikely screen-credit I've applied in the series. Then, owing to that three-day Scene, we'll start off afresh Monday with a review of a new film, and there will very likely be others...maybe even four new releases reviewed. But, even if new reviews don't get posted, the future line-up of reviews is going to be eclectic...in the extreme.

13 Rue Madeleine

"13 Rue Madeleine" (Henry Hathaway, 1947) There are several good movies to be made based on the exploits of the American and British Secret Service during World War II. The OSS wasn't all encrypters and code-breakers listening over wirelesses in sterile little offices. There were field agents, double agents, and mis-information spreaders and they had at their disposal all sorts of spy ledgerdemain that has been cobbled for many of the traditional thrillers that came out after the war. No one that I know has ever made a movie about Camp X, where training was done, papers forged and weaponry created.

But "13 Rue Madeleine" is, at least, a good start. Directed by Henry Hathaway in a slightly more flashy style than his true-life crime dramas earlier in the war, it still employed a lot of photography "in the field" as the movie explains, "often in the actual locations."

The story follows the training of Group 077 (the writers had to change the name over script objections), each one in non-specific training until they're called upon for "a job" in whichever corner of the world they're dropped. Heading the training is Robert Sharkey (James Cagney), who has one complication—one of his agents-in-training is a Nazi agent, and during the course of training he has to find out who it is to exploit him. The film is surprisingly cold-blooded, with many agents dying in the process of carrying out their missions, and there's one case of "burning the village in order to save it." There's also a lot of appearance by well-known actors in small roles at the beginning of their careers including Karl Malden, E.G. Marshall, and Red Buttons. But, towering over all of them is Cagney, who still manages to show off a lot of grace in a role that's pretty rough. But he's also the perfect actor who you believe could kill with impunity and laugh at the enemy in the face of torture.