The House on 92nd Street (1945)
Well that wasn’t pretentious at all…
It would have been better as two separate films: a mockumentary film noir spy thriller and a carefully accurate historical account of the Duquesne Spy Ring.
It’s a decent enough movie to watch but the pedantic, ostentatious tone leaves the audience with a disdain of Hoover’s scrambling efforts to over-promote the FBI’s efforts in WWII. This is a case of propaganda failing where the truth would have succeeded.
p.s. Am I the only one who started yelling at them at the end when the Feds “gave them 2 minutes to come out with their hands up!”? Seriously? Professional spies, and you want to give them a couple minutes to burn and destroy all of the evidence and then get their guns ready for the shoot-out? Seriously!?!
