PRC Studios ordinarily produced pretty rudimentary cinema. A handful of spare sets, few actors, few extras, studio bound. The plots were such that if the phrase "B Feature" didn't exist it would have had to be invented.
This one, though, has an edge. The art direction isn't bad. No waterfront neighborhood ever existed like the ones we see in old movies -- sailors slouching around, hands in their pockets, cigarettes dangling from their lips, gathered in crowded little saloons with names like "The Anchor Bar," the narrow streets wreathed in cold fog. It's a fantasy waterfront but it works well enough.
The performances are (mostly) decent as well, although I wasn't always on top of who had the little black book that was stolen from German agent J. Carrol Naish. Since everyone on the other side of the law seemed to be German, why would one agent hinder the operations of another? Well, the black book is just the MacGuffin anyway.
Naish uses his go-anywhere accent. John Carradine is an impressive figure in a long black coat and black fedora. His figure is gaunt and his features sepulchral. Ominous all over, you know? And he's more reckless than the other spies. He wants to take over the gang in San Francisco and represent the Gestapo, although why he'd want to represent the German secret police instead of the intelligence agency, the Abwehr, the writers neglect to explain. I suppose the very word "Gestapo" generated chills.
It's fast. Some of the Germans are forced to cooperate and others are completely unaware of what's going on, as is the viewer, occasionally.
I kind of got a kick out of it.
This one, though, has an edge. The art direction isn't bad. No waterfront neighborhood ever existed like the ones we see in old movies -- sailors slouching around, hands in their pockets, cigarettes dangling from their lips, gathered in crowded little saloons with names like "The Anchor Bar," the narrow streets wreathed in cold fog. It's a fantasy waterfront but it works well enough.
The performances are (mostly) decent as well, although I wasn't always on top of who had the little black book that was stolen from German agent J. Carrol Naish. Since everyone on the other side of the law seemed to be German, why would one agent hinder the operations of another? Well, the black book is just the MacGuffin anyway.
Naish uses his go-anywhere accent. John Carradine is an impressive figure in a long black coat and black fedora. His figure is gaunt and his features sepulchral. Ominous all over, you know? And he's more reckless than the other spies. He wants to take over the gang in San Francisco and represent the Gestapo, although why he'd want to represent the German secret police instead of the intelligence agency, the Abwehr, the writers neglect to explain. I suppose the very word "Gestapo" generated chills.
It's fast. Some of the Germans are forced to cooperate and others are completely unaware of what's going on, as is the viewer, occasionally.
I kind of got a kick out of it.