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From Glendale to Liberty Island, "the best way to learn about this country." A brief allusion to La Sortie de l'Usine Lumière à Lyon kicks things off, black smoke invading a streaked screen announces the fire at the aircraft factory, the would-be hero is a small figure collapsing in the roaring blaze. His best friend (Robert Cummings) is accused, he flees the police and the fire extinguisher in the truck rattles by the side of his head like some horrible thought bubble. (Gasoline replacing water is typical of this landscape's deceptive surfaces, a stove later on conceals a communication device.) "You're being followed," the model on the billboard (Priscilla Lane) materializes in the flesh as the fugitive's unwilling companion, it takes a stroll through spectral Soda City to build trust. "The firm" turns out to be a luxurious lair of fifth columnists, the leader (Otto Kruger) voices totalitarianism's appeal to the elite: "They get things done." Between The 39 Steps and North by Northwest, Alfred Hitchcock expands the eternal chase for the war effort. Fascism fascinates the upper-crust, democracy meanwhile is upheld by the Human Skeleton in the darkened caboose of a circus caravan, the Bearded Lady has the casting vote. (The citation from Browning's Freaks follows the blind man from Whale's Bride of Frankenstein.) A nation of cinematic images, "it's so unreal," thus the protagonist's foiled horseback escape is a curtailed Western and the celluloid pistol at Radio City Music Hall seems to actually shoot the audience. "I have my own ideas about my duties as a citizen. They sometimes involve disregarding the law." Up on Lady Liberty's torch with the terrorist (Norman Lloyd) for the climax, toujours the need to go out on a limb. With Alan Baxter, Alma Kruger, Clem Bevans, Vaughan Glaser, Dorothy Peterson, Murray Alper, Ian Wolfe, Pedro de Cordoba, Anita Sharp-Bolster, and Billy Curtis. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |