Walk a Crooked Mile

1948

Action / Crime / Drama / Film-Noir

3
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 55% · 50 ratings
IMDb Rating 6.3/10 10 1324 1.3K

noir spy cold war scotland yard fbi film noir

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Plot summary

A security leak is found at a Southern California atomic plant. The authorities stand in fear that the information leaked would go to a hostile nation. To investigate the case more efficiently, Dan O'Hara, an FBI agent, and Philip Grayson, a Scotland Yard sleuth, join forces. Will they manage to stop the spy ring from achieving their aim?

Director

Gordon Douglas Photo
Gordon Douglas

Top cast

Charles Evans Photo
Charles Evans as Dr. Homer Allen
Grandon Rhodes Photo
Grandon Rhodes as Adolph Mizner
Raymond Burr Photo
Raymond Burr as Krebs
Arthur Tovey Photo
Arthur Tovey as Plant Worker
720p.BLU 1080p.BLU
838.8 MB
968*720
English 2.0
Approved
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 31 min
Seeds 2
1.52 GB
1440*1072
English 2.0
Approved
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 31 min
Seeds ...

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by John Chard 6 / 10

Laundry and Liquidation. Walk a Crooked Mile is

Laundry and Liquidation. Walk a Crooked Mile is directed by Gordon Douglas and adapted to screenplay by George Bruce from a Bertram Millhauser story. It stars Louis Hayward, Dennis O'Keefe, Louise Albritton, Carl Esmond, Onslow Stevens and Raymond Burr. Music is by Paul Sawtell and cinematography by George Robinson. A Scotland Yard detective and a FBI agent investigate what looks to be a spy ring infiltrating a top secret Nuclear Physics centre. To fully get the drift you really have to understand the era when films like this were produced, a time of The HUAC and Cold War paranoia, when Hollywood itself was under scrutiny to weed out supposed communist infiltrators. Good pro Gordon Douglas directs in a semi-documentary style - complete with Reed Hadley stentorian narration - in what turns out to be a decent spy like thriller. J. Edgar Hoover stuck his oar in to ensure no sanction of how the FBI looked was granted, which actually gives the pic some kudos, as does the superb Frisco location filming. It's nicely photographed in a noir style by Robinson, which lends one to lament he didn't operate more often in that style of film making. While perfs are absolutely fine, with Burr not for the first time in 1948 proving to be a great nasty presence. Narratively it's hit and miss, the fear of the communist is solidly played, but actually the fear of the scientists is probably more sneakily bubbling away under the surface. There's a brilliant sequence of events that ties into Nazidom, with a landlady holding court for maximum impact, and for dramatic purpose the torture sequence and inevitable shoot out hit the right requisite notes. Not a must see in the realm of Cold War/Spy Ring pictures, but entertaining and well mounted enough to keep it well above average. 6/10
Reviewed by CinemaSerf 6 / 10

Despite a decent effort from Louis Hayward as

Despite a decent effort from Louis Hayward as visiting Scotland Yard Inspector "Grayson", this is still a pretty clunky, charm-free, cold war espionage story that sees him team up with FBI counterpart "O'Hara" (Dennis O'Keefe) to investigate the smuggling of top secret formulae from a government facility to an enemy.... Their method of transferring the information is quite clever, but neither the script, nor the rather over-powering Reed Hadley narration really get this going. It has an almost documentary feel to it; the scenes are stitched together rather than fluid, and it comes across almost like a public information film about being beware of traitors in our midst (I found the culprit to be pretty obvious from the get-go), rather than to create any meaningful sense of suspense or drama. It has many of the usual set-piece cloak and dagger scenarios, and as ever with these type of stories - the baddies seem always unable to push home their obvious advantages! It's not dreadful, just procedural and rather dull.
Reviewed by masonfisk 7 / 10

LAW & ORDER, COLD WAR STYLE...!

A 1948 film noir/police procedural. We're in the midst of the Cold War & American agents are on the hunt for Communist operatives which sets the scene as one of ours sees a wanted agent at a sporting event only to be gunned down (shocking for the time I would imagine as we see blood spatter across the man's face) by Raymond Burr (sporting a very Leninesque goatee). Enter the lead FBI agent, played by Dennis O'Keefe, who tracks the spotted man to San Francisco only to find the man murdered in his room even though the FBI were all over him. When they scour their surveillance footage they come up w/another enemy agent, disguised as a priest (which raised no flags), who spends his days in his apartment painting canvases which O'Keefe figures is the means of transporting information. Enter Louis Hayward, a Scotland Yard agent working the same case from the European side of things & he teams up w/O'Keefe to track down the cabal of enemy agents (the info in question is coming from a scientific collective on the cusp of a breakthrough) when they figure out hidden formulas are embedded on the paintings themselves, they figure one of the group is leaking the info. Very procedural in the extreme (I wouldn't be surprised if some would viewers will drop in the ubiquitous "dun dun" from Law & Order as each scene cuts into the next) but immensely engrossing, keeping you on the edge of your seat w/a satisfying gunfight taking place in a darkened home festooned w/Russia's best trying to win the day.
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