Cloak and Dagger

Film Details

Cast

Gary Cooper, Lilli Palmer

Technical Details

Cloak and Dagger is sometimes described as a 'lesser' Fritz Lang film. If this is the case (and that’s something we’ll return to later) then it simply proves what an o... more >

Cloak and Dagger is sometimes described as a 'lesser' Fritz Lang film. If this is the case (and that’s something we’ll return to later) then it simply proves what an outstanding director he was. This 'lesser' Fritz Lang film contains more power and precision than many directors’ masterpieces.

In one of Hollywood's more imaginative pieces of casting, Gary Cooper plays Alvah Jesper, a professor of Atomic Physics, recruited by the wartime secret services to persuade a former colleague to work for America. But there are complications: the Nazis are interested in the mysteries of the Atom too and aren’t scrupulous about how they acquire them.

Nominally inspired by the behind enemy lines antics of the hush-hush OSS wartime operations group, Fritz Lang roars into battle with fists flying. No-one's ever been able to build up a head of steam like Herr Director and there are scenes here that number among his best: the attempted rescue of Cooper’s colleague, for instance, makes thrilling use of space, light and editing.

It’s curious then, that after the explosive opening reel, the film’s middle is so relaxed. Holed up in a safe house with Italian partisan Gina (Lili Palmer), Cooper takes time out from his busy schedule to woo her in a sedate, conversational section.

Happily, the loved-up couple return to the struggle in fine, compelling style. Perhaps the film is most famous for the prolonged fight between Cooper and a fascist. Guns being too noisy, it's a close-up, full contact affair and boy, is it raw. It's an idea Hitchcock would appropriate for Torn Curtain twenty years later (and which Ang Lee uses in Lust, Caution too). As usual, however, Lang does it best.

So, a 'lesser' film? It’s certainly a film affected by the baffling half-time longueurs, though even here there is genuinely smouldering excitement generated by the leads: and for all its many virtues, it lacks the consistency of tone that characterises Lang's best work. Maybe it is deficient if you judge it against M or Scarlet Street. By any other yardstick, however, Cloak and Dagger stands tall and is an extremely welcome addition to Fritz Lang’s available films. < less

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