Watch The Thief For Free

Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Ray Milland is a nuclear physicist who's been selling top secret material to the Russians. His story is told here without dialogue in this very ambitious and rewarding little film. His performance and the film score work well together and keep the viewer's interest. It's amazing how so much can be told without the mechanics of speaking. And, for as many films as I've seen, the chase sequence is one of the most intense I've ever seen, primarily by its use of silence and Ray's intensity. If you've never seen this very unusual film, then you are missing one of the best examples of film noir, buoyed by its distinction of no dialogue, but well makes up for it with its grade-A treatment of the story and its ability to use its surroundings as part of the story. Another Ray Milland winner!

This movie really shows how powerful and captivating can the image be. I don't understand why this movie is seldom mentioned for the big public. Nobody has doubts that Casablanca or Citizen Kane or so many others are great movies, but this movie can also be enjoyed by many people and means something very innovative at the moment it was shot. I got astonished when, after 20 minutes I hadn't heard any voice; I didn't know in advance that the movie had no dialogues. However, the story was intriguing enough and the situations had so much suspense that I watched it without missing dialogues. Of course, the spies were communists and it's a produce of the cold war time, but this fact does not impact on the quality of the script. Ray Milland was an actor so remarkable that his acting makes the film believable. He shows the anguish and fear of a man who is doing something very grave (treason) and is being shadowed. He was so good actor that at the end of the movie, when he's about to go aboard, one can read his mind and guess his final decision. After all, he is not a crook or a murderer, but rather a man of science and not violent, so, the reasons that lead him to the final decision have to do with his conscience (an innocent man is being accused of something that he did and another man was killed by him) The cinematography is superb, I enjoyed specially the way it shows the streets and buildings of the cities. The script is subtle and full of brilliant details. The music is very good and well sync. Really a masterwork. Maybe the long silent scenes that Jean-Pierre Melville or Jules Dassin had in their movies could've been inspired by this film? Very recommended.

This Cold War suspenser is chiefly notable today for being completely dialogue-free for its entire 86-minute duration; this was very rare for a Hollywood product of its time, even if independent (1953's DEMENTIA) or foreign (1961's THE NAKED ISLAND) examples would eventually follow. While it certainly makes for a striking contrast with the relentlessly talky fare typical of the same genre like, say, Martin Ritt's THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD (1965), the gimmick does prove tiresome long before the end.Although one might expect a traitor to generally keep to himself and feel isolated, and spies to perform their devious acts in complete silence (in a public library) and convene in abandoned places (on a deserted street), there is no real reason why the few strangers they come across, while going about their business, must also do likewise (especially during a crowded day atop the Empire State Building!). The film-makers cleverly make use of unanswered telephone rings for the secret code of communication between the spies but this repeated contrivance ultimately becomes silly.Ray Milland was nominated for a Golden Globe (one of the film's 5 nods) and is practically the whole show here as a renowned research scientist who, for reasons clearly unexplained, sells trade secrets to the other side by photographing evidently important documents. Privately, he is showing signs of being tormented by his conscience for what he has been doing to his country and, after fatally disposing of a pursuing agent (a surprisingly bloody scene), he suffers a nervous breakdown and, instead of defecting as planned, gives himself up to the F.B.I. in the film's very closing shot! The only two other notable members of the cast are Martin Gabel (curiously misspelled Gable in the pictured end credits!) as Milland's bespectacled contact and a debuting Rita Gam (also up for a Globe) as the star's sultry neighbor in the dingy hotel where he lodges once his duplicity is discovered. Sam Leavitt's cinematography and Herschel Burke Gilbert's Oscar-nominated score effortlessly stand out in a movie where there is often very little going on; unfortunately, Russell Rouse is no Orson Welles and one bemoans the lack of the visual virtuosity that the latter might have employed in tackling such a theme.For the record, I have four more thrillers from this director in my unwatched pile: the real-life human drama THE WELL (1951), the gangland expose' NEW YORK CONFIDENTIAL (1955), the prison-break drama HOUSE OF NUMBERS (1957) and the heist movie (in color this time) THE CAPER OF THE GOLDEN BULLS (1967). It is fair to say that time has not been too kind to this daringly experimental production (perhaps inspired by Hitchcock's one-set restriction in LIFEBOAT [1944], ROPE [1948] and REAR WINDOW [1954]) and what seemed impressive upon its original release feels occasionally interesting but mostly tedious today.

The Thief stands as the first American Film since Charlie Chaplin's City Lights without any spoken dialogue.Directed by Russell Rouse this 1952 noir is a propaganda film without any of the leaden anti-Communist dialogue that other films of this type contain. In fact the film has no dialogue! It's funny how first impressions stay with you. When I first saw The Thief it was at a Film Noir series at the Film Forum Theater in New York.The Thief stands out for its special way of objectifying the isolation of the central character with film elements such as mood-inducing lighting, scripting, and especially music.The lack of dialogue and Ray Milland's marvelous performance visually communicating the angst and secretive nature of the lead character is something to see to appreciate.What stands out in this film is the lack of dialogue. At the outset this motivates us to watch more closely than if we were given dialogue to help drive the action along.With its blast of a raining phone in the very first frame of the film as the camera moves over to show us the anxious Allen Fields lying fully dressed on his bed waiting, we understand that sound and sight over spoken language is what will be the currency of this film.Hats off to Ray Milland and the wonderful score because just as in the early films of the silent period all the plot points of the film are understood trough purely visual means, pushing the film to the level of pure cinema.The musical score for the film that Herschel Burke Gilbert composed says volumes about the character Allen Fields, and his emotional state.Gilbert received an Academy Award nomination for his music score for the film and one watching will tell you why. Gilbert creates swells and moods to support the facial expressions and other physical language that Milland utilizes to show us what is happening with Fields and his eroding state of mind.The dialogue-less film is definitely a stylistic approach to this subject matter. It is very unusual but primarily because we are used to a dialogue-driven plotted film style.The technique does begin to seem forced into the second half of the film especially in exterior scenes where one would normally hear people talking as ambient sound.The scenes with the FBI would have some sort of dialogue, especially in those where agents are being prepped on who to investigate.Once the viewer gets with the approach that the filmmaker is taking though, the lack of dialogue can be understood as part of the overall theme of he voice-less nature of the Spy character in films.Some things are left unexplained though and this could have been added to create more depth in the story line. We never learn why Fields is stealing secrets for the enemy. Is he being paid? Is there a wife being held captive? These pieces of the puzzle may help. Without them the story feels poetic without substance.Ray Milland gets extra credit for creating such a memorable performance. His Allen Fields seems cut from the same cloth as his character from The Lost Weekend, angst-driven without solution.No one can drink whiskey or smoke a cigarette quite like Ray Milland, with his sense of exclusive attitude while simultaneously embroiled in some deep emotional turbulence.For anyone interested in Film Noir styling taken to exceptionally expressive levels this film will show you things you may not have seen before.The night exteriors are textbook noir examples of lighting and camera. In this case the ambient sounds of the Washington D. C. locations are contrasted well with those of the New York City locations, especially the wide shot of Milland's Allen Fields arriving in the beautiful Pennsylvania Train Station before it was demolished.Although the interiors are stage sets there is attention paid to creating surroundings that support the 'silence' of spy Allen Fields especially the cage-like apartment where Fields waits for his final phone call.