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Powerful

How sad is this?

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

With Christmas coming up,I started to search round on Amazon UK for a James Cagney DVD that I could give as a present.Being interested in going for a lesser-known film of Cagney's,I was pleased to stumble upon an espionage title starring Cagney,which led to getting ready to see Cagney spy at 13 Rue Madeleine.The plot:Desperate to infiltrate the Nazis activities,the US government sets up a new war-time spy agency,whose goal is to go behind enemy lines,and to spy on the Nazis.As he begins training his latest group of would-be spies,Bob Sharkey is told that one of his students is actually an undercover Nazi spy.Standing out from the pack, Sharkey's suspicions instantly turn to a student called Bill O'Connell,due to O'Connell showing a surprising level of espionage skills,despite having only had a weeks' worth of training.Asking his superior's about O'Connell being arrested,Sharkey is told that he must feed O'Connell false info,due to there being info about O'Connell being linked to the Nazi- occupation of France.Sniffing out the lies just before he and his fellow spies are dropped in France,O'Connell kills one of the agents via cutting his parachute,and then jumps safely to the ground himself.Horrified about what O'Connell has done to one of his students,Sharkey decides that he must go behind enemy lines,and get hold of O'Connell. View on the film:Getting quickly re-written thanks to the US government banning any movie from mentioning the pre-CIA OSS,and the real life Sharkey (William Donovan) not being too happy over the film showing a Nazi spy infiltrating the agency,the opening 30 minutes of John Monks Jr. and Sy Bartlett's screenplay builds up a real steam of tension,as Sharkey finds himself unable to stop O'Connell from delving deeper into the agency's roots.As O'Connell drops from the sky,the writer's sadly fail to keep the tense atmosphere building,due to O'Connell being left off-screen for the next 50 minutes,which leads to the dangerous mood between O'Connell and Sharkey only being revived for the films wonderful bleak ending.Despite not filming in the real locations which the opening credits state, (with Quebec locations being used for the films US/French settings)director Henry Hathaway shows a great skill at releasing a nervous energy,with Hathaway using tightly coiled shots to show the raging paranoia which has taken over the resistance fighters of France.Showing some of his excellent Judo skills in the opening scenes,James Cagney gives a very good performance as Sharkey,with Cagney slowly revealing Sharkey's revenge-fuelled sorrow.Taking on Cagney, Richard Conte gives a brilliant,ruthless performance as Bill O'Connell,with Conte showing a real ruthless bite,as O'Connell begins to reveal all the info that he's gotten from the US,in 13 Rue Madeleine.

There's a trivia question in here somewhere, what links James Cagney to Sean Connery: Cagney's 'agent' number was 077 while Connery's, of course, was 007. Fox began their 'semi-documentary' series in 1945 with The House on 92nd Street and 13, Rue Madeleine continues the tradition, beginning with a 'newsreel' timbred voice-over dedication-cum-scene setter and proceeding documentary-style with recruitment, training, and assignments for 0SS personnel that segues into a specific mission co- led by Cagney and Walter Abel. Early on Abel tells Cagney that amongst the trainees is a Nazi agent and leaves Cagney to ferret him/her out. Richard Conte pretty much semaphores that it is him but we have to accept his flawless American accent with no explanation of how long he has lived in America or if he is, in fact, a genuine American who has been recruited by the Germans. Perhaps at the time, 1947, audiences would have let this go by but in 2013 it feels sloppy. The blurb on DVD box doesn't help when it states that Rue Madeleine is in Paris when in fact it is in Le Havre, a port in Northern France. For a film with minimal 'action' it remains surprisingly effective and in its favor it resists a happy ending. Worth a look.

20 Century Fox's 13 RUE MADELEINE (1947) is not only a well liked Hollywood Noir but is an excellent espionage thriller too. Produced by newsreel expert Louis de Rochemont for the studio it was flawlessly directed by the always reliable Henry Hathaway who had that same year just completed his brilliant "Kiss Of Death" - the picture that introduced Richard Widmark to audiences. 13 RUE MADELEINE had that distinctive documentary/newsreel style to it that de Rochemont had started to bring to films in 1945 with "The House On 92nd Street" and the splendid "Boomerang" which he produced just before MADELEINE. And to crisply shoot the picture, in brilliantly lit Monochrome, he retained his great Cinematographer Norbert Brodine as well as utilizing the same impressive voice of Reed Hadley (uncredited) to narrate the opening of the movie("What is past is prologue").James Cagney (on loan from Warners) is Bob Sharkey a director of training operations for 077 (pseudonym for O.S.S. - Office of Stratigic Services) agents of Secret Intelligence during WW2. Three of the trainees are chosen for a mission in occupied France. They must locate a German rocket launching site so it can be destroyed in a bombing raid by the Air Corps before D-Day. Things are going well until it is discovered that one of the three is a German agent who all along was a plant in the training school. Then - while on route to France -one of the group is murdered by the Nazi agent and with no time to train another it falls to Sharkey himself to fill the void and carry on with the mission.Cagney is terrific in it! He gives his usual finger-snapping performance with that cocky sure-footed persona that is ever appealing. Excellent too is the marvellous Sam Jaffe as a resistance leader and Richard Conte is very effective as the double agent. Unconvincing though is Frank Latimore as the ill-fated agent and Annabella's role is written out of the movie just that bit too early. Also watch out for E.G.Marshall (uncredited) as a Resistance fighter in what is only his second film appearance and Karl Malden (uncredited) as the plane's jump master in his third film part.A nice little war time thriller from a good screenplay by John Monks Jr. and Sy Bartlett that is well complimented with a score by David Buttolph which features a spirited patriotic march. The picture is also notable for being one of the first films to show an actor performing some Judo movements or Karate as we would refer to it today. 13 RUE MADELEINE has hardly dated at all and is worthy of a place in any collection.

Two actors that were left off the cast list on the web page and who later on became famous actors in their own right is Karl Malden (Streetcar Named Desire), and E.G. Marshall who I don't think spoke a word during this movie. Malden, who was known for his role on TV's the "Streets of San Francisco played the crew chief on the aircraft used to parachute the OSS agents into France. I think he asked them if they'd like some hot coffee which they refused. E.G. Marshall played one of the French resistance men. Marshall played with hundreds of well known actors in his day and even had a well known TV program (The Defenders) in which he played a lawyer. I also remember him playing an old Senator opposite Clint Eastwood in "Absolute Power". They should be added to the cast and cross-referenced to their own web page.