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Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

Executive producer: Dore Schary. Copyright 6 May 1948 by RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. New York opening at the Victoria: 20 May 1948. U.S. release: May 1948. U.K. release: 18 October 1948. Australian release: 17 February 1949. 7,893 feet. 87 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Underground Nazis are hunted in post-war Germany.COMMENT: Actually photographed in Frankfurt and Berlin (by authorization of the British, Soviet and U.S. authorities), this taut, exciting, suspenseful thriller has a director who knows how to get the atmospheric best out of his stark and striking natural locations. Moody lighting is a great help too - and so is the ironic background commentary, rarely obtrusive and often neatly counterpointing what occurs on the screen. Tourneur's direction is highly inventive - the characters introduced as the camera tracks along the outside of the train's compartments, the clown toppling into the camera - and he is well served by his cast: Merle Oberon has little to do, though she is a graceful actress and it is pleasing that she does not get involved in any romantic cliches; Robert Ryan is ideally cast, bringing some depth to a part that could easily have been turned into either a foolish caricature or just a walking mouthpiece for philosophic ideals; Charles Korvin has a difficult role, but he and the director have chosen the easy way out by keeping him in the background; Paul Lukas plays with his usual easy authority and assurance; Robert Coote essays the stage Englishman, but with some restraint; former Hollywood director Reinhold Schunzel plays a traitorous friend with convincing weariness and passion; Roman Toporow is a little green as the Russian lieutenant, but this suits the part; Peter Von Zerneck plays the clown with style; Otto Waldis has a small part but he turns it into the film's most memorable portrayal, spitting out revolutionary lines with the spellbinding skill of a satanic demagogue. Even the minor roles are enacted with unobtrusive artistry - Michael Harvey as a phoney sergeant, Charles McGraw as the interrogating officer. Siodmak evidently wrote his story to utilize the actual German locations to the utmost, with every twist in the plot bringing in a new background, as well as piling suspense on suspense. Tourneur handles the action episodes with as much skill and unobtrusive yet exciting authority as he brings to the dialogue and documentary scenes. Other credits are likewise skilled-the music score is unpretentiously effective and the art direction is quite striking. Production values are A-1. OTHER VIEWS: Exciting direction and excellent photography in a neat thriller that tries a little too hard to stress its political message.

BERLIN CORRESPONDENT 1942This a 20th Century Fox film is another of the wartime flag wavers that flooded the theatres during World War Two. This stars, Dana Andrews, Virginia Gilmore, Mona Maris, Erwin Kaiser, Martin Kosleck, Sig Ruman and Henry Rowland.It starts in November 1941, Andrews, an American radio correspondent, sends out valuable espionage information during his daily broadcasts from Berlin. This is annoying the Nazi types to no end. They want to know where he is getting this info and plug the leak. Gestapo colonel Martin Kosleck (in another of his great Nazi roles) assigns his best agents to follow the man. Andrews though always manages to give the slip to his shadows. He then meets with his German contact for the German intelligence information. Kosleck has finally reached the end of his tether with Andrews evading his tails. He assigns his girlfriend, Virginia Gilmore to keep tabs of the American. This she does rather quickly by posing as a woman in distress. Andrews, being ever so gallant, helps Gilmore cover a café bill. The smooth talking Yank soon has a date lined up with the pretty Gilmore. Of course the man has no idea this is all a plan laid out by Gestapo man, Kosleck. Now the plot thickens as Andrews' underground contact turns out to be Miss Gilmore's father. The man, Erwin Kaiser, hates the Nazis and wants to help in their defeat. The info he gathers is from Gilmore who thinks it is all just table talk she got from boyfriend Kosleck.Anyways, after a couple of dates with Andrews, Gilmore discovers that the information he receives is written in invisible ink on stamps. He buys these from a local shop where Kaiser happens to frequent. The Nazis raid the place and soon are pounding on Kaiser's and daughter Gilmore's door. Gilmore now realizes that she has inadvertently turned her father in. She now only wants to help her father.As the Gestapo burst in, Kaiser starts yelling at Gilmore calling her a cow for turning him in. This causes Kosleck and the Gestapo swine to believe that Gilmore is still a loyal Nazi. (Seen this plot twist at least a dozen times in various films)Kosleck soon has Kaiser in a cell receiving some "gentle" questioning. Kaiser refuses to talk and is soon set to an insane sanatorium. There he will of course be found dead of some accident or some such thing. Gilmore, at wits end, seeks out Andrews to help save her father. Now there is a whole series of somewhat over the top heroics by Andrews. He dresses up like a German officer and visits the sanatorium. He needless to say soon springs the old man and smuggles him over the border for some time with the Swiss. Matters take a turn for the worse for Andrews as December 7th has rolled around. Germany stands with her Japanese ally and Andrews is grabbed up and tossed into a concentration camp. There are some more bits of daring do and the likes before Andrews and Gilmore are winging it out of the country in a stolen aircraft. This is a typical early war propaganda flag waver with the dashing hero getting away from the enemy. (this time with a girl) With only a 70 minute runtime it moves along quickly enough. The German's being played as complete morons in every film of this type is starting to get a bit long in the tooth. One starts to wonder how they ever took over all of Europe. It is still worth a look as a decent example of the genre.The film was directed by regular Charlie Chan helmsman, Eugene Forde. One time Oscar nominated, Virgil Miller is the director of photography.Some will recall Sig Ruman from his role in STALAG 17 as the German guard, Sgt Schulz.

Dana Andrews plays an American radio correspondent whose broadcasts are suspected of concealing codes containing war information. Andrews becomes embroiled with a young Nazi sympathizer, played by Virginia Gilmore, whose father is an ardent anti-Nazi, and whose fiancée (Martin Kosleck) is a Nazi colonel. Andrews manages to pull off some rather outrageous stunts during this film but nevertheless, it's an entertaining, if somewhat typical propaganda film of the era.Virginia Gilmore is very attractive, while Kosleck, as usual, is mean as dirt as the Nazi. In real life, of course, he got out of Germany just in time, as he was tried in absentia by the Nazis and sentenced to death. He enjoyed playing members of the Third Reich, as he loathed them for what they did to Germany.

Goof: When the plane takes off it appears to be a Lockheed Electra (twin horizontal stabilizers) and when it lands, it appears to be a Douglas DC-3 (single horizontal stabilizer). As sol1218 said, there are other aeronautical goofs in the story. Berlin is being dive bombed. USA and Britain had no dive bombers in European theatre.The Luftwaffe knows that the American is taking off in a stolen plane, as sol1218 said, and yet their slow flying transport plane is not chased and shot down by any Lufwaffe fighters.I am an Electrical Engineer. The electrocution on the barbed wire is most unrealistic, all the wires are at the same potential, yet the escaping prisoner gets the current from hand to hand. In fact, he would be electrocuted when his feet are on the ground and he first touches the wire.