This week’s mystery movie has been the 1946 picture “Cloak and Dagger,” starring Gary Cooper, Robert Alda, Vladimir Sokoloff, J. Edward Bromberg, Marjorie Hoshelle and Ludwig Stossel, and introducing Lilli Palmer.  The screenplay was by Albert Maltz and Ring Lardner Jr., from a story by Boris Ingster and John Larkin, “suggested by the book by” Corey Ford and Alastair MacBain. The movie was directed by Fritz Lang.

Released by Warner Bros., the movie was the first production by Milton Sperling’s United States Pictures Inc. and was the first of five independent films he originally planned for 1946.

The New York Times’ Bosley Crowther wrote (Oct. 5, 1946) that the film “is highly suspenseful in a slick cinematic style. Apart from the realm of realities, it is fast entertainment on the screen.”

And yet he quibbled with the plot: The filmmakers “loaded the whole thing down with the baldest and most familiar of the spy-thriller cliches.”

The film opened in Los Angeles on Oct. 11, 1946, at the Wiltern, and the Warners Hollywood and Downtown.  Writing in the Los Angeles Times on Oct. 12, 1946, critic Edwin Schallert said it was almost a documentary, calling it “a thrilling adventure narrative that simultaneously is illumined by good strong highlights in the dialogue.”

“Cloak and Dagger” was suggested as a mystery movie by Earl Boebert and set off an unusual quest to defeat Google’s image search function. For some curious reason, much of the film turns up on Google’s image search —  at least in some circumstances. Earl did extensive research on why he and I were getting different results from Google. The simple explanation is that Google personalizes my results as “a movie guy” and customizes his results something else. Cloak and Dagger indeed!

The movie is available from Amazon.

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This week’s mystery movie has been the 1952 MGM picture “Above and Beyond,” starring Robert Taylor and Eleanor Parker, with James Whitmore, Larry Keating, Larry Gates, Marilyn Erskine, Stephen Dunne, Robert Burton and Hayden Rorke. The screenplay was by Melvin Frank, Norman Panama and Beirne Lay Jr. from a story by Beirne Lay Jr. The music was by Hugo Friedhofer and conducted by Andre Previn. “Above and Beyond” was produced and directed by Melvin Frank and Norman Panama.

“Above and Beyond” is available from Warner Archive for $12.49.

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This week’s mystery movie has been the 1931 RKO picture “Way Back Home,” which was based on a popular radio program starring Phillips H. Lord, who later created the radio shows “Gang Busters” and “Mr. District Attorney.” It was directed by William Seiter, written by Jane Murfin and photographed by J. Roy Hunt.  It featured Phillips H. Lord, Effie L. Palmer, Frank Albertson, Bette Davis, Frankie Darro, Dorothy Peterson, Stanley Fields, Oscar Apfel, Sophia M. Lord, Bennett Kilpack and Raymond Hunter.

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This week’s mystery movie has been the 1957 MGM picture “I Accuse!” The film stars Jose Ferrer (who also directed), Anton Walbrook, Viveca Lindfors, Leo Genn, Emlyn Williams, David Farrar, Donald Wolfit and Herbert Lom.  The screenplay was by Gore Vidal, from a book by Nicholas Halasz.

“I Accuse!” It has never been commercially released on VHS or DVD.

The film was photographed by F.A. “Freddie” Young, who won Academy Awards for “Lawrence of Arabia,” “Dr. Zhivago” and “Ryan’s Daughter.”  It was released in CinemaScope with “process lenses by Panavision.”

According to the IMDB entry, “I Accuse!” was filmed in standard Academy aspect ratio and then printed in CinemaScope with the images cropped as the “process lenses by Panavision” would tend to indicate. I’m not an expert on the matter and will leave it to others to investigate this matter further.

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