Nazi Agent (1942)

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

In one of his last roles, Conrad Veidt plays both the GOOD twin and the EVIL twin, during WW II. The "bad" twin tries to talk the "good guy" into helping the dark side, but he doesn't want to. According to IMDb, this was released in March of 1942, so just a couple months after the U.S. was dragged into WW II, in December of 1941. Just like the Bette Davis films, or every other "twins" movies, one of them poses as the other. Veidt would die quite young at age 50.....heart attack. Mostly slow. Predictable. No big surprises here, but an entertaining WW II film. The suspense of watching him maneuver as he tries to avoid being found out as an imposter. This could have been a Hitchcock, but its not. This was Jules Dassin's second film as director, making him the young age of 31 when the film was made. Not bad.

Conrad Veidt plays twins – Hugo is the bad Nazi German diplomat in the USA who tracks down his kindly brother Otto, a book-store owner. Hugo wants Otto to use his shop as a front for Nazi activity and presents a convincing case as to why he should. However, there comes a point where Otto has to go against his kindly nature and take things into his own hands. The lives of Americans are threatened and he can put a stop to it.It's an interesting spy story that I would have scored more highly if it had a different ending. I felt dissatisfied. Why did the good guy make that decision? Great honour but complete idiocy. The film has a few other unrealistic moments, eg, the idea that the parrot talking could give the game away! Suspend belief and go along with things and the film entertains.What would you rather have – a glass of warm milk in the evening or a glass of brandy? I think I'm evil coz I'd go with the brandy. A final word goes to Bernadene Hayes who pops up as prostitute "Rosie". I've just watched "This Gun For Hire" (1942) where she pops up as "secretary" to an assassination victim. Both times, although her role is brief, she captures the attention. So, she gets a special mention.

(Some Spoilers) Checking the production dates for the movie "Nazi Agent" I noticed that it was finished filming on December 16, 1941 just five days after Germany's Fuhrer Adolph Hitler declared war on the US. That was in accordance with Hitler's Germany military alliance with Japan that bombed Pearl Harbor just four days earlier. This would make the movie "Nazi Agent" the first WWII film produced by a Hollywood studio that was released when the US was actually at war with the Nazi Regime! Unlike the many other anti-Nazi Hollywood made films, like "Confession of a Nazi Spy", that were released before the US was even at war with Germany. Thus making them subject, by anti-war and US isolationists groups, to accusations of being nothing more them warmongering propaganda in an effort, by Hollywood, to get the natural US into the war in Europe on the side of Great Britain and later the USSR.The film has kindly bookstore owner and stamp collector Otto Becker, Conrad Veidt, try to start a new life in the US after he was forced to flee his homeland-Germany-after the Nazi's took over. Living the American dream Otto's life is turned upside down when his brother Hugo, also played by Veidt, who's a die in the wool Nazi pops into his house. Hugo a German diplomat is working undercover to damage US shipping in the Atlantic in an effort to get Great Britain, who at the time is getting military aid from the natural US, to give up its fight against the Nazis.Playing alone with Hugo's demands who's blackmailing his brother, in having him possibly deported back to Germany if he doesn't go along with him, Otto tries to tip off the FBI in what Hugo and his fellow Nazi's in America are up to. This sham on Otto's part falls apart when Hugo confronts him in his home and pulls a gun on him in order to get him back into line. Hugo who's killed in the struggle with Otto has his brother, his identical twin, take over Hugo's identity and infiltrate the Nazi spy & sabotage ring that he was in charge of. Working on the inside Otto uses his disguise as Hugo to stymie the Nazi's in their attempt, through short-wave radio contact, to have their fleet of U-Boats in the Atlantic sink US shipping. Otto does this by secretly tipping off the authorities to what exactly the spy & sabotage ring are planning to do.Not acting like the mindless and comical buffoons as their almost always depicted in most movies made about them at the time the Nazi's that includes Otto's assistant in the German consulate Kurt Richten, Martin Koslek,realize that there's a spy in their mist and start to zero in on Otto. Caught with his hands in he cookie jar Otto tries to save himself in implicating, for what he actually did, US hoodlum-who's working for the Nazis-Joe Aiello (Marc Lawrence) in the stopping of the US supply ship SS Farrington from parking itself in the locks of the Panama Canal. The Nazis planned to use the explosive laden SS Farrington, with an explosive timer hidden in it, to blow the canal sky high! Thus cutting off the US Pacific and Atlantic fleets from each other in the event of the US entering into the war.****SPOILERS*** With his cover blown Otto could have just taken off to the Federal Authorities for protection but instead agreed to go back to Nazi Germany, and certain death, to save his lover-who works for the German consulate in New York- French fashion designer Karren De Relle, Anne Ayars. You see Karren wasn't really a Nazi but was forced, with her family back in Nazi occupied France, to go along with them in order to save both her and her families lives or, even worse, from being sent to a Nazi concentration camp.It was this quite an courageous act on Otto's part, willingly giving up his life to save the one that he loves, that sets him apart from the the usual blood and guts heroes that Hollywood depicted in it's movies in fighting WWII, at home as well as abroad, all over the globe. This act of unselfish courage made Otto the most unique and believable, as well as tragic, of all war or peace time movie heroes coming out of Hollywood.

This was a nice little programmer from the '40s that played the lower half of double-features. CONRAD VEIDT is interesting (as always) as a pair of identical twins, one of whom is a Nazi agent. When the bad brother is killed, the good brother takes his place and has to convince everyone that he is the loyal Nazi. Only gradually do a couple of people come to realize who the man really is.Veidt excels in the kind of role he always fared well in, especially riveting as the bad twin. Not the leading man type, he nevertheless manages to hold the screen with his histrionic finesse at playing either smooth villains or men with deeper convictions of honor.ANNE AYARS is the lovely romantic lead and the supporting cast, which includes MARTIN KOSLECK as a fierce Nazi (a role he's played so often and so well) is more than adequate.Good entertainment of its kind, it's a low-budget film directed by Jules Dassin.