Cloak and Dagger (1946)

☆ ☆ ☆

Cloak and Dagger (1946) – F. Lang

Lesser Fritz Lang effort that was apparently subject to some post-production tampering by Warner Brothers to remove some pointed anti-nuclear bomb sentiment (presumably since the US had already dropped the bomb and showed no intention of backing away from holding a nuclear arsenal).  Gary Cooper plays a nuclear scientist who is recruited by the OSS to go overseas to Europe to contact other nuclear scientists who have been forced by the Nazis to contribute to their bomb-making initiative.  Things move reasonably swiftly until the action moves from Switzerland to Italy and Cooper meets his love interest (Lilli Palmer).  But then everything drags as they wait for offscreen events to occur.  Basically, the Allies hope to convince an Italian nuclear physicist to escape with them but they need to first free his daughter who is being held hostage by the Nazis.  Why we don’t get to see this action beats me but instead we hang out with Cooper (who is not the most dynamic of actors at this stage in his career) and Palmer.  The film wraps up soon after and when I discovered later that a fourth reel may have been deleted, this made sense.  However, even so, the film doesn’t really seem to link with any of Lang’s major themes (a pessimistic view of societal forces that entrap the protagonist – as in the classic films noir that he directed); instead it is a straight adventure yarn, albeit with some serious consequences.