***A Thicket Of Deceit-James Cagney’s 13 Rue Madeleine

DVD Review

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

13 Rue Madeleine, starring James Cagney, Richard Conte, 1947 

Every once in a while it is legitimately possible to think, to “what if” think,  about what would have happened in a military situation if certain information had been available about the enemy’s deployments, strengths, and such. If that that information had been used in a timely manner. In modern times one thinks about Stalin’s head-in-the-sand attitude toward Hitler with the signing of the German-Russian non-aggression pact prior to World War II after he had been informed by master spy Richard Sorge and others of the date on which the German armies would be advancing on Russia in June, 1941. And one can think as well about what would have happened if the Germans, who were desperately working on finding out the information, had known about the place and time where the second front was to be opened up, had known that it was Normandy. Seeking that information had been the subject of several novels and films, especially espionage thrillers, including the early docu-drama under review, 13 Rue Madeleine.          

No question modern espionage is a tough racket, no longer as a rule is one nation able to gather information about another in wartime without some professional direction. Of course we all know of the CIA in America, and some may know of its precursor during World War II, the OSS. With the use of a little cinematic license the storyline of this film is based on one of the wartime files from that latter agency, a story about how one gallant team of spies thwarted yet another German effort to find out about the landing place for the second front in Europe.     

As  I mentioned doing such spy work in modern times takes plenty of certain kind of skills, physical, mental and emotional and so the first part of the film concentrate on weeding out the professionals from the amateurs. And that nuts and bolts work has been entrusted to a well-thought of master spy, Bob Sharkey (played by old time cinematic gangster James Cagney) who is charged with creating teams who will eventually see action in Europe in secret locations in England. The film focuses on the creation of one such team, a team which to add to the intrigue has been infiltrated by a master German spy, Wilhem Kuncel (played by Richard Conte), who has been sent by the High Command to see if he can find out the landing spot.

Of course the Americans are on to Kuncel and to flush him out Sharkey has devised a fake mission for him and his team (while giving the other two team members a different mission, to get the French rocket scientist Dubois out of France and into Allied hands in order to tell them where the rockets the Germans have placed in strategic spots were located). But Kuncel was no fool, had been at the spy business for a while, and so he ditched his team (killing one and setting up the other) and returned to his own side. Kuncel’s escape leaves things in a tight spot since he can turn in every agent he trained with. So naturally somebody has to do in Kuncel and Sharkey despite his knowledge of the time and place of the landing volunteers. He wants revenge for those lost agents as well. Their mission had been aborted but they still needed to get Dubois to give them the locations of the rocket sites.

And by a circuitous route Sharkey does get Dubois out and singing to the Allies with the help of the French Resistance. But he also gets captured by a Kuncel-led manhunt and taken to 13 Rue Madeleine, the Gestapo headquarters in the area. The Gestapo torture him trying to get that damn information about the landing out of him. Sharkey’s bosses back in England know two things; Sharkey is a goner under the torturous Gestapo regime and Kuncel must not get any information about the landing out of 13 Rue Madeleine. So with the traitor Dubois giving the coordinates they sent a bombing mission to level that location to the ground. And it was making Sharkey posthumously a hero. Like I said modern espionage is a tough racket.