Walk East on Beacon!

We all know, propaganda - with shifting targets according to the years - has been at the core of U. S. (and other countries') mainstream film production from the very start. And we are all right with it, as long as it is treated with some delicacy, and, in the best cases, with some artistic goals in mind. Well, this is not the case for "Walk East on Beacon!", (1952, in the cold war era), where heroic FBI's members', as well as common citizens' efforts to counter the "red threat" are cast upon a plot lacking of whatsoever thrill. If you can stand all that, you should watch the film: an interesting specimen of its times' values. Be aware that the final scenes, as happens often in these movies, are quite concitated action shots in which is really difficult to tell what is really happening.

I'm very shy about the comparison that I now am proposing to you: an equally propagandistic film is 1959 Hitchcock's "North by Northwest". If you haven's seen it, please do, and you will understand what I mean.

This is a most conventional propaganda picture for the glory of the FBI with careful documentation of how expertly they handle their duties and get their commie villains. It is very similar in character to Henry Hathaway's "House on the 92nd Street", which though is a so much more interesting film for its characters, especially Signe Hssso. Here there are no characters except stereotypes.. The one character for which the film is worth seeing is Finlay Currie as the Russian scientist who gets into trouble, and his way of handling his very tricky path out of an immense abyss of trouble. It's not a bad film, but it is supremely superficial, varnished to 101% artificial perfection, but for Finlay Currie. who makes a great performance.

PLOT: Commy spies attempt to gain secrets.

a docu-drama style movie~ This starts as the FBI receive a hot trip about a Communist cell in Boston. WE see the newly arrived KGB contact played by Karl Stepanek who urges the spies to even more ruthless means to get secrets. Finley Currie as the Professor Kefer who is being black mailed by the spies with his son being captive in Berlin by the REDS. MADE with the cooperation of the FBI. Some of the men are actual FBI agents. BASED on story by J Edgar Hoover himself the Crime of the Century a short story in the Readers Digest. BETTER than I expected. Moves along very well and the ADDED "dedication" of the spies to the RED commy cause at times is comical and interesting. MADE at time of the RED SCARE (COMMUNIST) days of the 1950s. I give this 7 out of 10 for interesting COMMY spies inside the USA. Also recommend is the HOUSE on 92nd STREET.

Know how I feel about film noir? Love it to death! To me, it's not so much a genre, more a way of life. The inescapable reality, however, is that in the natural, universal scheme of existence, there is inevitably a percentage of crud at the bottom of the barrel. Indeed, the grating noise of a barrel being scraped, would provide a pertinent soundtrack for this dreary movie.

'Walk East on Beacon!' is a truly dour, dull docu-noir. A movie entirely devoid of personality. There are no strong characters, smart one-liners or wittily deadpan ripostes. In short, a gaggle of good grey men seek to smoke out a gaggle of gruesome greyer men (and women), who, despite being on the same page, exude as much warmth as a Siberian snowstorm in their dealings with each other. The sole striking performance comes from Finlay Currie as the ageing, vulnerable scientific genius, who has defected to the U. S. and is anxious about the plight of his son in East Berlin. Currie is fairly sound, but this is no Abel Magwitch and hints of native Scottish can be detected within his generic Eastern European brogue.

If one scene personifies the movie's relentlessly lacklustre tone, it's a conference room adorned by a group of middle-aged, largely bespectacled Communists, glumly listening to a reel to reel tape recording of Currie waxing lyrical about his revolutionary, life changing breakthrough, at the end of which they exit, with the same blank, glum indifference.

Released when blacklisting was at its peak: As a tirade against the rising tide of Communism, it makes for pretty tedious viewing. A missed opportunity, a damp squib of a picture. Not so much a film noir, more a film gris!

An hysterical anti-communist screed dolled up in the drag of a police procedural, Walk East On Beacon simply isn't up to the task of alerting us to the dangers of a Fifth Column in our midst. Well filmed but weedily written (and based on a magazine article by the Dark Prince of the F.B.I., J. Edgar Hoover), the film stars Republican senator-in-waiting George Murphy as a G-Man hot on the heels of a Red sleeper cell. Murphy was never much of an actor, and here he's strictly in Jack Webb just-the-facts-ma'am territory. Location photography in Boston gives the film a boost, but overall Walk East On Beacon! can't match either the red hot emotional power of Pickup On South Street or the creepy intensity of My Son John, two other Red Menace films of the period.