List Price: $14.98You Pay Only: $13.49 You Save: $1.49 (10%)Prices subject to change.
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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 0024543191094
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Full Screen, NTSC
Label: 20th Century Fox
Manufacturer: 20th Century Fox
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: 20th Century Fox
Region Code: 1
Release Date: September 06, 2005
Running Time: 87 minutes
Sales Rank: 27090
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Theatrical Release Date: September 10, 1945
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Editorial Review:
Description:
A stentorian narrator tells us that the USA was flooded with Nazi spies in 1939-41. One such tries to recruit college grad Bill Dietrich, who becomes a double agent for the FBI. While Bill trains in Hamburg, a street-accident victim proves to have been spying on atom-bomb secrets; conveniently, Dietrich is assigned to the New York spy ring stealing these secrets. Can he track down the mysterious 'Christopher' before his ruthless associates unmask and kill him?
Amazon.com:
The House on 92nd Street has solid claims to a place in film history, and not just as an engrossing true-life counter-espionage movie. Its working title was 'Now It Can Be Told,' and its story--about the F.B.I. smashing a Nazi spy ring in New York--involved the stealing of atomic secrets. That surely upped the topical ante for 1945 audiences (who, we may assume, had a lot less ambivalent feelings about the F.B.I. than latterday viewers).
Of more lasting significance, the movie pioneered a salutary postwar trend in American filmmaking: forsaking the Hollywood soundstages and back lot to tap the freshness and palpable authenticity of real-world locations. Shot mostly in New York City, House was a collaboration between 20th Century–Fox and Louis de Rochement, the documentary producer renowned for his 'March of Time' newsreels. The working formula of House and its successors was to fully incorporate documentary techniques into the storytelling, and to 'film where it actually happened.' That included using some nonprofessional performers, sometimes people who had been involved in the case. Fox went on to embrace this aesthetic in not only the de Rochement–produced 13 Rue Madeleine and Boomerang! but also the gangster movie Kiss of Death, the journalistic detective story Call Northside 777, and another F.B.I. case history, Street With No Name. Even the storybook fantasy of the studio's 1947 Miracle on 34th Street was charmingly validated by setting Kris Kringle down amid real New Yorkers and real Gotham grittiness.
Noiristes should stand advised that House on 92nd Street, a key influence on film noir, is not quite a true noir itself (whereas Anthony Mann's T-Men is noir to the max). Even as a German-American double agent, hero William Eythe is unburdened by neurosis or doubt, and the stylistic keynote is documentary gray, not black--though a murder in a railroad yard and the final showdown are memorably stark and dark. --Richard T. Jameson
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - spy movie
This was an enjoyable recounting of an actual spying event. I enjoyed the mixture of documentary footage. The ending was interesting. It was amusing to see how old time equipment was used in protecting the US.
Rating:  - The House on 92nd Street
Narrated in semi-documentary style and produced by "March of Time" newsreel creator Louis de Rochemont, Hathaway's intriguing WWII espionage thriller helped set in motion the semi-documentary vogue, featuring gritty on-location shooting and stories based on actual cases. Combining extant footage of German spies, a cast of unfamiliar stage actors and real-life FBI agents, and Reed Hadley's stern voiceover, "House" certainly has a true-to-life feel. But it's the tightly paced action and atmospheric, spy vs. spy suspense that turned this noir nail-biter into a bona fide box-office hit.
Rating: - Saving Atomic Secrets
This story is adapted from cases in the FBI files. The scenes are from actual places in most cases. The FBI started building up its personnel in 1939. They checked all mail to suspected German agents, and filmed everyone who visited their Embassy in Washington. They learned they were recruiting Americans as agents. One of them, William Dietrich, started working for the FBI. A German agent had an accident (fell or pushed?) And his belongings were given to the FBI. Cryptanalysts deciphered a message about "Process 97", the top secret scientific research project of WW II.
Double agent Dietrich returned to America. His microfilmed type authorization was quickly forged to allow him more powers. Dietrich visited the house on 92nd Street (the Yorkville area) and presented himself to Elsa Gephardt. (His authority was questioned as it was against Standard Operating Procedures.) The film shows surveillance in those days: conversations are recorded on phonograph records. (The story about re-transmitted radio messages implies the Germans had no records of Dietrich's telegraphy style.) There is a meeting where a drunk talks too much; they take care of him so he will tell no tales. There is an important message about "Process 97". This leads the FBI to investigate hundreds of people at that secret site. The guilty parties are discovered and their contacts identified. But a new message from Hamburg provided the original authorization! Dietrich's cover is blown. Elsa Gephardt uses scopolamine to get ... Read More
Rating: - An Excellent Transfer
This is a very clean transfer of the movie. It is well worthwhile to upgrade from the VHS version or to view for the first time. The movie, itself, is a good example of its genre--a period WWII spy thriller that weaves in historical fact. See, for instance, the book "The Game Of The Foxes" by Ladislas Farago.
Rating:  - A reverential look at the FBI versus Nazi spies, with a sly performance by Leo G. Carroll
"This story is adapted from the cases in the espionage files of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Produced with the F.B.I.'s complete cooperation, it could not be made public until the first atomic bomb was dropped on Japan." So reads the introduction. Despite 20th Century Fox marketing this DVD as a noir, it's just a pompous semi-documentary...a paean to the FBI. We're sitting in the church of J. Edgar Hoover and Hollywood has written the sermon and is leading the choir. For the first 20 minutes of this 87 minute movie we're taken on a tour of FBI resources, told of FBI dedication to fight spies..."vigilant, tireless, implacable"...and shown how FBI knowledge of German secret agents protected this nation, especially when it came to foiling Nazi plans to discover "Process 97" (the atomic bomb). If we're not grateful to the FBI by the time the story starts, we still have Reed Hadley's stentorian voice-over and a music score that's part soap opera, part grand opera to come to grips with.
Bill Dietrich (William Eythe), "a brilliant young student," is recruited in 1939 by the Nazi's in America to be a German agent just before he graduates. Dietrich immediately reports this to the FBI. They agree that he will take the offer and then, after training in Germany, become a double agent when the Nazis send him back to the States. When he arrives in New York, he joins a Nazi ring led by Elsa Gebhardt (Signe Hasso), a beautiful, icy blonde who owns a haute couture dress shop on 92nd Street. She ... Read More
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