The House on Carroll Street (1988)

Thanks for the memories!

Boring

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

This is a thriller that provides home entertainment, and is preferred alternative to what competes with it today on TV screen. The performance of Jeff Daniels, Kelly McGillis, and Mandy Potemkin live up to expectations --and there are good supporting performances provides as well. The Korean war was going on that time this movie was framed (1951), and if you can accept the absence of this, you'll probably be wondering about the timing/intent of bringing former Nazi physicians into the country. The scenes from Grand Central Station are some best parts of the movie--and compare favorably with all others I've seen. An aside point, the sound recording level is poor--we cranked it up while watching it--and was shocked at the regular volume when we switched back to regular TV. Record this on your digital recorder.

Excellent and entertaining movie in many regards. The 1950's atmosphere is caught very well: elegant clothing, superb cars, leafy New York streets, New York's Grand Central Station and a cameo role for the shiny Chicago Express. The OST by George Delarue too is worth while listening to. It does more than just underpin the action in the movie, it stands perfectly well on its own legs.I've noticed some reviewers made a link between the looks of Ray Salwen (Mandy Patinkin) and a young Richard Nixon, who was heading the House on Un- American Activities Committee (HUAC) in the early fifties. I'd rather compare the smug Salwen figure with Roy Cohn, McCarthy's right hand and ax man. (Patinkin would have been a perfect choice for the main role of "Citizen Cohn" in 1992, although James Woods too did a nice job) As other reviewers have pointed out, there are indeed some similarities with Hitchcock movies from the 1950's. All shots show clean streets, nice looking people, shiny cars… You won't see any hoodlums, hobo's, mean looking motorcycle gang members. There's not even the page of a newspaper pushed around by the wind in the New York streets. Even the bad guys that kill the German young man with a knife are dressed up as if they come from the horses or some fancy restaurant. The romance between McGillis and FBI man Cochran (Daniels) too is treated in a very 1950's way. To many viewers, this will be seen as a lack of chemistry between the two main characters. However, to my h.o. an all too steamy relationship would have somehow spoiled this elegant movie, and especially slowed down the pace considerably.OK, there are a number of weak points in the scenario: it's highly improbable that a hush hush operation of smuggling Nazi's into the US would have used such an "unsafe safe-house" as the one in Carroll Street. ID papers would have been arranged for, while those war criminals were still in Europe, to reduce as much as possible the risks. And it's rather silly seeing a Senator's aide going as far as entering into Emily's bathroom. Very intimidating, OK, but I'd rather think this kind of a job would have been left to some low ranking goons. And finally, what the heck is he doing on the roof of New York's Grand Central Station ??? Still, nobody complains about similar weaknesses in let's say "North by Northwest", or "Sabotage". Indeed, this movie doesn't pretend being a semi-documentary, like De Niro's "Guilty by suspicion" (1991) or Citizen Cohn are. And as pure entertainment, House on Carroll Street does a nice job. I'd rate it 8/10

Emily Crane, a photo editor at Life Magazine, refuses to turn over to a Senate committee the names and files of a civil rights organization she's associated with, she doesn't realize she'll soon be out of a job and probably the cause of a young German being stabbed to death. That's not the least of it. Soon she'll be refusing a great hamburger while a senior Senate committee staff man uses catsup on a white dining clothe to illustrate the red menace. And finally, she'll find herself clambering over the interior catwalk of New York's Grand Central Station dome, high above the floor, while killers try to insure she trips. To my mind, The House on Carroll Street is a solid and talented, if not exceptional, child of Hitchcock. The year is 1951 and anti-Communism hysteria is in full bloom. Congressional demagogues, black-listing and secret FBI files abound. When Emily (Kelly McGillis) loses her job, we learn she's under FBI surveillance. Agent Cochrane (Jeff Daniels) has been assigned to take secret photographs of her, find out who she talks to and to follow her about New York. He observes when, in need of a job, she is interviewed by Miss Venable (Jessica Tandy) to read to the old lady. And one afternoon, relaxing in the townhouse garden of Miss Venable's home, she overhears part of a conversation in German coming from the next house. Naturally nosy, she moves closer through the bushes, glimpses the face of a young German fellow she accidentally met a day or two before on the street...and then sees the face of the Senate staff head, Ray Salwen (Mandy Patinkin). Salwen was responsible for hauling her before the committee. Something is not right. A few days later she follows the German to a Jewish cemetery and finds him writing down the names of dead Jews. He seems scared. Before long, she is helping him escape from the house on Carroll Street, only to see him stabbed death in front of her. By now, FBI agent Cochrane not only realizes something is very off, he realizes Emily Crane has nice legs, is quite likable and may be in danger. He's puzzled when he is warned off by his superiors and then taken off her case. In solid Hitchcockian style, we have been following this nice and nosy woman while she slowly discovers skullduggery and then realizes that she has placed herself at great risk. And in equally solid Hitchcockian style, we have met the man in agent Cochrane who with persistence and humor will attempt to keep her from danger while joining her in uncovering a plot that deals with German war criminals and powerful men in high places. The movie has well-directed set pieces, ranging from a covert meeting in a huge, dim Greenwich Village book store to a spooky breaking-and-entering into the now abandoned house on Carroll Street (where Emily meets a man with a knife) to the exploration of the tunnels below and the girders high above the Grand Central main station. Most of all, it has two instantly appealing main characters in McGillis and Daniels. Both are completely natural in their portrayals. They have guileless faces. We immediately like both of them. Daniels in particular shows the kind of open-faced honesty that makes the movie so satisfying. The caveat I have is Mandy Patinkin. He is a forceful, intense actor. Patinkin makes Salwen a creature of such supreme self-confidence, such repellent humor that Salwen doesn't just stand for the evils of the period, he disgusts us. Patinkin's self-serving, power-justifying Salwen, full of phony patriotism and contemptuous high spirits, in my opinion very nearly overbalances the movie. Patinkin is just an inch away from becoming a caricature. Added to that are two speeches that Patinkin is given to justify his actions. Unfortunately, they move over into manipulated melodrama. The speeches are so over-the-top they tend to place the movie on hold while Patinkin gives them. However, the screenwriter is Walter Bernstein, a talented man who was black-listed for years. I'm more than willing to cut him some slack. I think The House on Carroll Street is a well-crafted semi-romantic thriller which doesn't use explosives (well, there's one), cynicism or cumbersome back stories. It has two attractive and likable leads, a plot with a message or two which keeps moving along and a bit of humor. It also has a happy ending which, in one regard, may be unexpected.

Well, I have.This is one of the last non-ironic, non-twisted thrillerplots of the mainstream movie industry of the past century. Afterwards, most thriller movies either turned "Die Hard" (nonsensical action) or "Seven" (near nonsensical twist).The thrillerplot is also serving as a shadowplay of the subplot - the failed relationship between Daniels and McGillis.The McGillis character is of course crucial. Two scenes underline her search for personal insight and freedom, where Daniels for his part gives up. One is where she is portrayed in the dark windows of the neighbourhouse, before breaking the glass. Two is her lone fight with the villain at the central train station, where Daniels is as passive as any antihero of movie history.She did kill the boy of course, and she is still waiting for that man. Is she wrong or is she right? She is she.