Escape in the Fog (1945)

People are voting emotionally.

Just what I expected

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

***SPOILERS*** Foggy movie that has to do with seeing the future as well as a ring of Nazi spies in foggy San Francisco working for the Japanese Empire revolving around a clock shop run by one of them Mr.Schiller, Konstantin Shayne, in the Chinatown district. It's when Eilene Carr,Nina Foch, has this reoccurring nightmare about being trapped on the Golden Gate Bridge while someone is about to be stabbed to death that she's suddenly awakened from her dream by what turns out to be the man about to be murdered super secret US Government Agent Barry Malcolm, William Wright, and a fellow tenant who both brake into her hotel room.As we soon find out Agent Barry isn't there to see the sights of the city or have a sea food dinner but deliver to his fellow US undercover agents stationed in far off Japanese occupied Hong Kong a list of those, I guess themselves, who are working there so they won't get confused to who's who and not end up accidentally offing themselves. While Barry is about to be sent on his top secret mission he's kidnapped by the Nazi spies lead by master spy Paul Devon,Otto Kruger, from his taxi, driven by actress Shelly Winters,and forced to spill the beans as well as the secret papers, identifying the US Agents in Hong Kong,to them. This is where we first got in to this strange movie where the dream that Eilene had about Barry being kidnapped and soon to be killed comes to light in-for the second time-the movie! You just don't know what to make of all this is it about the supernatural or just a plain garden verity WWII spy movie with Eilene looking totally confused throughout the entire film. Eevn when she was kidnapped along with Barry-for a second time-after finding the secret memo, that Barry lost or threw away in the fog, by the Nazi spies who planned to murder the both of them by blowing them to bit in a gas explosion at Schiller's clock shop in Chinatown! It was Barry using his noodle-brain-who alerted a number of Chinese in the neighborhood to brake into the clock shop, by flashing with a combination flashlight and magnify glass "Hail Japan", who were anything but pro-Japanese.***SPOILERS****With now both Devon & Schiller's cover blown and on the run from the police as well as Barry they end up shooting themselves by accident in not being able to recognize each other in the thick pea soup like fog. Released in April 1945 with the wars in both the Pacific and Europe just about to come to an end in a German & Japanese defeat there was really nothing for the then American audience to get excited about since the Nazi spies and their Japanese allies were in no position to do us any harm. What was interesting was Eilene's dream of future events that after it was proved to be accurate and in fact saved Agent Barry's life it was never explained or as far as I know mentioned again in the movie!

On a foggy San Francisco night, dreamy Nina Foch (as Eileen Carr) takes a melancholy walk on the Golden Gate Bridge. The beautiful young woman is suddenly witness to a terrifying confrontation. Apparently, it ends with a murder, but Ms. Foch wakes up just before the deadly knife takes its final plunge. Fortunately, it was only a dream. Unfortunately, it begins to come true. Foch's wakening scream draws the attention of a man in the inn where she is staying. He looks exactly like the victim, William Wright (as Barry Malcolm), from her dream. Foch has never met the man before he appeared in her nightmare. He's a spy for the US, soon to receive a summons from agent Otto Kruger (as Paul Devon). After showing a romantic interest in Foch, Mr. Wright must deliver a top secret packet to Hong Kong...With a skillfully conceived story by Aubrey Wisberg, "Escape in the Fog" is an entertaining spy thriller. Director Budd Boetticher gets attention with the nightmarish opening and Foch delivers a fine characterization. On the downside, her romance with Mr. Wright is not initially believable; perhaps, if the actors had more quality time, the coupling would click. Most interesting is the fact that Foch's character has a supernatural power (seeing future events in her dreams). The explanation appears to be post-traumatic stress suffered during her stint as a nurse in World War II. Although this aspect of Foch's character is dispensed with early, she maintains interest. Watch for young starlet Shelley Winters as a hotel taxi driver and veteran D.W. Griffith player and "Tarzan" portrayer Elmo Lincoln as a lawman.****** Escape in the Fog (1945/04/05) Budd Boetticher ~ Nina Foch, William Wright, Otto Kruger, Konstantin Shayne

Another wartime programmer that Hollywood was turning out by the hundreds. The only unusual angle is the mixing of espionage with psychic dreams, apparently an everyday occurrence in this scripted world. Except for the bland male lead (Wright), it's an excellent cast of stereotypes, including professional Hollywood Nazi, Ivan Triesault who made a career of these cruel types. There's also the incredibly smooth Otto Kruger playing a good guy, for once, but then who could do oily villains better than his smiling cobra. And what guy wouldn't like to partner-up with newcomer Nina Foch in an extended game of mixed doubles. With his penchant for cool blondes, I wonder why Hitchcock didn't enlist her obvious talents at some point. Anyway, cult director Boetticher helms in efficient style, the fog machine gets overtime, and a number of practiced players do their thing. (In passing, note how slickly Boetticher stages the shootout near movie's end—a foreshadowing of the classics to come. Note too, that Malcolm represents a generic federal agency and not the FBI by name. That way possible legal problems are avoided.) Nothing exceptional here, just a demonstration of how the studio assembly line turned out an entertaining product even under straitened wartime conditions.

That is the answer. The question is: What is the single reason to watch this movie? I loved her in "My Name Is Julia Ross." That is one of the best films noir of all time. Noir or whatever one may call it, it's a very unsettling movie.She is fun in one of the worst major studio releases of all time, too. That would be "The Guilt Of Janet Ames." This one has a spooky, promising title. It has a good cast. It has a fine director. I was expecting something dark. Maybe something a little tawdry. Instead, it's an uninspired, routine espionage movie. It's pretty much is a total bore. At least it was to me. Ms. Foch is captivating. And that is about it.