Waterfront (1944)

Fresh and Exciting

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

1944's "Waterfront" is a reasonable example of a Poverty Row spy picture, this one from PRC rather than Republic or Monogram. None could be considered classics of course, generally set in the US and inexpensively confined to just a few tiny sets. What makes these stand out at all isn't the script but the actors involved, in this case John Carradine and J. Carrol Naish, both undercover Nazi agents working the San Francisco waterfront. Naish's Dr. Carl Decker is an optometrist in possession of a code book that can decipher the secret instructions for Carradine's Victor Marlow, newly arrived and impatient to get started. The film opens with the code book being stolen, and by the time it's over all the bad guys are captured or dead (no one comes off very smart). Just a few months before the iconic PRC "Bluebeard," Carradine relishes his villainy, playing his final Nazi role, while Naish provides good support, as do Edwin Maxwell and John Bleifer, veteran performers all. Actress Maris Wrixon previously worked with Boris Karloff in both Warners' "British Intelligence" and Monogram's "The Ape," and reunited with Carradine in Monogram's "The Face of Marble."

Dr. Karl Decker(J. Carrol Naish)is a well known and respected optometrist with an office on a San Francisco waterfront. It is not common knowledge that he is a front man for a cell of the Third Reich. A henchman named Marlow(John Carradine)is to arrive from Germany and collect a code book full of top-secret information; but Decker is mugged and is robbed of the little black book. An upset Marlow makes the rounds visiting possible German Americans, who may have the book. It is not above him to use terror tactics on those with relatives in concentration camps. The cast also includes: Maris Wixon, Edwin Maxwell, John Bleifer, and Olga Fabian.

I just saw this movie and thought, on the whole, that this is a worthwhile WWII spy flick.John Carradine provided a very good, very chilling performance as the lead "bad guy". Other performances were sound. The script seemed to me to be fairly solid as well. The general flavor of foggy, drippy, SF waterfront "trouble" was effective and appealing.This was produced in 1944 when, of course, domestic spying was a real concern, and ethnic heritage in an Axis nation could sometimes excite not always fair concerns about loyalty. All the more impressive, then, is the sympathetic depiction of a German-American family.All in all a film worth seeing if you like WWII-era flicks about the war and espionage.

Dr. Carl Decker runs an optometrist shop on the San Francisco waterfront, but he also doubles as a Nazi spy for the Bay area. Decker is robbed of his code book, which also contains the names of all the enemy agents in the area. Decker and Marlow, another spy who just arrived in San Francisco to have his orders decoded by Decker, go off in search of the present owner of the book, who is also one of the Nazi spies operating on the west coast. Marlow, however, has a nasty streak to him, blackmailing the owner of a boarding house owner, Mrs. Hausner with impending threats to her family still living in Germany, and not being shy about using his gun when the situation arises. Marlow eventually shoots another Nazi collaborator Kramer, who is running out and Marlow believes will rat on him and Decker, and the crime is pinned on Jerry Donovan, the fiancé of Mrs. Hauser's daughter, Freda. Eventually Marlow has to prevent the Maxwell murder from coming back to him, while avoiding capture at the same time. Pretty good war time espionage flick with good performances from Carradine and Naish. The rest of the cast is standard for a PRC production. The climax of the film is really a drawback, lacking much excitement and seemingly rushed. Rating, 7.