The 49th Man (1953)

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

THE 49th MAN 1953 This Cold War thriller was put out by the B unit at Columbia Pictures. The film stars, John Ireland, Richard Denning, Suzanne Dalbert, Mike Connors, Robert Foulk, Richard Avonde and Peter Marshall.John Ireland is a Federal agent who by accident gets mixed up in a plot to bring atomic bombs into the USA. The parts are broken down into several pieces for assembly at the target city. Richard Denning is the bigwig in charge of hunting down the devices. He drafts Ireland in to aid in the hunt.The Feds are tracking down various pieces all over the States. This is starting to get serious as the number of possible bombs increases. Now the Feds find out that some Uranium has been smuggled into the country, on board a US Navy submarine of all things.Ireland is sent undercover to France with the submarine on a return visit. They are to check out the last port of call for the sub in southern France. The plot thickens as several suspects are added to the pot. These include, Suzanne Dalbert and Peter Marshall. Also in the mix are several navy types, Mike Connors and Robert Foulk.Ireland however has gotten the wrong men with the NavyOfficers. The whole atomic bomb thing turns out to be a test to see if the US borders were secure from such a threat.Needless to say that would be too simple. It turns out the Reds had tumbled to the test. They have snuck a real atomic bomb into the States. Ireland and the Feds finally realize what the Reds are planning and are soon after them. It is a cat and mouse game being played out as the pursuit heats up. The Reds are killing everyone who might rat them out.The Feds manage to do the old nick of time stunt and capture the bomb before it explodes. They fly the device to an A-Bomb test site and boot the thing out the door minutes before it goes off. The Reds are foiled, this time! The film's story, by Ivan Tors is a bit weak kneed in parts, but as a low end thriller, it has its moments.Direction was by B film specialist, Fred C Sears, who keeps the pace moving. Sears cranked out about 50 films in his 1949 till 1958 Hollywood career. Sears' films include, WORLD WITHOUT END, UTAH BLAINE, RUMBLE ON THE DOCKS, THE 49th MAN, CELL 2455 DEATH ROW and CHICAGO SYNDICATE.

None of the other reviewers seem to realize that this movie was "remade", using a somewhat different premise, but very similar in many aspects of the plot, including the last minute, down-to-the-wire ending. It was called "The Fourth Protocol", released in 1987, starring Michael Caine and Pierce Brosnan.Of course "The Fourth Protocol" had much bigger stars, bigger budget, better writers and better production values, and was certainly more believable. But we are comparing it with an early 50s B movie. It seems to me that the makers of the later movie must surely have seen this early one.

This is a diverting, entertaining, interesting, tense, and ultimately still-relevant story of agents of the Soviet Union smuggling parts of an atomic bomb into the US of A and planning to explode it in San Francisco, the swine.John Ireland is part of a counter espionage federal agency and is given the assignment of finding out who is smuggling all these A-bomb parts into the country. They're being brought in by ordinary people in suitcases, each suitcase containing one third of a bomb. There are forty-eight people all together -- or forty-eight bombs or forty-eight suitcases. I found myself confused from time to time.Before you can enjoy watching this Cold War paranoia piece, you have to work your way through several layers of dreck. First, you need not simply suspend disbelief. You must first strap it down, cut it open, disembowel it, and stuff its abdominal cavity full of minced Habanero chili peppers. All sorts of improbabilities pop up, large and small.Example of small thing. Two men are holding John Ireland prisoner in the back seat of a car. One man offers him a cigarette. Ireland accepts the cigarette, pulls out the red hot cigarette lighter from its socket, and jabs it into the man's hand. Then he leans over and strangles the man into unconsciousness, while the victim sits there passively and grimaces. The other captor merely watches the goings on. Ireland leaps from the car and escapes.That's a small thing. Here's a big difference between the observed frequency and the expected frequency. Those forty-eight suitcases? (Or people or bombs?) They were all part of a war-game exercise run without Ireland's knowledge by the agency he's part of. When this is revealed -- after all the intrigue, danger, and pain -- it's like one of those endings in which the hero is about to die and then wakes up from the nightmare. Big joke.The problem, though, is that it develops there was a forty-ninth suitcase -- or bomb or person. Real Russians were pulling a fast one on us while using our drill as a screen. But, you -- the discerning viewer ask -- you wonder how the Russians could possibly have known that such a super-secret exercise was taking place? Is that the question? Answer: You are justified in asking the question.I understand that this movie was made by a couple of schlockmeisters, but, as I said, it's entertaining nonsense. And it doesn't seem nearly as cheap as some of the sci-fi B movies of the period. The helicopters are real, not models. The airplanes are real. The submarine is real. And if the actors don't shoot out the lights, well -- what do you want, egg in your beer? John Ireland is curiously reassuring. His squinty eyes are too close together, barely kept apart by the bridge of his nose. And he's not well directed. When he's having an earnest conversation with a colleague, he seems to be arguing with some heat, not explaining something to a friend. The writing is a bit clumsy at times as well, but fortunately Ireland is given only one rah-rah speech about "you and your kind", without using that exact phrase.The ending is a happy one, though hard to believe for too many reasons to list here. But I do wish it were as difficult to smuggle the makings of a bomb into this country as the film tries to persuade us it is. I live half an hour from the Mexican border. I believe I could smuggle forty-eight or forty-nine bomb parts across that border without being caught. It doesn't take 49 bombs. It just takes one. The USSR is no more, but the threat will always be there.

Federal agents get wind of a nefarious plot by enemy agents to smuggle components of an atomic bomb into the United States. The enemy agents plan to then assemble it and blow up a major American city. The feds try to hide the fact that they have captured several of the smugglers in order to find the meeting place and capture the ring leader.This "B" grade thriller is of interest for its moderately interesting plot. John Ireland gives a good performance as a federal agent determined to catch the enemy agents. Everything else is pretty standard.