13 Rue Madeleine

Starring: James Cagney, Annabella, Richard Conte, Frank Latimore, Walter Abel, Sam Jaffe
Directed by: Henry Hathaway
Rating: Not rated
Genre: Action, Drama, War, Thriller
1947

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: During World War II, secret intelligence expert Robert Sharkey (James Cagney) is called into service when one of his agents is murdered by an undercover German spy (Richard Conte). He parachutes into France to stop him.

Review:

Tim: 13 Rue Madeleine is probably a pretty influencial spy thriller. However, I just couldn't bring myself to like it. Yes, there are certainly some strengths- the style of the movie, the filming on location, and the story which just barely scratches the surface of being propaganda. However, there are also some big weaknesses. The story gets a bit muddled, and about two thirds of the way through, I just felt myself get lost. Not in the sense that I couldn't follow what was happening on screen, but I just didn't care much anymore. I think this movie just missed the mark.

The story is fairly interesting at first. We are given a docu-drama approach of secret intelligence during World War II. We follow a select group of spies in training. James Cagney oversees the trainees, and all of this works. It was very interesting getting a behind-the-scenes look at American spies. Once they graduate and go into the field, the movie continues to work. There are a few tense moments, and a fairly shocking occurence on an airplane. All this time, I was following the movie well. Then, Cagney decides to leap into action, and I thought to myself, "This is cool- the expert spy going back into the field." And this is where the movie begins to fall apart. We have a whole host of different events, none of which are particularly exciting or intriguing. I was mildly interested here, but there was nothing that really grabbed me. The movie gets worse and worse, until the conclusion, which is truly pretty good.

It also hurt the movie that the characters were a bit underdeveloped. Cagney is certainly a cool actor, and this was a good part for him to play, but I never really identified with or cared about his character. I needed to understand him better, but I never did. This is also true about the rest of the cast. We understand only the bare minimum about these characters. The lead actress, Annabella (weird name) has a small side story about her missing husband, but this never culminates in anything of real value. The script was weak in the character development area. I felt like every character in the movie, perhaps save for Richard Conte's double agent, was a cardboard cut out of what a real character should have been. They were all incredibly forgettable.

I thought I was going to like this movie, and I really tried to. However, there are just too many weaknesses. The movie wasn't terrible- I remained mildly interested throughout. Sadly, I just never was able to get invested in the characters or the story. Being on the outside led me to nitpick about different aspects of the movie, which resulted in it not hitting me on any kind of an emotional level. It is fun to watch an early spy thriller, but 13 Rue Madeleine is just not a very good movie.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: White Heat, Across the Pacific