Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
 

Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939)

Director: Anatole Litvak

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Anti-Nazi propaganda film from Warners, with Robinson (like Cagney, doing an about-face from gangster roles to more respectable characters) as the G-Man ferreting out Nazi fifth columnists working in America. Topically following hard on the heels of several anti-Nazi trials in 1938, the film achieved great popular and critical success in America (though banned in many Latin American and European countries); now, for all its admirable anti-Fascist relevance, it seems weakened by its patriotic flag-waving and the pseudo-documentary approach (sacrificing suspense) taken by Litvak. But the quietly determined Robinson, the sinister Sanders (as a Nazi villain, a role he would later develop in Lang's Man Hunt), and Lederer (the man duped into becoming a spy by his vain egocentricity) lend a power to the film that makes it still worth watching.

Author: GA 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide

  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields


Cast & crew

Director: Anatole Litvak

Producer: Peter Lord

Cast: Edward G Robinson, Francis Lederer, George Sanders, Paul Lukas, Lya Lys, Henry O'Neill, James Stephenson full cast

Genre(s): Thrillers

Duration: 102 mins


Features

Making a name for himself

Making a name for himself

Sin Nombre's Cary Joji Fukunaga learned his lessons well.

To the letter

Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.

Mind over matter

David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.

Fool's gold

Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.

We are the championed

Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."

A history of violence

Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.

True romantic

James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.

Playing in the dark

MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.

Junk bonds

Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.