Spy Ship (1942)

User Rating:

5.5/10   

Director:

B. Reeves Eason

Writers:

George Dyer (story)
Robert E. Kent (writer)

Release Date:

6 June 1942 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

A radio reporter begins to suspect that a commentator at his station may be using her position to broadcast shipping information to enemy spies. With the help of the girl's sister, he sets out to expose the spy and her Nazi gang.

Plot Keywords:

Spy | Nazi | Reporter | Saboteur | Ship

Cast

Craig Stevens	...	Ward Prescott
Irene Manning	...	Pam Mitchell
Maris Wrixon	...	Sue Mitchell
Tod Andrews	...	Gordon Morrel (as Michael Ames)
Peter Whitney	...	Zinner
John Maxwell	...	Ernie Haskell
William Forrest	...	Martin Oster
Roland Drew	...	Nils Thorson
George Meeker	...	Paul
George Irving	...	Harry Mitchell
Frank Ferguson	...	Burns
Olaf Hytten	...	Drake, the Butler
Jack Mower	...	Inspector Bond
Keye Luke	...	Koshimo Haru
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Glen Cavender	...	Karl, Radio Operator (uncredited)
Eddie Graham	...	News Office Worker (uncredited)
Creighton Hale	...	Reporter (uncredited)
Stuart Holmes	...	Hoffman - Nazi Agent (uncredited)
William Hopper	...	Reporter (uncredited)
Fred Kelsey	...	Night Watchman (uncredited)
Hank Mann	...	News Office Worker (uncredited)
Frank Mayo	...	Police Sergeant (uncredited)
Lon McCallister	...	Telegram Messenger Boy (uncredited)
Lee Phelps	...	Listener on Street (uncredited)
Cliff Saum	...	Swifty, Bartender (uncredited)
Leo White	...	Waiter (uncredited)

Directed by
B. Reeves Eason

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
George Dyer		story "The Five Fragments"
Robert E. Kent		writer

Original Music by
Howard Jackson		(uncredited)
William Lava		(uncredited)
Max Steiner		(uncredited)

Cinematography by
Harry Neumann

Film Editing by
James Gibbon

Art Direction by
Ted Smith

Costume Design by
Milo Anderson

Makeup Department
Perc Westmore	....	makeup artist

Sound Department
Francis J. Scheid	....	sound

Music Department
Leo F. Forbstein	....	musical director
Charles Maxwell	....	orchestrator (uncredited)

Other crew
Harry Seymour	....	dialogue director

Production Companies

• Warner Bros. Pictures

Distributors

• Warner Bros. Pictures (1942) (USA) (theatrical)

Runtime:

62 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

The character of Pam Mitchell was loosely based on real-life record-breaking aviatrix Laura Ingalls, a member of the America First Committee (called "America Above All" in the film) and a prominent isolationist speaker. Though Ingalls was never charged with espionage, she was convicted of serving as an unregistered German agent and was sentenced on February 20, 1942, just three and one-half months before "Spy Ship" was released.

Movie Connections:

Remake of Fog Over Frisco (1934)

You don't care what happens to freedom either do you Pam!

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

***SPOILERS*** It's December 1941 and antiwar and isolationist firebrands Pam Mitchell,Irene Manning, the head of the AAA, America Above All Committiee, is at the top of her game. Pam is hard at work, on her radio program, convincing the vast majority of the American People to reject that "warmonger", FDR, in the White House requests for helping the beleaguered United Kingdom, as well as USSR,in its life and death struggle with Nazi Germany. What the American public doesn't know is that their heroine Pam Mitchell is actually working with the Nazis in revealing the shipping routes of US supply ships, under foreign flags, to the German Navy! It's the German's wolf pack fleet of U-Boats that's been sinking those US ships at an alarming rate!

Trying to stem the tide of Pam's popularity is newsman Ward Prescott, Craig Stevens, who suspects that her concern for American interests is just a front for her serving her far off Fuhrer in Berlin Adolph Hitler! Ward coming up with evidence that Pam's radio broadcasts coincides with US supply ships being sunk in the North Atlantic has her fellow travelers, the Nazis, try to knock him off.

After Ward survives an assassination attempt at his office Pam's step-sister Sue, Maris Wrixon, join him in trying to not only expose Pam but those that are in league with her that includes her lover Gordon Morrell, Ted Andrews, who runs a shipping insurance company. It's Gordon also supplies Pam with information, and get paid for it by her Nazis friends, of when and where those ships will be in order to have them tracked down an sunk by Hitler's U-Boats

If the story isn't confusing enough already we then have an old flame of Pam's Martin Oster, William Forrest, suddenly show up to really muddle or gum up the works. Oster was the person who had recruited Pam into spying for Nazi Germany two years ago when he was Pam's lover. Now running the pro-American but also pro-war Liberity Committie as a front for his Ani-American Pro-Nazi activities Oster want's the love letters he sent Pam at that time to be destroyed. It's those letters that if made public will reveal Oster's real purpose in life: Searving Hitler's Germany!

****SPOILER ALERT*** It's this round robin love affair with Pam and Oster, who now want's nothing to do with her romantically, and her present boyfriend Gordon that sets the stage for Pam falling out with her Nazi comrades. This leads to Pam ending up dead in order to keep her big mouth shut.

To keep the movie interesting as well as keep the audience awake and watching were also given this Japanese villain Hiru, Keye Luke, who's the main man, sent by Tojo himself, to orchestrated the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor from the safety of Amerian soil. The film "Spy Ship" does in fact end on a Nazi spy ship with the good guys, the US Army Marines Coast Guard and FBI thrown in for good measures, taking on Hiru and his Nazi allies, all five of them, in what turned out to be a South Chicago gangland like shootout. It was good to see the good guys win but it at the same time was somewhat disheartening to see that they needed odds of something like 20 to 1 in their favor to do it! It made American audiences wonder, back then when the movie was released in 1942, how our boys will stand up against the both brutally effective German and Japanese Armies on the field of battle!

P.S The movie "Spy Ship" also has as its theme song the recently released, the year before in 1941, great Johnny Murcer instrumental arrangement of his song "This Time the Dream's on Me" which was about the best thing in it.