Purely Joyful Movie!

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

The opening shot is an underlit traveling crane shot, followed by an upward-tilting Dutch angle of a series of backlit faces pronouncing "Guilty." It's an open secret this film was released in 1947, when every mystery was a film noir and every decent little guy faced a faceless conspiracy.Charles Waldron Jr. tells his landlady that his old friend, John Ireland and his new bride, Jane Randolph, will be staying with him a few days. Then he hides a roll of film in his drawer and goes out. Eventually his houseguests notice he's gone and call in police sergeant Sheldon Leonard and gradually get entangled in a web of....It's not the most subtly plotted of film noirs, and there's little mystery about what sort of nasty people are behind the evil doings, but it's certainly beautifully shot by horror-movie specialist George Robinson, and well performed by all hands. Director John Reinhardt was an Austrian actor who had switched to directing Spanish language movies for Fox in the early 1930s.

The end of World War II didn't end the hatred towards Jews, even in a democratic country like the United States. As evidenced in "A" films such as "Gentleman's Agreement" and "Crossfire", anti-Semitism was still rampant in the world, even though Hitler's Germany was being criticized for the cruelty of the Holocaust. Unlike the posh settings of "Gentleman's Agreement", "Crossfire" took this hatred into the darkened side streets of big street U.S.A. and added a definite film noir element into the movie's powerful theme. "Open Secret" is even tougher looking, perhaps because of its less than glossy photography, and definitely because of its independently made status.John Ireland and Joyce Randolph are a newlywed couple who arrive at the apartment of an old friend who has promised them a bed to sleep in for the night until they can find a hotel. When they arrive, they find he has disappeared, but the mystery doesn't grow until Randolph goes to develop a roll of film she's found and put into her camera (already partially exposed!) and before they can even pick up the film, they find they are in danger. Shouts of anti-semitic slurs are heard prior to this, and the pictures seem to point to both Ireland's pal's disappearance and a violent crime which has yet to be exposed.While certainly gritty and filled with some great aspects of what makes film noir fascinating, there are minor flaws in the script which makes it only slightly disappointing. However, there are more details that enhance the film rather than weaken it, such as the nosy but ultimately caring landlady (who ironically resembles Margaret Hamilton) and the round table of bigots who pass a verdict of hate, not justice, then go out to commit their crimes against society. Whether or not these men were involved with the American Nazi party is never clarified, but it is obvious that if they had been over in Hitler's Germany, they certainly would have supported the evil that was going on. There's certainly an important element of why this story needed to be told the way it is and that makes it definitely worth watching.

***SPOILERS*** Powerful and no holds barred movie about racism in America that goes as far as murder to those that don't fit into what American, according to a bunch on Neo-Nazis, are supposed to be like.It's when newlyweds photographer Paul Lester and his wife Nancy, John Ireland & Jane Randolph, came to see his army buddy Ed Stevens, Charles Walkdrow Jr, that he found the guy AWOL not only from his apartment but Paul as well! It's when Paul gets a phone call from Snap Magazine investigative reporter Larry Mitchell, Morgan Farley, about some secret information, a roll of film, that Ed was supposed to hand over to him that he realized that his friend was in a heap of trouble. Ed had secretly photographed the actions,like painting swastikas on Jewish owned establishments and setting a synagogue on fire, of a number of secretive neighborhood Neo-Nazis that he infiltrated. What's even worse these Neo-Nazis were also involved in the murder of a Jewish man in the neighborhood, Mr. Fisher, by running him down in a staged hit-and-run "accident". It's later with the help of police Det. Sgt.Mike Frotelli, Sheldon Leonard, that Ed's body is recovered in him suffering the same fate that Mr. Fisher did: killed in a hit-in-run "accident".It's in fact the Neo-Nazis brazenness in not being able to keep their big mouths shut by always getting themselves drunk at their neighborhood hangout, "The no Jews allowed 19th Hole", about what their up to that leads to their ultimate demise. There's also a few, to say the least, weak links in their rag tag organization of drunks loudmouths and Adolph Hitler wannabes with them, when the heats on, turning over evidence to the DA in order to save their skins. That all ends up exposing their leader or Fuhrer's evil and diabolical plans for the future of America!It's the Neo-Nazis attempt to run Jewish camera store owner Harry Strass, George Tyne, out of the neighborhood is what in the end did the rascals in. Not at all intimidated by the Neo-Nazis Harry joined with Paul to put this slobbery bunch of self-styled Ubermenchen, Supermen in German, out of business. It was Harry who developed the very incriminating film that the late Ed Stevens gave him that put his life in danger! Hiding the film in Ed's apartment the head Neo-Nazi, who shall remain nameless, tried to talk Paul's wife Nancy into turning over the film and negatives to him for safe keeping. It's in his not so subtle demands to get his hands on the film which finally got Nacy wise to what he was in fact planning: Burn and film & negatives!***SPOILERS*** Nail-biting finish with Harry putting his life on the line by him going into the lions den the anti-semitic "19th Hole" bar, where no Jews are allowed, to both give Paul who was being held hostage enough time to make his getaway while most of the Neo-Nazis were lead on a wild goose chase by Harry in trying to find Ed's developed photos of them in action! As for Hitler Jr, the head of this unsavory group of Nazi storm troopers, he got his and got it good by trying to check out with Ed's photo's Tarzan style, by by jumping out of a closed window, only to find out that he, unlike Superman, isn't faster then a speeding bullet!

The late 1940s saw a brief spate of message movies dealing with anti-semitism, most notably the fantastic film noir thriller CROSSFIRE and the more famous but somewhat tepid GENTLEMAN'S AGREEMENT (both 1947). OPEN SECRET, from 1948, shares more in common with CROSSFIRE given its noir trappings and thriller elements. John Ireland plays ex-GI Paul Lester who, along with his new wife Nancy (the very alluring Jane Randolph) arrive in town with the hopes of visiting Paul's old army buddy, Ed Stevens. When Ed turns up missing, Paul and Nancy are tossed into the middle of a dark mystery involving a neighborhood hate group whose targets are ethnic immigrant residents and business owners. Chief among them is Harry Strauss (George Tyne) a Jewish camera shop owner who figures prominently in the search for Ed who, it turns out, has been hunted down and killed by the hate-mongers because of incriminating photographs involving a previous killing that were in his possession. The direction (by John Reinhardt) of the film is considerably more lively than most ultra-low budget thrillers and the issues it brings up are actually on the level of those tackled in CROSSFIRE. Much of the dialog is quite intelligent and pungently written, dealing with delicate issues in a frank, straightforward way. Other notably interesting people in the cast are Roman Bohnen (the well-respected left-wing blacklisted actor) as an alcoholic wife-beater and member of the hate group, Sheldon Leonard (a veteran of tons of "B" noirs) as a sympathetic cop and, in a background bit part, King Donovan (from Don Siegel's "Invasion of the Body Snatchers"). OPEN SECRET has recently been released in a budget-priced DVD and I strongly urge fans of this hybrid noir genre to check it out.