Cloak and Dagger (1946)

Not to be confused with the 1984 Dabney Coleman movie or the Marvel series of the same title, 'Cloak and Dagger' is a smart Fritz Lang directed World War II espionage picture. Gary Cooper plays an American nuclear physicist (I know right) recruited by the OSS to escort an acquaintance (a defecting Hungarian physicist) out of Switzerland. Things don't go as planed (the Hungarian doesn't make it) and Cooper is rerouted to Italy in the hopes of persuading another possibly sympathetic physicist to defect. While in Rome Cooper is teamed up with a comely young member of the Italian Resistance played winningly by Polish born Lilli Palmer, who at the time was Mrs. Rex Harrison (her first of two marriages, his second of six). There's real chemistry there and the two fall in love why trying to avoid detection and escape with Vladimir Sokoloff (the Italian physicist). Written by two eventually blacklisted screenwriters, it's intelligent, at times taught, and really satisfying. The romance between Cooper and Palmer actually works as well or better then the spy stuff. Elements of the films basic plot and structure are similar to those of one of my personal favorite movies 'Night Train to Munich', only their the emphasis is on a dry humor, while'Cloak and Dagger' plays things pretty straight. This could have easily been a forgettable B picture, but it's given the A treatment throughout and really surprised with me just how good it is. ***1/2