This Noirvember film is an odd one (but can I really call anything odd after Pillow of Death? And yes, I am going to keep bringing it up). It is, I would say a proper(-ish) spy film, with the War background and all the possible European connections. It was allegedly inspired by J. Edgar Hoover’s article about the Rosenberg Case but the film is pretty vague about what actually are the details of the espionage being carried out.
Walk East on Beacon was directed by Alfred L. Werker and stars George Murphy, Finlay Currie, Virginia Gilmore, and Karel Štěpánek.
The film begins with a fairly long introduction through voice-over where we learn that the story was „recorded from recorded experiences of the FBI”. Essentially, we follow an agent tasked with finding out who among the higher-ups is the spy working for the Communists. Top secret missions and high-tech solutions happen. A lot of characters are introduced, I did not care for a single one of them. The end.
This is essentially a red scare film. Maybe it’s me being European (or just me realizing that for VERY MANY PEOPLE the US was not exactly the utopia the film insists it was) but those are not exactly my cup of tea. And the politics of the film aside, Walk East on Beacon is just not that exciting of a story. And with it being a spy film one would expect more. I guess you could make the case that this lack of dramatization is a deliberate choice, since it is supposed to look like a documentary, but I was not convinced.
Swingin' at the Seance 