WATERFRONT

US, 1944, 64 minutes, Black and white.
John Carradine, J.Carroll Naish, Maris Wrixon, Edwin Maxwell.
Directed by Steve Sekely.

Waterfront was released in 1944, a contribution of a small studio to the war effort. It focuses on a group of Nazi spies, a ring in San Francisco, edited by J. Carroll Nation as, what he refers to as an oculist, but is described as an optician, with the title optometrist outside his office. He seems respectable, but is unmasked as the leader of the spies and their controller.

There is a mysterious notebook with information about all the spies – and the film opens with its being stolen during a brawl in the streets. There are various other businessmen of German origin in the city who take possession of the book and want to unmask the villains. This makes for quite some complications in blackmailing, an entrepreneur wanting to exploit the book for money (and, of course, getting his comeuppance as do the other men).

The cause of this is a Nazi operator arriving from Germany, played with sinister intent by a tall and gaunt John Carradine. He has a cover of staying in a boarding house, threatening the woman who runs it with danger for her relatives in Germany. Her daughter lives in the house and has a fiance – who is accused by the police of some of the killings.

Tension builds up, the optician is exposed and is killed, the police close in on the boarding house and, after some violent killings, the arch-villain is killed.

Interesting and entertaining in its very modest way.