Walk a Crooked Mile


Walk a Crooked Mile is a 1948 anti-communist film noir crime film directed by Gordon Douglas and starring Louis Hayward and Dennis O'Keefe.

Premise

A communist spy ring has infiltrated Lakeview Laboratory of Nuclear Physics, a Southern California atomic research center. Scotland Yard detective Philip Grayson and FBI agent Dan O'Hara are on the case.

Cast

The film was originally titled FBI vs Scotland Yard but this was changed at the request of J. Edgar Hoover.

Reception

When the film was released, The New York Times film critic, Bosley Crowther, while giving the film mixed review, wrote well of the screenplay, "No use to speak of the action or the acting. It's strictly routine. But the plot is deliberately sensational."
The staff at Variety gave the film a favorable review, writing, "Action swings to San Francisco and back to the southland, punching hard all the time under the knowledgeable direction of Gordon Douglas. On-the-site filming of locales adds authenticity. George Bruce has loaded his script with nifty twists that add air of reality to the meller doings in the Bertram Millhauser story. Dialog is good and situations believably developed, even the highly contrived melodramatic finale. Documentary flavor is forwarded by Reed Hadley's credible narration chore."