Here are several classic Hollywood film noir movies that I enjoyed recently. Not only for the stories, but because they portray actual places and events, in cases taken from actual government espionage files.
A story that follows the real espionage case in Canada, about agents in the Soviet embassy in Ontario recruiting Canadians as communist spies, to steal U.S./Canadian science during development of the atomic bomb. It portrays nicely how these Russian embassy employees begin as loyal and fully indoctrinated Soviet Communist patriots, who gradually become disillusioned with their own Communist government, and decide to defect and turn over evidence to the Canadian government.
This movie focuses on a German embassy in the U.S (code named by FBI agents on the case as "the house on 92nd Street")., that is used by the Nazis to recruit a network of spies to steal secrets and advance U.S. intelligence in the years leading up to World War II. This film has the added interesting aspect, that anyone who appears and is not a major character in the film, is an actual employee of the FBI.
In the case of both films, they say in the movie credits these were all top secret files , and with the 92nd Street film, could not be revealed until the war was over. And held secret until both cases were closed and all defendants prosecuted.
Interesting to look back in these movies at the FBI surveillance and investigation procedures used in the 1940's. It makes you wonder what is now possible in the modern era 80 years later, with orbiting satellites, face recognition technology, digital image enhancement, geo-fencing to locate someone by their cel phone and read everything stored on their phone, cyber-warfare and being able to remotely access peoples' computers, phones, home security cameras, on and on. Things that were impossible even 10 or 20 years ago, that are now a standard part of CIA, FBI, or local police investigation.
