d6a2afd33b Based on the long-running radio program created by Philips H. Lord, the film opens with a radio commentator blasting the U. S. government for the manner in which a certain foreign power has obtained secret information during WWII. The commentator is brought to the secret headquarters of &quot;David Harding, Counterspy&quot; where he learns that the story was deliberately planted with the commentator to fool the enemy. Harding them tells, in flashback, a specific story to illustrate how counter-espionage works. Jerry Baldwin, a U.S. Navy officer is brought to a city where torpedoes are manufactured for the Navy, and his assignment is to find out information is leaking out to the enemy. Based on the radio series Counterspy. the title role of David Harding is played by Howard St. Johnthe rather stern Allen Dulles like section chief of an unnamed Intelligence agency. But the real action is handled here by Willard Parker who gets called back from the Pacific War to takeover the operation of a plant in California that is manufacturing torpedoes for the Pacific War.<br/><br/>As it turns out the widow of the guy that was in the job before Parker is Audrey Long who was going out with Parker while he was in Annapolis. After a while the two take up where they left off before. Still Parker&#39;s job is to find a nest of fifth columnist spies who&#39;ve been getting information out of the plant.<br/><br/>I was pleasantly surprised in that I thought while hardly a great film, it was notbadI thought it would be. I was expecting a Cold War flag waver and it was not all that. The characters are not paste board figures, they do have some depth to them.<br/><br/>Take particular note of Raymond Greenleaf&#39;s portrayal of the plant doctor. Talk about hidden depth.<br/><br/>Nothing great here, but David Harding Counterspy might be worth a look. I used to listen to the radio program COUNTERSPY when I was a kid, and can clearly recall running off to the American Theater to see this film when I was about 11,I really wanted to &#39;see&#39; David Harding, its lead character. All I remember now is not being surprised by Howard St. John, who played Harding on the radio,he was exactly what I pictured David Harding would look like! Did they visually type cast even on the radio?<br/><br/>Anyway, seeing this film again after 65 years, I was rather surprised at just how good it was for a little radio-inspired B film. Well-mounted and acted, the real lead in the film is Willard Parker, an actor I always likeda kid and still, to this day, can&#39;t quite understand why he never got out of Bs. His was a stalwart, ruggedly handsome presence (even more so than John Wayne&#39;s!) and he was really quite a good actor (as his delivery of some intentionally funny dialogue in this film shows). What surprises me now is just how unsympathetically Harding is portrayed; he is overbearing at all times, and more than willing to suspend anyone&#39;s legal rights if the fit is upon him. I don&#39;t recall him coming overquite this type of agency head in the radio series. Of course, this was made during the Cold War, with a couple of semi-veiled descriptions of a particular dictator &quot;with a large mustache&quot;, so we get the point that this was serious business and that Harding was not too interested in the finer points of the law in achieving his aims. Had they existed back then, reading one his or her Miranda Rights in this film would have been tantamount to turning it into a science fiction movie. This may not go over too well now, but in 1950 I&#39;m sure most viewers were totally on his side. Audrey Long is fine in the female lead and when midway through the film we find that she is not quite the grieving widow of Parker&#39;s late friendportrayed up to that point, it is quite a surprise -is the real villain of the piece, played by Raymond Greenleaf in absolutely the best performance I&#39;ve ever seen from him. Allied with the outward beneficence of the character he portrays, he gives nastiness a new definition in such a filmthis one. Everybody in the movie seems to be either a government agent or a spy (or both) and the only likable character in the whole film is the one played by Parker. This is rather unusual for a B film of this type, meant mainly to fill the grind houses on Saturday or Sunday kiddie afternoons (which is how I saw it in 1950). Really, I kept expecting an uncredited Victor Jory, Paul Guilfoyle or Jack Lambert to come jumping out from behind a bush! But it looks good, has a decent amount of suspense even when certain expected results have been telegraphed to the viewer in advance, so that we often know exactly what is going to happen from one scene to the next, and the film gives what I have to assume is truthful coverage of the way such an agencyHarding&#39;s would have operated in those days. A good little film and worth viewing.<br/><br/>PS: This film &#39;stars&#39; Parker and Long and, under their names, &#39;introduces&#39; Howard St. JohnHarding, but St. John had been in a good number of films prior to this one. Ah, the things one could get away with in those days.
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