Open Secret

Open Secret, directed by John Reinhardt, is a noir film with a wrinkle. It's also a socially-conscious film, an expose of small-town anti-Semitism. Released in 1948, there were a handful of films (most notably Gentleman's Agreement) that took on this issue, and the idea worked its way down to the B-films. Open Secret is not very good, but it is fascinating, historically.

The film stars John Ireland and Jane Randolph as honeymooners who are passing through town. They crash at the apartment of Ireland's old army buddy. When the buddy disappears, Ireland starts investigating, and notices that the town seems to run by a group of white men who are angry about "foreigners." Ireland reports his friend's absence to the police sergeant, Sheldon Leonard (who has an Italian last name), and then he has incriminating photos developed by the Jewish camera-store operator (George Tyne).

The film has some interesting stylistic touches. As a noir, it is full of shadows. But the print on the DVD is in sad shape, and there is an abundance of scenes of people opening and closing doors. It's only 67 minutes long, but it seems like five more minutes could have been trimmed in editing without losing a thing. The acting is also pretty cartoonish (a young Arthur O'Connell, as the ringleader of the anti-Semites, is an exception).

The film is more interesting as a social document. It doesn't overtly address the issue--people who are not white Anglo-Saxons are just referred to as "foreigners," until late in the film, when the words "kike" and "wop" are used. Of course the film takes the stance that this is wrong-headed thinking--the missing friend has pamphlets with titles like "Were the Nuremberg Trials Fair?" which in 1948, would have been a controversial statement.

What's perhaps most disturbing is that there are still people like this today, the type of people that Tweet that a foreigner has won Miss America when it was a woman of Indian descent, born in this country. Some people never learn.