Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema XXI — Cloak and Dagger Blu-ray Review

Estimated reading time: 10 minutes

Cloak and Dagger is the first post-World War II atomic weapons thriller produced by Hollywood. A film-noir thriller from the great director Fritz Lang (Metropolis, M), the story is a bit of a melodrama about a bookish physics professor, Alvah Jesper (Gary Cooper) who is recruited by the U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS) –  a precursor to the CIA – to help locate  Dr. Polda (Vladimir Sokoloff), an atomic scientist being held captive by the Nazis during the waning months of the war.

Jesper’s search takes him to Switzerland where he hears Polda his being held and people know where he is, but he runs afoul of counteragents who kill the people with knowledge of Polda’s whereabouts.  Then Jesper moves on to Italy where he makes contact with resistance fighters and begins to fall in love with one such beautiful female leader of the underground resistance, Gina (Lilli Palmer), but the two put their romance on hold for the better good of getting Polda, whom Jesper has finally located, to safety.

In the wider scope of Lang’s output, Cloak and Dagger is one of his minor films, partly due to its emphasis on politics and partly because an entire reel from the end of the film was excised by the studio, either for political purposes or simply to keep Lang in line.  But the film still retains his character, from the beautiful noir cinematographic lighting and framings, such as many frames that place Lilli Palmer in mirrors. Cooper offers up a strong everyman hero central to the film and in keeping with his roles in westerns even as he plays the studious professor. His professor is more hands-on, as we can see in the famous “dirty fighting” scene, a precursor to the brutal fighting of such spy thrillers as the Bourne films or Daniel Craig 007 films.

Purchase Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema XXI [Cloak and Dagger / Shack Out on 101 / Short Cut to Hell] Blu-ray on Amazon.com

The Video

Cloak and Dagger is taken from a 2020 HD master. This is likely the same master that the UK 2020 Masters of Cinema release used, and it looks the same. It has a 1.37:1 AVC 1080p encodement of the film. Like the 2020 release, this transfer can looks very good, but but it has a coarse and loose film grain structure. There are also lots of instances of tramlines and a few frames where the scratches overwhelm the image. Apart from that, the black and white photography still holds up well and looks quite brilliant with excellent contrast and only some mild crush in places.

The Audio

Cloak and Dagger comes with an English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track. It has intelligible dialogue and the score from Max Steiner presents well without a lot of clipping or tininess. That said, it cannot overcome its limited range and inherent boxiness.

The Supplements

This KL Studio Classics release of Cloak and Dagger loses all of the bonus features from the 2020 Masters of Cinema release but does get an all-new audio commentary that is fun to listen to.

• Audio Commentary for Cloak and Dagger by Heath Holland, Host of Cereal at Midnight Podcast with Max Allan Collins, the Author of Road to Perdition (NEW)

The Final Assessment

A visually appealing film from the standpoint of cinematography, this minor Fritz Lang entry is a cool film-noir thriller hamstrung by the wider political sentiments of its time and studio system politics. The HD transfer is free from digital meddling and looks natural, but is still hampered by its age.

Cloak and Dagger is out as part of the Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema XXI [Cloak and Dagger / Shack Out on 101 / Short Cut to Hell] collection on Blu-ray

Purchase Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema XXI [Cloak and Dagger / Shack Out on 101 / Short Cut to Hell] Blu-ray on Amazon.com

• Rating Certificate: Approved
• Studios & Distributors: Warner Bros. | United States Pictures | Kino Lorber
• Director: Fritz Lang
• Writers: Albert Maltz (screenplay) | Ring Lardner Jr. (screenplay) | Boris Ingster (original story) | John Francis Larkin (original story) | Corey Ford (suggested by the book) | Alastair MacBain (suggested by the book)
• Run Time: 106 Mins.
• Street Date: 17 September 2024
• Aspect Ratio: 1.37:1
• Video Format: AVC 1080p
• Primary Audio: English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono
• Subtitles: English SDH