The Thief (1952)

THE THIEF (1952)
By Ralph Santini - ***½

The criminally undervalued team of filmmakers, Clarence Greene and Russell Rouse have made lots of often overlooked rare gems and their speechless 1952 Film Noir title, The Thief, is no exception. That’s right when you notice the word speechless I’m not even joking. The film contains no dialogue at all but that doesn’t mean it contains no sound. It contains plenty of compelling ringing on telephones and a very moving scene at the near-end but I’ll get to that later. The minimal cast of this film stars Ray Milland, Martin Gabel and the beautiful Rita Gam. Greene and Rouse not only produced and directed the film, respectably, but they also co-wrote this rather unique script together. It’s that genuinely interesting.

The story is about a Nuclear scientist, Dr. Phillips (magnificently portrayed by Milland) who decides to become a Spy for a gang of communist infiltrators led by Martin Gabel who secretly keeps sending private messages to Dr. Phillips concerning his mission to betray his country’s ideals. During the mission when Dr. Phillips delivers those messages it keeps passing to one different spy to another so that they can accomplish the mission. The biggest problem in this process however is that Dr. Phillips becomes so affected by the mission that he frequently becomes a heavy drinker and sometimes ignores some of Gabel’s callings on the telephone. Despite all that Gabel keeps watching Milland to make sure he doesn’t fail this mission.

Ray Milland later makes his tough decision to go on with the purpose and then infiltrate a respected scientists’ office. Milland then photographs a good number of documents in the desk so he can then continue transferring the films to other double agents in the mission. The bad news is that when one of the double agents gets involved in a traffic accident, the FBI quickly discovers this case and it’s up to them hunt everybody involved in it, including Ray Milland himself. Afterwards Gabel instructs Milland to go to New York in hiding from the FBI and his leader suggests him get refuge in a low-rent apartment where he is aided by a sexy femme fatale (Gam) involved in the case. Things don’t go well however when he eventually is chased by an FBI agent and the results are going to be more risky than ever. 

The Thief, to be perfectly honest, is truly underappreciated rare gem in it’s own right. It’s sometimes dismissed as somewhat slow but I don’t think that bothers me in the case of this very good treasure. I mean, come on, I don’t think you can go wrong with Ray Milland in many of his forgotten vehicles because even if he lost his fame since the 1950s I can still make sure he’s still got it. And this film really proves it. I really loved how the film didn’t use one single line for this unique screenplay because I think it helps it not to be too cliched nor routine. I really don’t want to give that many spoilers but I think director Russell Rouse does an excellent job of using the cast to make great emotions like for example Ray Milland crying and going out his mind when he knows that the mission is actually failing miserably. There are some shots when Milland sometimes has to go to the Library Of Congress as part of his mission to give a lot of top secret information to communist spies that would really give great impact on later spy works like The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. And I really admire how the film gets so dark when the camera uses it’s close ups to Martin Gabel looking really threatening and very stone-cold with his earnest looks on his mean eyes.

The Thief is one of those rare gems that don’t deserve it’s unfair obscurity and least needs a second look even you see it the first time. Personally I’d recommend it with very little reserve and lot of enthusiasm given the lack of dialogue the script has.