Robert J. Maxwell This was directed by Peter Yates -- responsible for a number of true originals, such as "Bullitt" -- and all this time I thought Brian De Palma owned the franchise on imitations of Alfred Hitchcock.I can't understand how Yates could simply thrown up his hands and given up. Everything about this story of Kelly McGillis and FBI agent Jeff Daniels uncovering a scheme to smuggle post-war Nazis into the US, disguised as dead Jews. Mandy Potinkin is the chief heavy but the sullen Nazis and their agents are all around, hulking in doorways, dressed in dark suits, following the innocent McGillis around the streets of New York, destroying furniture, smoking in public, and committing other unforgivable sins.Hitchcock was fond of point-of-view shot and used them judiciously. They're notable here as well. McGillis slowly climbs the wooden stairway of a dangerous old house, just like Lila in "Psycho." She's also threatened while nude in the bathtub, just like Marion in "Psycho." And her name is Miss Crane, just like Janet Leigh's. A scene takes place aboard the Chicago Express, which bore Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint west. The couple tries to disappear in a theater crowd while being hunted by the bad guys. (Cf., "Saboteur", "Torn Curtain.") The final chase takes place through a kind of national monument -- not Mount Rushmore or the British Museum but rather Grand Central Station, whose Oyster Bar I highly recommend. Potinkin winds up hanging hundreds of feet above the floor of the station, holding on to a bank of chicken wire that slowly parts under his weight. He suffers the same fate as the villain whose jacket sleeve parts, strand by strand, until he falls from the Statue of Liberty in "Saboteur."The plot I described briefly above is conjectural because it's never made entirely clear what's going on. Nobody sits down and explains carefully to McGillis exactly what the MacGuffin actually is. Peter Yates seems to have surrendered his own unique style and given us a pale imitation of De Palma's paler imitations.

Steve Skafte Much has been made of films which use past decades to set their stories in, but much less praise has been directed at those which emulate the style originally employed in that period. There has, of course, been many failures to replicate the successful Alfred Hitchcock formula. "The House on Carroll Street" is not one of those. It falls into neither common failing of such films - there is no attempt to graft an anachronistic approach to an older style, nor to bring that older style into a modern decade. This film understands that such a style cannot be separated from the emotions and perceptions of the time.Peter Yates, a director who generally creates for the present time, does an unexpectedly excellent job at recreating this lost world. He uses cinematographer Michael Ballhaus (who went on to photograph "Quiz Show", another 1950s recreation) to wonderful effect, letting him capture his scenes in a manner that never once strays from the older approach. Yates shows us how thrilling the suspense and big set-pieces can be when not buried in special effects and quick cuts. Yates proves why he's one of the great overlooked talents.Jeff Daniels and Kelly McGillis have very much that 'star chemistry' valued for this sort of picture. McGillis, especially, brings a lightness and intensity most modern actresses could only pretend at. Patinkin is appropriately menacing. Jessica Tandy was my favorite performance, a tiny role nonetheless brightened by the nuances she brings to it. Christopher Buchholz provides an engaging, fearful, yet somehow innocent performance to the character of Stefan.Imagining that "The House on Carroll Street" were somehow released during the era in which it is set, I have little doubt it would be considered one of the great classics. Films such as "North By Northwest" have all the same limitations and plot implausibilities, yet are no more or less thrilling than this one. I see nothing of lower quality to be found here, only a picture made in a period where it couldn't be recognized. If you love the classic thrillers, you should certainly love this one as well.

med_1978 I watched this on video, I had seen it a while ago but did not recall most of the film (this should have given me an idea of its routine nature).Having viewed the film again I found it to be a strictly routine effort all round. The direction, the acting are very average and the plot predictable throughout.Kelly McGillis is possibly at her most attractive here and the film is worth catching if you are a fan of hers. Jeff Daniels is okay but there is no chemistry between the leads and the romantic subplot detracts from the film. Mandy Patinkin is the chief villain of the piece and the scene with him in the restaurant tipping ketchup on the table in an attempt to show his maniacal nature is truly ridiculous. The scene where Jeff Daniels is defusing the bomb and cannot decide which wire to cut was reminiscent of a similar scene from Lethal Weapon. The storyline seemed watered down, so as to dispense of matters such as a decent plot. Instead the film opts for a more lightweight approach giving us an Agatha Christie type lead character that is caught snooping into top secret government business, the pace picks up but the film fails to grip the viewer in a way that creates tension or excitement. The ending was not bad but it all seemed like a straight to video movie that probably got released due to its star being in the box office hits Top Gun & Witness. This did not however prevent the movie from being a box office failure.

Steve Tarter When I checked this one out of the library, I thought it might be an early 50's film-noir about spy smuggling but it turns out to be a 1988 effort to reconstruct an era circa 1951 when World War II memories were fresh and looking for Reds was becoming a national pastime.Unfortunately, the reconstruction of 50's scenes comes off a whole lot better than the picture. Jeff Daniels does a nice little job as the government agent with a heart but the story has more holes than McCarthy's logic.Kelly McGinniss spends the movie being pursued--in libraries, on roof tops, in train stations, you name it, but there's something lacking--I think it's called a plot.They would have been better off chucking the Nazi bad guy stuff and straying with the McCarthy smear of our heroine. Do it in black and white and build the picture of the sinister democracy it could have been.