Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

ChanFamous I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Taha Avalos The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

LeonLouisRicci Another uneven Hollywood attempt to capture the devastation and destructive consequences of the McCarthy Era. It was a confusing time for Everyone, not the least of which was our Government. After the Atom was cracked it seems so did We, unable to understand Who was Who, What was real and not Paranoia, How to handle the exponential accelerating Pace of World Events, and just When, Where, and How it would all End. The Why was left for the Philosophers and Historians.In an attempt to stop Communism as well as Free Speech our Leaders went to Unconstitutional means to uncover and eradicate its "infiltration" in our Society and they were looking everywhere, even under the bed. Is anyone Youngish aware of the slogan "Better Dead than Red"?This homage to Hitchcock is a rather flat and uninteresting take on some of that with a bit more of bring the Nazis over here before the Soviets get them. There are moments that are Suspenseful but not enough to maintain any sense of urgency. The Film is Shallow and flirts around with a Romantic Subplot that fizzles and a defusing Bomb Scene that plays, unintentionally like a Comedy.Recommended for the better parts, but be advised that some of it just doesn't work and is really a let down considering the Weight of the Subject Matter.

verbumctf romance without feeling, drama of issues without point (or drama).... This film is supposed to be all these and fails on every account, as if it isn't trying. Or as if the director/editor/scriptwriter team isn't really trying. The actors are able--they need better support.One element that doesn't fail is the score by George Delarue. Beautiful and moving. What a shame it's attached to this film. In a good film actors' words and movements and music synchronize and enhance the impact. This editor plastered on music with no regard for dialogue and movement. The love scene is particularly grating in this respect: an insult to the talents of the lead actors.There is another element in the film that works: location photography. Notably one moment in Grand Central Station. I'd guessed in advance what was going to happen; but the filming was breathtaking.Some commentators on this board have pointed out that US assimilation of criminal Nazi scientists actually happened during these years of the MacCarthy scare. The moment the film seems to start looking seriously at American society, it switches into conventional romance; before any human feelings can move us, it's away on a (predictable) 'thriller' escapade.Just as the film insults the talents of the actors, it insults the issues it's pretends (and fails) to take up.

Terrell-4 Emily Crane, a photo editor at Life Magazine, refuses to turn over to a Senate committee the names and files of a civil rights organization she's associated with, she doesn't realize she'll soon be out of a job and probably the cause of a young German being stabbed to death. That's not the least of it. Soon she'll be refusing a great hamburger while a senior Senate committee staff man uses catsup on a white dining clothe to illustrate the red menace. And finally, she'll find herself clambering over the interior catwalk of New York's Grand Central Station dome, high above the floor, while killers try to insure she trips. To my mind, The House on Carroll Street is a solid and talented, if not exceptional, child of Hitchcock. The year is 1951 and anti-Communism hysteria is in full bloom. Congressional demagogues, black-listing and secret FBI files abound. When Emily (Kelly McGillis) loses her job, we learn she's under FBI surveillance. Agent Cochrane (Jeff Daniels) has been assigned to take secret photographs of her, find out who she talks to and to follow her about New York. He observes when, in need of a job, she is interviewed by Miss Venable (Jessica Tandy) to read to the old lady. And one afternoon, relaxing in the townhouse garden of Miss Venable's home, she overhears part of a conversation in German coming from the next house. Naturally nosy, she moves closer through the bushes, glimpses the face of a young German fellow she accidentally met a day or two before on the street...and then sees the face of the Senate staff head, Ray Salwen (Mandy Patinkin). Salwen was responsible for hauling her before the committee. Something is not right. A few days later she follows the German to a Jewish cemetery and finds him writing down the names of dead Jews. He seems scared. Before long, she is helping him escape from the house on Carroll Street, only to see him stabbed death in front of her. By now, FBI agent Cochrane not only realizes something is very off, he realizes Emily Crane has nice legs, is quite likable and may be in danger. He's puzzled when he is warned off by his superiors and then taken off her case. In solid Hitchcockian style, we have been following this nice and nosy woman while she slowly discovers skullduggery and then realizes that she has placed herself at great risk. And in equally solid Hitchcockian style, we have met the man in agent Cochrane who with persistence and humor will attempt to keep her from danger while joining her in uncovering a plot that deals with German war criminals and powerful men in high places. The movie has well-directed set pieces, ranging from a covert meeting in a huge, dim Greenwich Village book store to a spooky breaking-and-entering into the now abandoned house on Carroll Street (where Emily meets a man with a knife) to the exploration of the tunnels below and the girders high above the Grand Central main station. Most of all, it has two instantly appealing main characters in McGillis and Daniels. Both are completely natural in their portrayals. They have guileless faces. We immediately like both of them. Daniels in particular shows the kind of open-faced honesty that makes the movie so satisfying. The caveat I have is Mandy Patinkin. He is a forceful, intense actor. Patinkin makes Salwen a creature of such supreme self-confidence, such repellent humor that Salwen doesn't just stand for the evils of the period, he disgusts us. Patinkin's self-serving, power-justifying Salwen, full of phony patriotism and contemptuous high spirits, in my opinion very nearly overbalances the movie. Patinkin is just an inch away from becoming a caricature. Added to that are two speeches that Patinkin is given to justify his actions. Unfortunately, they move over into manipulated melodrama. The speeches are so over-the-top they tend to place the movie on hold while Patinkin gives them. However, the screenwriter is Walter Bernstein, a talented man who was black-listed for years. I'm more than willing to cut him some slack. I think The House on Carroll Street is a well-crafted semi-romantic thriller which doesn't use explosives (well, there's one), cynicism or cumbersome back stories. It has two attractive and likable leads, a plot with a message or two which keeps moving along and a bit of humor. It also has a happy ending which, in one regard, may be unexpected.

Eric-62-2 In the tradition of "The Front" and "Guilty By Suspicion", the "House On Carroll Street" is little more than Hollywood's latest attempt to rewrite the history books about the "McCarthy" era in which all those accused of communist sympathies were innocent as the driven snow, and all accusers were really closet Nazis at heart. Well, too bad for the fantasy weavers but the factual record still shows that there were more people in America who licked Joseph Stalin's boots at a time when he murdered tens of millions, and even went so far as to commit treason on behalf of the Soviet Union (Alger Hiss, Julius Rosenberg, Harry Dexter White, and a score of other government employees now linked to espionage through both American and Soviet files) than there were anti-communists in Washington who harbored Nazis during America's Cold War struggle (i.e. a big fat zero. Indeed, one can argue that this movie borrows a page from the McCarthy handbook of using a false accusation to smear a group of people even more than the the McCarthyites themselves did in real life toward Hollywood communists!).