The House on 92nd Street

The movie deals with the theft by German spies of the fictional "Process 97", a secret formula which, the narrator tells us, "was crucial to the development of the atomic bomb." The movie was released on September 10, 1945, only a month after the atomic bombs had been dropped on Japan, and barely a week after Japan's formal surrender. While making the film, the actors and Director Henry Hathaway did not know that the atomic bomb existed, nor that it would be incorporated as a story element in the movie. (None of the actors in the film mentioned the atomic bomb.) However, co-Director and Producer Louis De Rochemont (who produced the "March of Time" newsreel films) and Narrator Reed Hadley were involved in producing government films on the development of the atomic bomb. (Hadley was present at the final test of the bomb in Los Alamos, New Mexico, in July, 1945.) After the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Hadley and Screenwriter John Monks, Jr. hastily wrote some additional voice-over narration linking "Process 97" to the atomic bomb, and Rochemont inserted it into the picture in time for the film's quick release.

The description of a one-way mirror as an "X-ray" mirror at the beginning is nonsense. A one-way mirror is in fact merely a partially-silvered mirror. It becomes "one-way" by virtue of different lighting on either side - one side dimly lit, the other brightly lit. From the side that's brightly lit, it appears to be a normal mirror because the reflection washes out any light coming through from the dim side. But from within the dim side, everything on the bright side is readily visible because the light coming through predominates over the reflection seen from the dim side.

Opening credits are shown as someone flipping through the pages of a file.

Referenced in 23 Paces to Baker Street (1956)