In early spy movies, the “fifth column” referred to a group of people secretly working from within a country to undermine its defense and support an enemy, often during wartime. This concept, popularized during the Spanish Civil War, was commonly used in early espionage films of the World War II era as countries like the US and Britain grappled with the realities of espionage and the potential for internal subversion.
Movies focusing on the threat from Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan often depicted fifth column activities as a major source of concern and suspense. Take a look at Spies of the Air. In this film, spies, counterspies, and an illicit love affair play out in a fast-paced espionage thriller that foreshadowed the outbreak of World War II. In fact, by the time of its release, Germany had already invaded Poland. The cast is good and the production is adequate, but unfortunately, this print has only marginal video quality. (IMDB) You can watch the film here. Internal enemies and reinforcing the idea that the enemy was not just on the battlefield but also within. While the fifth column was often a dramatic device, it also reflected real-world anxieties and concerns about espionage and sabotage, particularly during the early years of World War II.
(Much of the above — not all — is thanks to Google’s AI.
The Fifth Column: 5 Movies
Secret Command (1944: YouTube) – The plot revolves around a group of American agents working undercover to sabotage Nazi operations in the United States during World War II. The agents gather intelligence, disrupt enemy activities, and prevent the Nazis from carrying out their sinister plans on American soil.
Tampico (1944:YouTube) – When an oil tanker captain rescues the survivors of a ship torpedoed by a U-boat, he falls in love with one of the survivors and ends up having to prove his new love’s innocence when his own ship sinks under suspicious circumstances.
Man Hunt (1941: YouTube) While vacationing in Bavaria, British hunter Thorndike finds himself with Hitler in his gun sight. Captured, beaten, and left for dead, he manages to escape back to London, where he becomes the target of German agents and receives assistance from a young woman.
Hangmen Also Die! (1943: YouTube) – The film is loosely based on the 1942 assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the Nazi Reich Protector of German-occupied Prague, number-two man in the SS, and a chief mastermind of the Holocaust, who was known as “The Hangman of Prague.”
Waterfront – (1944: YouTube) – A Nazi spy passes himself off as an optometrist in San Francisco’s waterfront district. Someone robs him of his codebook, and he must get it back.
Converts to the Allied Cause: 5 Films
In these films, a character is at first either unconcerned with or opposed to the UK or US winning the war. Due to subsequent experiences, they change their minds and take sides against Germany or Japan. At the end of the film, they may still be fighting or they may have sacrificed their lives.
Here are five films that have a change of loyalty.
Tonight We Raid Calais (1943: YouTube) – A British Intelligence officer is sent into Nazi-occupied France to locate a munitions plant and mark the target with a beacon so that Allied night bombers can destroy it.
Behind the Rising Sun (1943: YouTube) – In Japan, foreigners and their Japanese friends are caught up in the rising tide of militarism.
Secret Mission (1942: YouTube) – Two British Intelligence agents infiltrate occupied France to learn German secrets.
I See a Dark Stranger (1946: YouTube) – A young Irish woman hates England so much that she becomes a spy for Germany.
China Girl (1942: YouTube) – With America still neutral, an American news photographer on assignment in Burma is courted by both the Japanese and the Flying Tiger volunteers fighting for China.
___________________________________
Featured Photo: Courtesy of Cornell’s Digital Library
Cornell supplies a great deal of information in association with this photo. I’ve provided some below. Be sure to go to their website if you want to dig deeper.
This large 1941 poster purports to show how the Communists – allegedly in league with the Nazis and various Fascist organizations – had established a pervasive, nationwide “Fifth Column” that “Menaces America on a Thousand Fronts.” Separate symbols are used to denote the locations of Communist Central, District and Section Headquarters, as well as Communist Workers’ Schools, Training Camps and Literature Centers. Markers show the locations of similar operations of the Nazis, German Bund and Fascists (including “Native Fascists”). The country is divided to show the separate Communist District Boundaries and Nazi Department Boundaries. The text on the face of the map asserts that the Fifth Column has “penetrated” the U.S. Army, Navy, National Guard and Defense Industries. For a 1940 map aimed exclusively at the Germany Fifth Column, see “The Nazi Spider Attempts to Grasp Our Nation in Its Tentacles,” ID #2355.
Despite the suggestion that the Communists, Nazis and Fascists were conspiring to bring down America, the fundamental thrust of the map is anti-Communist. That was the core mission of the Constitutional Education League, founded in 1919 as part of the original Red Scare. And the text verso is principally devoted to attacking the Communists, the “heart and brain of the Red Fifth Column in America,” “a foreign conspiracy masked as a political party . . . whose intrigues stagger the imagination and whose power and influence has made itself felt in almost every phase of our national life.” On the other hand, “Hitler’s Nazis” are described simply as “Brown Bolsheviks” (a characterization that both Hitler and the Soviets would certainly have disputed), and the Fascists are said to be concerned primarily not with imposing their will on this country, but on securing aid for their causes abroad. Those on the “Roll of Dishonor” share a “collective goal . . . they would undermine our Government, destroy it, and set up in its place a new system of society based upon the collective concepts of Karl Marx.”
