Tag: Moe Berg

THE SPY BEHIND HOME PLATE – Review

Most fans of film (especially comedies) may recall this quick three or four-second gag (really, this flick is jam-packed with them) from that iconic 1980 comic smash AIRPLANE. The stewardess is walking up the center aisle, clutching a load of magazines. Spotting a white-haired grandmotherly-type she asks, “Would you care for something to read?” “Do you have anything light?” “How about ‘Famous Jewish Sports Legends’?”. Then Julie Haggerty hands the elderly passenger a very thin (maybe a folded page) leaflet. Got a pretty good chuckle back then (it’s not the “surely Shirley” bit, but…). Well, the subject of this new documentary feature is worthy of a thick book (and he has). It’s a life full of drama and danger, about a man of such varied interests, he could be the hero of a thriller. And he was, in last year’s THE CATCHER WAS A SPY, played by Ant-Man himself, Paul Rudd, no less. So many historical figures and celebrities crossed path with this man, you’d think he might have inspired ZELIG. But no, major league baseball player Mo Berg was very real. And unbeknownst to most of his teammates, and family, he was THE SPY BEHIND HOME PLATE.

Berg’s life is an amazing story, enough for a series of films or a long TV mini-series. He was born to Ukranian Jewish immigrants in 1902. He had a knack for sports (which pharmacist poppa Bernard discouraged) and played baseball at gentile schools under the name “Runty” Wolfe (sounds like the hero of a sports comic strip). Moe studied law, much to his father’s delight, at Princeton, and was one of their baseball team’s standouts (he’d say he was a great “glove-man”, but not much of a hitter). He was recruited by the Brooklyn Robins (later the Dodgers), and begin a pro career that took him to the Chicago White Sox (where he had to choose between law and baseball), the Washington Senators, and the Boston Red Sox. In school, Moe learned a dozen languages, which came in handy when he was part of a baseball goodwill tour in Japan (the sport was getting very popular there). But he was the only member of the group to get a letter from the state department awarding him “diplomatic courtesy”. This aided him when he shot “undercover” 16 mm footage of Tokyo from the top of St. Luke’s Hospital (this was in 1934 as Japan was building up their military). In between trips and cruises around the globe, Moe was a frequent contestant on the radio quiz show “Information Please”, sort of a Jeopardy precursor. Later, when the US entered WWII, Moe was recruited by the Office of Strategic Services (OSS later the CIA), along with many civilians and some celebrities, to be an undercover operative in Europe. As the war neared its end, Moe followed the European scientific community to find out just how much progress Germany was making towards nuclear weapons. His “double life’ was more thrilling than a doubleheader.

How’s that old expression go? If somebody thought this up it would be dismissed as ridiculous or far-fetched. Yes, truth is stranger and perhaps more improbable than fiction, at least when it relates to Mr. Berg. Director/screenwriter Aviva Kempner keeps his “cradle to grave” story rolling at a brisk speed (perhaps faster than Berg’s slow trot to first base, according to sportswriters of the day), making ample use of family photos, archival footage (those bustling streets filled to the brim with vendors just outside those towering tenements), interviews (especially Moe’s older brother Sam), new interviews with baseball players, managers, and historians, and period pop music (lots of big band standards). They reveal many surprises. Father Bernard never saw Moe play baseball (Sam shows us how his pop with spit in disgust at the mere mention of the sport), while Mama Rose would scoop up neighbors to join her at the ballpark. Plus there’s film and new stories about Moe’s more famous acquaintances. He’s on the Japan tour with Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth (seems that Moe was quite taken with Ruth’s 18-year-old daughter, unlike the “sexually fluid” Berg of the Paul Rudd movie). We get to hear Moe dazzle radio audiences with his knowledge (a “book smart jock”). As war approaches, Kempner tells us of the influence of British intelligence on the OSS, mainly via several meetings with Ian Fleming (yes, of 007 fame). On his advice, the OSS goes after citizens like Berg and Marlene Dietrich (she cut records that had anti-Nazi messages). To help illustrate the US spy efforts, clips from then-current Hollywood films are intercut (there’s Alan Ladd and Gary Cooper). The only time the doc stumbles is the detour into the race for nuclear power. Retellings of the Manhatten Project and Werner Heisenberg (hey “Breaking Bad” fans) take several precious minutes away from the journey of Berg. Luckily the film gets “back on track” as it tells of that scientist’s near assassination by Berg (see the Rudd flick for more focus on that). This is another astounding tale of the “greatest generation”, one with more detours and twists than any five Hollywood true spy thrillers. History really comes alive in THE SPY BEHIND HOME PLATE. It doesn’t hit one out of the park, but it’s a solid triple, and so it gets….

3 Out of 4 Stars

THE SPY BEHIND HOME PLATE opens everywhere and screens exclusively in St. Louis at Landmark’s Plaza Frontenac Cinemas

THE CATCHER WAS A SPY – Review

Sienna Miller as Estella Huni, and Paul Rudd as Moe Berg, in Ben Lewin’s THE CATCHER WAS A SPY. Courtesy of IFC Films. An IFC Films Release.

THE CATCHER WAS A SPY is a strange slice of history, about a real-life Jewish Major League baseball catcher with a degree from Princeton and a knack for languages who turned spy during World War II. As catcher Moe Berg, Paul Rudd heads an impressive cast in a historical film with polished good looks and a score by Howard Shore. The film assembled all the right elements for a prestige biopic but does not quite score a hit.

THE CATCHER WAS A SPY is available on-demand from IFC  starting Friday, June 22, and in theaters in New York and Los Angeles.

Part biopic and part WWII spy thriller, THE CATCHER WAS A SPY focuses on a particular part of Moe Berg’s life. Director Ben Lewin (THE SESSIONS) based his film on Nicholas Dawidoff’s biography of Morris “Moe” Berg, a remarkable individual better known as “the brainiest guy in baseball” than for his skill as a catcher. Berg was a Princeton graduate who also attended the Sorbonne and Columbia Law School, who spoke several languages and read several newspapers a day. He was a brilliant but secretive man who was a mystery to those around him. Unfortunately, director Lewin gives us the facts of his unique story but little insight into this curious character.

Paul Rudd brings leading man good looks and his irresistible appeal to his portrayal of Moe Berg, who the film introduces in the waning days of his long but undistinguished baseball career. Rudd plays Berg as a likable fellow but a bundle of contradictions and questions, with a hint of darkness underneath. Berg hardly embraces his Jewish identity but is quiet about it nonetheless, which is understandable in that anti-Semitic era. But Berg is secretive about his personal life as well. He was not married but has a girlfriend Estella (Sienna Miller) who he keeps hidden despite rumors about him being gay in this homophobic era. As his baseball career winds down and WWII ramps up, Berg is eager to use his language skills to help the war effort and actively campaigns to join the military intelligence division.

He makes a connection with Bill Donovan (Jeff Daniels), the head of the OSS, the intelligence service that will become the CIA. However, the active, energetic Berg is frustrated behind a desk. Eventually Donovan finds a use for the brainy ball player. Berg becomes part of plan to find out how far along the Nazis are in their quest to build an atomic bomb, and possibly to assassinate the German scientist leading their effort, Dr. Werner Heisenberg (Mark Strong).

Actually, this story focuses on two historical figures who left unanswered questions. The other one is Werner Heisenberg, the Nobel Prize winning German theoretical physicist, developer of quantum mechanics and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Despite his private disapproval of the Nazis, Heisenberg remained in his native country out of a sense of patriotism when they take over. When war comes, the Nazis put him in charge of their effort to build an atomic bomb but historians have debated for years whether Heisenberg was really trying to build a bomb or delaying the Nazis while pursing his own research.

This is truly a star-studded film and throughout we encounter name actors, sometimes in surprisingly small roles. Guy Pearce plays a Army officer assigned to get Berg and physicist Sam Goudsmit (Paul Giamatti) through enemy lines to rescue an Italian physicist (Italian legend Giancarlo Giannini) from the retreating Nazis, hoping for information on their atomic bomb research. Tom Wilkinson plays another physicist, Dr. Scherrer, a Swiss-based friend of Heisenberg, that becomes part of the mission. Japanese actor Hiroyuki Sanada (TWILIGHT SAMURAI, LOST) appears in a small part, as a Japanese official Berg meets on trip to Japan shortly before Pearl Harbor, for a demonstration baseball game played by a team that includes Babe Ruth (Jordan Long) and Lou Gehrig (James McVan) as well as Berg.

How could a film about such remarkable characters and events be dull? Yet director Lewin fails to find the spark in this story. We never get inside Berg’s head and he remains opaque. One can’t blame Rudd, who makes valiant efforts to draw the character out. It is hard to know what went wrong but Lewin fails to find a way into the heart of the story and takes a decidedly serious, just-the-facts approach to Berg’s life, hardly even allowing a sly, ironic smile despite all the absurdities in Berg’s mysterious, contradictory life.

One can’t help but feel like THE CATCHER WAS A SPY is a missed chance for a much better movie. It is a strike-out that failed to swing for the fences despite all the right elements.

RATING: 3 out of 5 stars