bkoganbing The most surprising thing about Betrayal From The East is that Drew Pearson put his time to it. In post war America Pearson was one of the earliest and most consistent critics of Senator Joseph McCarthy and the brand of right wing conspiracies he was peddling. It shocked me that he would lend his name to this kind of propaganda claptrap.Lend it he did to this film which has the Japanese contacting former army guy Lee Tracy now a carnival barker to see if he could get the plans for the Panama Canal defense. Presumably Tracy's efforts in foiling the Japanese designs on the canal are the reason it was not a casualty of war.I'm still trying to figure out why American agent Nancy Kelly who Tracy sees killed in San Francisco winds up in the Canal Zone on another assignment on the same case where Tracy is now. What were the writers thinking with? The film is a cheap imitation of one of Humphrey Bogart's and John Huston's lesser films Across The Pacific. This makes that one look like Gone With The Wind.

LeonLouisRicci Made at the End of WWII but Set before Pearl Harbor, this B-Movie is one of those Yellow Peril Types that Actually has more Japanese Actors than Americans and They are All Up to No Good. They are Sneaky, Barbarous, and have a lot of Cash to Pay Americans if Only They would Betray Their Country.Lee Tracy, a Second Rater and Hardly Anything Approaching Handsome is Given the Lead Romantic Role and the Love Angle in this Chock Full of Jap Bashing Film is Anything but Believable. There are Some Striking Scenes of Torture and Surprising Deaths and the Plot Moves at a Rapid Pace with Hidden Surveillance and a Climactic Fight Scene that is Impressive. Overall it is Worth a Watch as a Timepiece. It is Bookended with Real Life Journalist Drew Pearson Staring at the Camera and Delivering a "This can never happen again" Warning.Note...Don't fail to miss the opening Title Card with a drawing of a Sinister Jap with Werewolf fangs.

whpratt1 This was a very well produced picture in B&W for the 1940's, it told about the Japanese trying to obtain vital information to be used against the United States in the Panama Canal and the horrible tortures they inflicted on American Citizens during those WWII War Years. Lee Tracy (Eddie Carter),"High Tide",'47, was a former Army soldier and was a wheel and dealer. However, his love of country forced him to work against Japanese spies like Richard Loo,(Lt. Cmdr.),"Battle Hymn",'57, who all during the War Years played hateful roles in many films as a "JAP" as they were called in the 1940's. It is foolish to be critical of this film, it was under budget and had a great story to tell the American People that we must be always ready to defend this great Country we live in. It was Germany and Japan and Italy in those years, today we have the same threat of TERROR!

neroville This is without a doubt the worst Lee Tracy movie I have ever seen, and that is saying a lot because his movies tend to be of a consistently high quality. This movie verges on being MST3K fodder, and if you're familiar with that show, you can easily imagine Crow, Tom Servo, and Joel (or Mike) wisecracking their way through this dopey, racist, tedious, half-baked war-era nonsense. Okay, I know the historical context in which it was made, it was well-meaning propaganda from 1945; but no matter how many times I told myself this during the course of the movie, it didn't improve it any, or make it any more entertaining. The plot is typical double-agent fluff, about some seemingly amoral carnival barker, who, when paid a pile by the perfidious Japanese to spy against the good ol' U.S. of A., shows himself to be a True Blue Patriot and ends up giving his all for the cause. There's badly staged fight scenes, corny torture scenes, plenty of inscrutable villains staring meaningfully at each other, and a couple of love scenes which were blatant- and badly done- ripoffs of "Casablanca." Most annoying is the narration by journalist Drew Pearson at the beginning and end of the film. Evidently the director had such a low opinion of his audience's IQ, he felt the need to need to hammer in his message more with stentorian sermonizing acting as bookends. It wasn't enough to show us the Japanese were our enemies; did they have to tell us too? Was the director so afraid that we would just not get it otherwise?Lee Tracy plays the carnival barker in question (shades of his earlier, and much better film, the "Half Naked Truth"). What is remarkable is how grim and stoic he appears throughout the entire film; much different from his customary ebullience, rapid-fire wisecracking and handwaving. His boredom and weary indifference virtually radiate from every frame of this misbegotten motion picture, as if he knew how this whole enterprise was imminently undeserving of his talents. He keeps repeating, "I'm just doin' this for the dough," as if it were his own personal mantra, and it leaves one to think that that was his main reason behind this picture as well. His attentions to Nancy Kelly, his alleged love interest, are lacking in any conviction whatsoever, and for the most part he seems more excited by the thought of his paycheck. As for Nancy Kelly, she provides a good argument against child stardom; although 24 at the time this film was made, this former child star appears a good 10 to 15 years older, and her strained posture and exaggerated, flutey voice don't help her. She does however provide one of the most amusing moments of the film, when (**SPOILER**) the bad guys steam her to death in a sauna.Good propaganda gets its point by showing, not telling; and by providing its audience with a fun, compelling and interesting story. "Betrayal from the East" does neither. Recommended only for students of the period or die-hard Lee Tracy fans.