THE SPY BEHIND HOME PLATE
US, 2019, 101 minutes, Colour/black and white.
Directed by Aviva Kempner.
This is a documentary about the American baseball player, Moe Berg, lawyer, intellectual, quiz show participant – and employed by the OSS during World War II.
A feature film was made about him, The Catcher was a Spy, directed by Ben Lewin with Paul Rudd in the title role (2018).
For the first 30 minutes, the documentary is geared towards baseball fans, principally American baseball fans who knew of him in the 1920s and 30s. There is background about his family coming from Europe to New York, setting up in business, three sons. Moe’s father did not approve of his baseball interest and career and never saw him play a match. As with these biographical films, there is quite some historical footage to illustrate the early part of the 20th century in New York City and beyond, quite a deal of baseball footage especially when Berg discovered his talent for catching.
Interestingly, the filmmakers have received permission to use clips from many feature films of the period, James Cagney prominent and quite a few scenes from the MGM film about the Manhattan project, The Beginning or the End. Also the connection with Ian Fleming (and excerpts from the film starring Dominic Cooper).
Berg is shown as a Jewish boy joining a local baseball club associated with churches, his talent, sports commentators remembering him, managers talking about his skills, his taking time off to study law, some injuries, his ability to catch, a tour to Japan in the 1930s with Babe Ruth and a team (and his taking time off to photograph aspects of Japan, photos which were used in preparation for attacks on Japan during the war).
Non-baseball fans will have two bear with the first 30 minutes but then the documentary moves into Berg’s role as employed by the American government as a spy.
He was very qualified with his knowledge of law, with his high intelligence and extraordinary capacity for retaining a range of information, his speaking many languages.
In his 40s, he spent time in Latin America, moved to Europe, was influential (and very quick) in discovering scientists in Germany and Switzerland, making contact with them, able to comprehend the basics of their nuclear lectures, arrange for some to be brought to the United States.
The film spends a great deal of time on the Manhattan Project, the influence of Einstein on Roosevelt, Oppenheimer and his team and the work at Los Alamos, the secrecy, the attempts to discover the progress of German scientists in the film explaining who they were and their the background. Quite a number of Berg missions in Europe were connected with the scientists and the Manhattan Project.
He was awarded the medal of freedom at the end of the war but refused, his family later accepting it.
He did some work for the CIA after the war but was generally self-employed, living with his family until his death the age of 70 in 1972.
The title is rather sensational but it does highlight the efforts made by various celebrities (with some emphasis in this film on the war effort Marlene Dietrich), their patriotism and government reliance on them.
