| Walk East on Beacon! | |
| Director: | Alfred L. Werker |
| Producer: | Louis De Rochemont |
| Based On: | The Crime of the Century by J. Edgar Hoover |
| Starring: | George Murphy Finlay Currie Virginia Gilmore |
| Music: | Jack Shaindlin Louis Applebaum (uncredited) |
| Cinematography: | Joseph C. Brun |
| Editing: | Angelo Ross |
| Distributor: | Columbia Pictures |
| Runtime: | 98 minutes |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
| Gross: | $1.35 million (US rentals)[1] |
Walk East on Beacon is a 1952 American film noir drama film directed by Alfred L. Werker and starring George Murphy, Finlay Currie, and Virginia Gilmore. It was released by Columbia Pictures. The screenplay was inspired by a May 1951 Reader's Digest article by J. Edgar Hoover entitled "The Crime of the Century: The Case of the A-Bomb Spies." The article covers the meeting of German physicist and atomic spy Klaus Fuchs and American chemist Harry Gold as well as details of the Soviet espionage network in the United States. Gold's testimony would later lead to the case against Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for treason. The film substitutes real atomic spying with vague top secret scientific programs. Extensive location shooting was done in New England, around Washington Union Station and in FBI laboratories.
Federal agent Belden is assigned to locate the communist mastermind behind the leak, and to trace all avenues of informational access utilized by the Communists. Professor Albert Kafer is the space-weapons scientist who is being forced by the Soviets into cooperating with them, as his son is under threat, while Alexi Laschenkov is the top Eastern-Bloc spy.[2]
Using state of the art technology, such as an early miniature video camera, and ingenious methods like a roomful of foreign language lip readers, the G-men crack the case and with the help of the US Coast Guard rescue the professor before he can be spirited away by submarine.