The Catcher Was a Spy
Short description
The Catcher Was a Spy follows Moe Berg, a man who spent years in major league baseball while quietly accumulating an education and a command of numerous languages. When the United States enters the Second World War, his unusual combination of talents draws the attention of the Office of Strategic Services, the wartime intelligence agency that preceded the CIA. Recruited as an operative, Berg is sent into Europe, where his assignments include the effort to assess how far Germany's atomic research has progressed and to get close to the physicist Werner Heisenberg.
Ben Lewin directed the film, which sits between Please Stand By and Falling for Figaro in his filmography, from a screenplay by Robert Rodat. Paul Rudd plays Berg, with Mark Strong as Heisenberg, Sienna Miller as Estella Huni, Connie Nielsen as Koranda, Shea Whigham as Joe Cronin and Hiroyuki Sanada as Kawabata. The production, made by PalmStar Media, Animus Films, Windy Hill Pictures and Serena Films, had a budget of about 14 million dollars and runs 94 minutes. It drew modest audience scores of 6.2 out of 10 on IMDb and the same figure on TMDB, while a critics' rating of 5.2 out of 10 from 76 reviews indicates a less favourable critical response than the audience numbers suggest.
What's left behind the scenes
- The headline for Moe Berg's obituary in Newsweek in May 1972 was "Third-Rate Catcher; First-Rate Spy."
- The baseball game was filmed at the famous Fenway Park baseball stadium in Boston, Massachusetts.
- Before receiving the assignment regarding Heisenberg, Berg parachuted into Yugoslavia. There, he was tasked with determining which partisan group Allied forces should support. Berg's report stated that the strongest and, therefore, most promising group was the one led by Tito (Josip Broz Tito, 1892-1980), and Allied forces subsequently supported Tito. After the end of World War II, Tito became a dictator. None of this is included in the film.
- During the game against the Japanese, Moe Berg (1902-1972), played by Paul Rudd, is introduced to high-ranking Japanese officials and states in Japanese that he does not speak the language. The film doesn't mention this, but it was Berg's second trip to Japan. In 1932, he and a couple of other American athletes were hired to travel to Japan and teach the Japanese how to play baseball. On his way to Japan, Berg, who had a knack for languages, learned Japanese reasonably well. As they set sail for Japan, one of his companions asked Berg if he spoke Japanese, to which he replied negatively. However, upon arriving in Japan, he surprised his companions by speaking the language.
- Filming took place in Prague and White Plains, New York.
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