The Thief 1952

Dr. Allan Fields, Ray Milland, is a nuclear physicist with the United States Atomic Energy Commission in Washington, D.C.—but he also serves as a spy for an unnamed foreign power. Through careful tradecraft, he photographs secret documents with a Minox camera and passes these microfilmed records along a clandestine network of couriers to New York, then overseas to the enemy country.

When a latest canister of microfilm is intercepted after the courier is killed in a Manhattan traffic accident, the undeveloped film is found in the courier’s hand. The FBI analyzes the microfilm, identifying a list of suspects within the AEC, including the custodian of the secret document who is taken away for interrogation at FBI headquarters. The custodian is apparently cleared, and the investigation shifts to his subordinates; Fields is among the suspects. His case officer sends a Western Union telegram ordering him to destroy any evidence and to move into a safe house in New York City.

Terrified and increasingly paranoid, Fields hides in a cheap New York hotel safe house. Following a signal from his case officer on the hotel’s hall phone, he heads to the Empire State Building, where he is to meet his contact on the 86th-floor observation deck. An alert FBI agent spots him and pursues him all the way up the building—from the 86th floor to the 102nd-floor observation deck, and then to the spire. A tense fight ensues and the agent falls to his death. Fields returns to the hotel to collect a bundle of money and false identity documents that would allow him to slip out of the country.

He makes his way to the docks, where passage has been arranged for a ship bound for Egypt. But shaken by the agent’s death and wracked with remorse for his actions, Fields abandons the escape plan and ultimately surrenders to the FBI.