FBI Code 98 (1963 TV Movie) User Reviews

A timely spill

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 6 July 2017]

In the documentary style of The House On 92nd Street and The Street With No Name, FBI Code 98 tells the story of how the agency caught a saboteur who had placed a bomb aboard a company plane nearly killing the top three executives of an electronics firm that's doing those missile guidance systems for those newfangled ICBMs. Of course the Communists are high on the suspect list for those wanting to kill Jack Kelly, Ray Danton, and Andrew Duggan.

National security may be involved, but it was for far more mundane motives that the deed was nearly done. Jack Kelly's overnight bag was switched for the suitcase with the bomb. If a cup of coffee hadn't spilled on him he wouldn't have gotten his bag and discovered the device.

Having an unexploded bomb to work with was great for the forensics team. As J. Edgar Hoover personally put his imprimatur on the film and made an appearance at the end you know the FBI was shown in the best light. Truly their laboratories which Hoover did put in during his long tenure is a thing of wonder.

I won't reveal who or why, but this perpetrator is truly a pitiable human being. And no one is killed in the entire course of the film.

Not a bad film, obviously a tryout for the FBI series to come.

Snappy FBI Vs Bomb maker Thriller

[zardoz-13 · 7/10 · 13 November 2022]

Before he helmed his two best known movies--"PT-109" and "Batman," Leslie H. Martinson directed an FBI procedural entitled "FBI Code 98," in what constituted a pilot to a proposed FBI TV program, with J. Edgar Hoover supervising the production. Martinson was basically the go-to-guy at the Warner Brothers studio who spend more time calling the shots on virtual every WB television series during the 1950s and 1960s. When passengers on a transcontinental, private business jet, flying from San Francisco to Cape Canaveral in Florida, discover a bomb in one of their number's suitcases, the FBI are on the case. These business executives work for a firm that provides the U. S. Government with missiles. Philip Carey of "Laredo" fame heads up the FBI team of investigators dispatched to run down all likely leads in the case. Martinson doesn't let his cast sit around and talk unless their conversations fuel the plot. Essentially, this film depicts the immense resources at the disposal of the Department of Justice not only in its investigations but also in it willingness to provide manpower assistance to help budget strapped law enforcement agencies. Martinson shows audiences why the FBI is the world's topmost law enforcement agencies thanks to its huge resources. Carey and his group of agents track down the lone individual who designed the bomb. Nothing about "FBI Code 98" is either startling or exciting. The FBI prove exhaustive as they question all parties involved, exposing possible leads that amount to nothing more than red herring. For example, one of the architects on the rocket program is having a clandestine affair with the owner of the company. Jack Cassidy is cast as the lover of Andrew Duggan's wife, but neither had anything to do with the plot to blow up their business jet while airborne. "FBI Code 98" benefits from a strong cast of robust actors, primarily they were WB's second-string performers: Jack Kelly of "Maverick" fame, suave Ray Danton, Andrew Duggan, and William Reynolds (who eventually co-starred in the "FBI" television series with Efrem Zimbalist Jr). An unfulfilled subplot follows Agent Fox's (Reynolds) best efforts to land a date with a new female stenographer. "FBI Code 98" ranks as an above-average, polished, straightforward, occasionally suspenseful thriller that heralds all the scientific breakthroughs of the Bureau in solving crimes.

FBI procedural boasts concise storytelling and solid cast of familiar players

[BrianDanaCamp · 8 April 2014]

FBI CODE 98 (1964) was initially designed by Warner Bros. as a TV pilot and then released to theaters on April 8, 1964 on the bottom half of a double bill with THE INCREDIBLE MR. LIMPET, a partly animated comedy starring Don Knotts as a fish lover who falls into the water off of Coney Island and is magically transformed into a cartoon fish during World War II. Andrew Duggan appears in both films. While it may seem odd to pair a no-nonsense crime drama with a children's cartoon hybrid, I can assure you that, as someone who saw this double bill as a ten-year-old accompanied by his six-year-old sister fifty years ago this week, the combination worked well. FBI CODE 98 tells its story simply and cleanly with each deftly edited scene conveying a specific piece of information which is explained clearly enough for the children in the audience and propels the plot at a sufficient pace to keep our attention. I watched the film again today, April 8, 2014, the 50th anniversary of its U.S. release date, on a DVD purchased from the Warner Archive.

The plot involves a disgruntled employee's attempt to kill his boss at a high-tech defense contractor by putting a bomb in a suitcase and substituting it for an identical piece of luggage aboard the company plane when the boss and his two partners head off to Cape Canaveral to oversee a rocket test. The bomb is discovered in flight and defused by an engineer on board and the FBI are called on a "Code 98" (sabotage) and proceed to investigate, following each piece of evidence and each lead until they're able to identify the culprit, if not exactly the motive, and then set out to apprehend him. At no point is the audience kept in the dark about anything. We see the bomb-maker prepare his work in the film's very first shot. The moderate suspense comes from waiting for the FBI to get through all their dead ends and red herrings and catch up to him.

It's not the most exciting FBI thriller I've ever seen. The emphasis is on method, not action. There's a narrator who guides us in his stentorian tones through each step of the investigation. The villain is played by character actor Vaughn Taylor, who usually played bankers or store clerks in westerns and small-town dramas. Here he plays the electrical maintenance supervisor at Amertronic, the defense contractor, and blends in with the scenery so well he never looks like a suspect. At one point in the film, when things get confrontational, it seems way out of character for him. Still, in real life, there are numerous crimes, hostage situations, and acts of sabotage carried out for the most banal motives by some of the most unprepossessing perpetrators, so this plot doesn't seem far-fetched at all.

There is a romantic triangle subplot involving the boss's wife and another key employee that seems to have been inserted to provide a false lead and winds up slowing the film down quite a bit, but the good thing about it is that it injects some moments of human realism into the otherwise overly modulated proceedings, and the three actors involved, Andrew Duggan as the boss, Kathleen Crowley as his wife and Jack Cassidy as the employee, stand out because of it. Cassidy has one great bit where he storms out of the office announcing that the others will hear from his lawyer and it's a moment of honest human emotion in a film where pretty much everyone else is on their most dutiful behavior. Cassidy's presence in the cast is, in fact, what excited me the most when I first saw the film. I had seen him in the Broadway musical, SHE LOVES ME, the previous summer when my parents took me to my first Broadway show.

Most of the film takes place in San Francisco, with scenes set in Las Vegas, Cape Canaveral, and Washington D.C. There is some location shooting in Las Vegas and several scenes that appear to have been shot at FBI headquarters in D.C. The film was made with the full cooperation of the FBI and J. Edgar Hoover himself even makes a cameo appearance at the end. Although this film didn't lead directly to a TV series, Warner Bros. did indeed fine tune the premise and eventually produced "The F.B.I.," which premiered on TV the following year (1965) and had a successful nine-year run. (I once visited the set of "The F.B.I." on a trip to Warner Bros. in January 1974.) One cast member of this film, William Reynolds, who plays Special Agent Fox in the San Francisco office, went on to play one of the lead characters in the TV series. In the film, Fox keeps hitting on an attractive secretary in the office in a running gag that seems not to have violated any FBI workplace behavioral codes.

The thoroughly professional cast is led by Jack Kelly ("Maverick"), Ray Danton (THE RISE AND FALL OF LEGS DIAMOND), Philip Carey ("Laredo"), and the aforementioned Andrew Duggan ("Bourbon Street Beat"), all of whom were regulars in Warner productions. Kelly, Danton and Duggan play the three partners who started up Amertronic and are all on the plane when the bomb is discovered, while Carey plays the top FBI agent assigned to the case. There are long stretches without the three main characters, during which the FBI agents are shown going about their business. The cast is filled with a lot of familiar faces including, in addition to those already mentioned, Merry Anders, Ken Lynch, Ross Elliott, Eddie Ryder, James Seay, John Baer and several others whose names I don't know and are not listed in IMDb's cast list but whom I've seen in multiple movies and TV shows from the 1950s and '60s.

William Reynolds really shines here.

[tforbes-2 · 9/10 · 19 June 2019]

"FBI Code 98" would be Warner Brothers' second movie concerning the Bureau, filmed roughly three years or so after 1959's "The FBI Story." A story about a saboteur who tries to blow up a plane, but is thwarted, this is a police procedural that details the steps taken to solve this crime.

A harbinger of the 1965-1974 ABC series, it supposedly was filmed in 1961. Judging from the cars, it was likely done in very late '61, as the production company was using 1962 Ford models (something the TV show would do). It also has narration, much as what the ABC show had from 1966 to its end, though the narration is more extensive.

So many of the actors, such as Jack Kelly and Andrew Duggan, were stock Warners' actors. And it was a surprise to see Jack Cassidy show up here, and he does a fine job. But it was a 30-year-old seasoned actor who manages to really shines here. William Reynolds plays Special Agent Edward Fox, and his acting might seem bland--but take a closer look, and his detailed performance really is a delight.

Mr. Reynolds would go on to guest roles on "The FBI" in the first two seasons, both in 1966, then would become Special Agent Tom Colby from 1967 to the series end (and a series regular until the final season, where he made two appearances).

Just be aware that the movie was a product of its time, both in its use of technology, and in social mores. Mr. Reynolds' wooing of the secretary is cringe-worthy by today standards, but his character is also a lonely bachelor, and there are light-hearted scenes involving the couple. In the end, Mr. Reynolds has succeeded in wooing the lady.

All that said, the movie has some incredibly tense moments. It's not a boom-and-crash movie with special effects and CGI but it is a very fascinating look at how the FBI solved a case that had national security concerns.

Finally, its release history is interesting, in that this movie was first released in France in January 1963, followed by Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Mexico. It would not be released in the US until April 1964. Chances are by that time, Warner Brothers decided to proceed ahead with the TV series which was spawned from this.