Margin For Error

Margin For Error

Synopsis

Wisecrackin' Jewish cop Moe Finkelstein (Milton Berle) has just been put in charge of guarding the proto-Nazi German embassy in New York, a matter of weeks before the US enters World War II and his commissioner gives him the additional task of showing the staff the American way of life. Once there he encounters the egoistical, villainous consul (a scene-stealing performance by Otto Preminger himself), his American wife Sophie (Joan Bennett) who is desperate for a divorce, and the Consul's secretary, the sheltered Baron Von Alvenstor whose blind allegiance to his motherland is being severely tested by both his boss' increasingly maddening power-hungry pursuits and his own growing affection for Sophie. On the night Hitler's words are broadcast across the world, a murder is committed in the embassy, but with each character nurturing a dark secret, Moe can allow no margin for error.

Margin for Error was Otto Preminger's third film for the Hollywood studios, and offers great insight into the working methods of the Austrian director who went on to create classic masterpieces such as Laura (1944) and Anatomy of a Murder (1959).