I saw this odd "comedy" in the early 1970s when I was at college. It is not a great comedy - barely a passingly good comedy. But it has a situation in it that is still somewhat relevant, even if the characters have changed.
The issue is: if you know a foreign government is evil and hates your country, your country's governmental philosophy, and most of the people in your country, how can you formally protect its representatives when they are under diplomatic title?
Claire Booth Luce wrote one of the best comedies of the 1930s, "The Women", which was turned into a memorable film comedy with Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, Rosalind Russell, Joan Fontaine, Paulette Goddard, and Mary Boland. As the film's advertisements said, "It is "The Women", and it's all about Men!!!", as the film is about the way women manipulate and fight over men. Despite some dating due to social changes (the social set is centered on the "gold coast" of Long Island) it still can be revived on stage - and has been in the last three years successfully.
Not so with "Margin For Error". Ms Luce, like her husband Henry (the publisher of "Time" and "Newseek" and "Life Magazine"), was a mixture of good and bad ideas. The bad ones included a snobby anti-Semitism that arose from time to time. Alexander King once pointed out that every time TIME mentioned Leo Trotsky, Luce would have "(nee Bronstein)" after Trotsky's name. But Luce and his wife were aware of the real threat of Hitler's type of anti-Semitism. They were therefore aware that while they disdained social contact with Jews (and definitely disliked left wing Jews) they would not plan to kill every Jew. It never crossed their minds, of course, that the Hitler style of anti-Semitism was aided by the Luce style of it.
Fiorello LaGuardia, known as New York's greatest Mayor, is recalled as our first Italian American Mayor. But his mother was of Hungarian Jewish ancestry. LaGuardia was therefore half-Jewish. He resented Hitler's anti-Semitism, and in the 1930s, while Fritz Kuhn led the American Bundists in Yorkville (in Manhattan), LaGuardia purposely put Jewish-American cops in front of the German consulate to "protect it". They did, as a matter of fact, as LaGuardia realized that the presence of the Jewish cops was a provoking insult to the Nazis.
Claire Luce was aware of this, and it is the basis of "Margin For Error". The consulate of the Nazis, headed by arch Nazi Karl Baumer (Otto Preminger), is a center of spying against the U.S.A., and of third column work by Bundists. Baumer is married to Sophia (Joan Bennett) who is carrying on an affair with his secretary Baron Max von Envenstor (Carl Esmond). The Bundist leader is Otto Horst (Howard Freeman - doing a watered down version of his "Himmler" performance in "Hitler's Madman"). Baumer is not lovable at all (which explains his wife's affair). He is thoroughly involved with destroying the U.S.A. for his masters in Berlin. He is also aware that Horst (who has dreams of becoming America's "Fuhrer", like Kuhn did) has been dipping his hands into the till of the Bund.
After a particularly nasty incident involving anti-Semitic comments, Baumer is sent word from City Hall that there will be a new police officer protecting the consulate. Enter Officer Moe Finklestein (Milton Berle). Baumer of course is absolutely furious at this individual being "given" to him for protection. Since Finklestein is not a German national or ally, he returns the comments that Baumer shoots at him with interest.
As you can see the play has many plot lines in it - perhaps too many. The crisis comes when there is a confrontation scene involving Baumer with his wife and his Secretary, and Horst, and Finklestein within earshot. Baumer has his own agenda, including framing Finklestein in an attempt on Baumer's own life to give a reason for Germany to break off diplomatic relations. But in the course of the confrontations, which occurs during an evening where there is a power failure, Baumer is found dead in his study with knife wounds in his body. Who is responsible?
While it may seem somewhat interesting the film moves too slowly. It is best served by Preminger (as several reviewers point out) who makes himself at home as the charismatic but evil diplomat. Freeman adds to it, playing Horst as an ambitious but rather fatuous type (his bund uniform looks a size too small for his plump form). Bennett has had far better roles in other films - this is not in her top 20 films. Esmond is adequate. As for Berle, he really never got into the swing of film acting until after his success as a television pioneer. He'd prefer being remembered for "It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World" and "Who's Minding The Mint" than for this film. Even his sleazy film agent in "The Oscar" was a surer performance. But then his material is not great.
Yet for a minor film "Margin For Error" remains on one's mind. Whenever we have an incident where a country's diplomats (Cuban, or North Korean, or Libyan, or Iranian) have insulted our population or segments of it, and then insisted on protection for the same diplomats in their work, we have to grit our teeth and do it. We are not handing Nazi German diplomats anymore, but the central issue at the heart of the plot remains with us to annoy us.
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