FBI Code 98 is a 1962 crime drama directed by Leslie H. Martinson and produced by Warner Bros. Originally intended as television pilot, the film was instead released theatrically in the United Kingdom in 1962,{{cite web|url=http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/65473|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090209221417/http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/65473|url-status=dead|archive-date=February 9, 2009|title=FBI Code 98|publisher=bfi.org.uk|accessdate=December 1, 2009}} and in the United States in 1963. FBI Code 98 stars many Warner Bros. contract players such as Jack Kelly, Ray Danton, Andrew Duggan and William Reynolds who later costarred on the Warner Bros Television show The F.B.I.. The film was narrated by William Woodson, who had previously narrated the radio show The FBI in Peace and War.

Plot

The president of an electronics company, Alan Nichols (Andrew Duggan), and his two vice presidents, Robert Cannon (Jack Kelly) and Fred Vitale (Ray Danton), are required at Cape Canaveral to oversee the test launching of a missile which their company developed. But before they are able to board the plane to take them there one of their suitcases is switched for one containing a bomb. Cannon opens his luggage when the men are in mid air and discovers the bomb, and his colleague Vitale manages to disarm it. The FBI is called in to determine whether this is a case of attempting to murder Cannon, whose suitcase contained the bomb, or an attempt to sabotage the airplane.

The investigation soon proves that electronics project engineer Petersen made and planted the bomb in the suitcase. Petersen's motivation for doing this is that his son was fired by CEO Nichols, and when failing to blow up the plane he instead tries to blow up Nichols yacht, with the wife and her lover on it. The task for the FBI is to stop this endeavour.{{Cite web|url=https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/74682/fbi-code-98|title = FBI Code 98}}

Cast

Jack Kelly as Robert P. Cannon
Ray Danton as Fred Vitale
Andrew Duggan as Alan W. Nichols
Philip Carey as Inspector Leroy Gifford
William Reynolds as Special Agent Edward P. Fox
Peggy McCay as Deborah Cannon
Kathleen Crowley as Marian Nichols
Merry Anders as Grace McLean
Jack Cassidy as Walter Macklin
Vaughn Taylor as Joseph Petersen
Eddie Ryder as Lloyd Kinsel
Ken Lynch as Special Agent in Charge Gibson White
Charles Cooper as Special Agent Bernard Lyons
Paul Comi as Special Agent Philip Vaccaro
Robert Hogan as Timothy Farrell
Laura Shelton as Anita Davidson
Robert Ridgely as Carl Rush
Francis De Sales as Assistant Director
Bill Quinn as Special Agent Alan Woodward
Ross Elliott as Special Agent Vernon Lockhart
William Woodson as Narrator

Production

The Federal Bureau of Investigation cooperated in the filming of FBI Code 98,{{cite web|url=http://www.glamourgirlsofthesilverscreen.com/show/521/Pamela+Austin/index.html|title=The Private Life and Times of Pamela Austin |publisher=glamourgirlsofthesilverscreen.com}} with sequences filmed in Washington, D.C., and Quantico, Virginia.

The working title of the film was Headquarters F.B.I. with screenwriter and producer Stanley Niss having a novelization of the screenplay published under that title.[http://www.worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n78-58436 Stanley Niss at worldcat.com] Niss, a former police reporter,{{cite magazine|date=September 19, 1938|title=Letters To the Editor|magazine=Life|publisher=Time, Inc.|volume=5|issue=12|pages=2|issn=0024-3019|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IUkEAAAAMBAJ&q=%22stanley+niss%22+%2B+%22+j+edgar+hoover%22&pg=PA2}} had written episodes for the radio shows Gangbusters and Counterspy and episodes of several Warner Bros. Television shows. Niss also visited the set to smooth difficulties between Ray Danton and director Leslie H. Martinson.Magers, Boyd & Fitzgerald, Michael G. Western Women: Interviews with 50 Leading Ladies of Movies and Television p.18, 2004, McFarland

The film reuses Max Steiner's score for The FBI Story arranged by Howard Jackson.{{cite book|last1=McCarty|first1=Clifford|editor1-last=D'Arc|editor1-first=James|editor2-last=Gillespie|editor2-first=John N.|title=The Max Steiner Collection|date=1996|publisher=Special Collections and Manuscripts, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University|location=Provo, Utah|chapter=A Max Steiner Filmography|url=http://files.lib.byu.edu/ead/XML/MSS1547.xml}}