THE ASSASSIN. United Artists, US, 1953. Originally released in the UK by General Film Distributors, 1952, as Venetian Bird. Richard Todd, Eva Bartok, John Gregson, George Coulouris, Walter Rilla, Margot Grahame, Sidney James, Eric Pohlman Screenplay by Victor Canning, based on his novel Venetian Bird. Director: Ralph Thomas.

   The Assassin is an effective British noir thriller shot on location in Venice that follows the fate of low-rent private detective Edward Mercer (Richard Todd), a tough and deceptively honest man, who steps into a nest of vipers when he arrives in Venice to find Renzzo Ucello, a member of the Resistance who helped an American trapped behind enemy lines in WWII. It seems the GI’s family wants to reward Ucello, and Mercer has been hired by a firm of lawyers in Paris to find the man and help him.

   Almost from the start things are dicey. Two thugs are following him and the only person he finds willing to talk about Ucello disappears and later shows up dead. The police in the person of Spadoni (George Coulouris) are none too friendly and he is being followed by Cassona (John Gregson) an undercover cop who works as a street photographer.

   The only help he gets is from an old friend, Rosa (Margot Grahame) who runs a minor racket as a medium and palm reader, and her boyfriend Bernardo (Sydney James) in the funeral business.

   Following Ucello’s cold trail he learns he was once a promising artist, but that he also has a streak of violence and a nasty record, he is also, the police insist, dead. Mercer is led eventually to Adriana (Eva Bartok) who is restoring a painting (the Venetian Bird of the title) for one Count Borla (Walter Rilla); there is a tie to Ucello, but he isn’t sure what, other than drawings of the bird done by Ucello.

   Much more discussion of the plot, and I would give things away. Needless to say the title of the film as released in the US refers to the latter half of the movie when Mercer stumbles on a fascist plot to plunge Italy into chaos and seize power by assassinating a popular visiting political figure, and Mercer finds himself the perfect fall guy with all hands turned against him.

   The mostly British cast with such familiar faces and names as Eric Pohlman (the voice of Blofield in the early Bond’s and the gypsy chief in From Russia With Love), John Gregson (Gideon’s Way on television and a popular leading man in films like The Cruel Sea), Sydney James (the “Carry On” films and countless comic roles), and Michael Ripper (many many films including Hammer horror) does remarkably well playing mostly Italian roles. Rilla is always a smooth villain, in these things, and it is nice to see George Courlouris in a more or less sympathetic role for a change.

   Richard Todd was an Oscar-nominated actor who had some success in American films (A Man Called Peter, Hitchcock’s Stage Fright, Lightning Strikes Twice), and returned a big name in British films in this era (The Dam Busters). His Mercer strikes all the right notes as a cynical man who mostly believes in his work and won’t be threatened or used without due payback, his willingness to follow the truth even when he is no longer being paid to is well within the hardboiled tradition of the American private eye, and readers may recall Victor Canning revisited the genre both in his Rex Carver series, and in The Rainbird Pattern, which became Hitchcock’s Family Plot. The romance with Bartok is well played, and without any phony sentiment. She is attracted to him but there are other things in her life, and he is falling for her, but aware she is involved in something dangerous.

   Victor Canning’s adaptation of his own novel is quite good. The film features some actual detective work, both of the legwork variety and the cerebral, the atmosphere of Venice is captured better here in black and white than it usually is in Technicolor, and there are several nice pieces including an exciting roof top chase with the real assassin, and violence when it does break out is sudden and has consequences. There is also a nice twist toward the end of the film you may not quite see coming that makes things considerably more complicated for the hero.

   Somewhere along the way this well done British thriller has gotten a bit lost. It can be hard to find though it has a good reputation; currently it is available on Amazon Prime. It is well worth looking up though, if only to see a master craftsman of the suspense, spy, and adventure school of British thriller (Silver Dagger winner) adapt his own work to the screen with a top notch cast capable direction and handsome use of location in one of the world’s great cities.