MAN HUNT. 20th Century-Fox, 1941. Walter Pidgeon, Joan Bennett, George Sanders, Roddy McDowall, John Carradine. Screenplay: Dudley Nichols, based on the novel Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household. Director: Fritz Lang.

   Few books catch the public imagination the way Geoffrey Household’s classic novel of chase and pursuit Rogue Male did. It was a best-selling phenomenom and became one of the classic thrillers of all time, near the top of everyone’s list of the best thrillers ever written.

   It was natural it would come to film, and luckily for all concerned, it did so at the hands of one of the greatest directors in film history, Fritz Lang.

   Fritz Lang was a legendary German director who fled Nazi Germany by the skin of his teeth, so Rogue Male was a natural project for him — how could he resist the tale of a big game hunter who decides on a lark to stalk the most dangerous game of all — Adolf Hitler.

   It should be noted Rogue Male was written before the war broke out in September 1939, so Household never specifically says in the novel that his hero is stalking Adolf Hitler, merely an unnamed European dictator.

   As if the public couldn’t figure it out.

   Especially at novel’s end, when the hero vows to finish the job.

   When the war did break out, at least one British general, who himself was a big game hunter, had to be talked out of trying to duplicate Household’s novel in the real world.

   Bringing the book to the screen was no easy task. The novel, written in the first person, is a curiously compelling and believable work. It reads like the actual memoir of the narrator and builds incredible suspense.

   Finding the right actor to play the lead was vital. It needed someone stalwart and serious yet human and likable — after all, the United States was not in the war, and this was a film about assassinating the leader of another country. Warner Brothers may have fired the opening salvo with Confessions of a Nazi Spy, but not all Americans were convinced the war was any of our business. Pearl Harbor would soon change that, but not yet.

   Which is why Walter Pidgeon was the ideal choice to play the lead, that sane, strong, yet gently humorous Canadian actor who in Mrs. Miniver would shortly become the very icon of calm British courage in the face of incredible odds. The simple fact that Pidgeon was the man behind the telescopic sites let the viewer know that he was not only the hero, but he was justified in his actions.

   The existence of actors like Pidgeon was one of the strengths of the old studio star system. His very presence told the audience as much as any dialogue could reveal.

   The film opens with Pidgeon in what is obviously Germany, near what is obviously Hitler’s Bavarian escape Berchtesgarten. Pidgeon, a famous British hunter, is hunting stags when he realizes where he is, and for reasons he can’t explain decides to see if he could get a clear shot at the dictator. Not that he would ever pull the trigger …

   But when he is caught it isn’t so easy to explain. The Germans, particularly George Sanders, are sure he is a British agent, and even if he isn’t, the provocation of a Brit caught trying to kill the Fuehrer is to good to pass up. They beat and torture him, and then plan to dump his body, but he outwits them and escapes.

   Now the manhunt is on. Pidgeon is hidden on a boat traveling to England and aided by a cabin boy (Roddy McDowall who teamed with Pidgeon in John Ford’s How Green Was My Valley).

   He arrives in England only to find there is no where to turn and no one to help him. He can’t go to the police and he soon finds Sanders and his men in England are on his trail.

   He’s trapped in a nightmare and can’t wake up. His brother wants nothing to do with him, the government would just as soon he go away, the police would as soon arrest him, and he is actively being hunted by enemy agents in his own country.

   After a narrow escape in the London underground with sinister John Carradine, Pidgeon knows his only hope is to go to ground in the wild, where he has a chance based on his survival skills. It’s a splendidly shot sequence that reminds of Lang’s brilliant use of shadow and light in his silent work.

   But he needs help, and that comes in the form of Joan Bennett, a prostitute he has picked up in escaping the German agents. (Production code or not the movie is pretty obvious what Bennett’s profession is.) Though she is clearly from another class he is charmed by her, and she by his gentlemanly ways. She agrees to help him, and he in return arranges to help her escape her life.

   He arranges with his solicitor, one of the few friends he can rely on, to help her while he is in hiding. In the novel the solicitor is Jewish, in the film that’s never exactly said, though perhaps subtly implied.

   The scenes between Pidgeon and Bennett are touching and human. When he leaves her he gives her a little token, A pin, a metal arrow, to remember him by.

   As you might guess, that pin is going to be important.

   Meanwhile after a tearful goodbye in the fog on Tower bridge (and an infamous mistake that puts Parliament on the wrong side of the Thames), Pidgeon heads for the country and finds a small cave he converts into a hideout sets out to keep a low profile.

   But Sanders is hot on his trail and tracks him down. Now Pidgeon is pinned in his little hideout with Sanders outside promising to let him live if he will just sign a confession he intended to kill Hitler. And to break Pidgeon’s will he produces proof there is no hope.

   The arrow pin Sanders took from Bennett when he tortured and killed her to find out where Pidgeon was hiding.

   But Pidgeon didn’t go to ground because it would make him defenseless. He may be trapped but he still has his mind. Using a board from his bed, some rope, his belt, a stick and the arrow pin, Pidgeon builds a makeshift crossbow.

   If he can only lure Sanders to the small opening by pretending to sign the confession — before Sanders kills him.

   The film ends with Pidgeon enlisted after the war starts in the RAF. But on a mission over Germany he produces his hunting rifle and parachutes from the plane. This time he will hunt the beast from rooftops, not forests, and this time we are assured, he won’t miss.

   The novel ends somewhat differently in that we learn that the narrator unconsciously intended to kill the dictator all along. His lover was killed in the Spanish Civil War, but as in the film the book ends as he returns to Germany determined this time to finish the job he began.

   It’s hard to gauge just how comforting that thought was to millions of Brits and Americans, the idea that somewhere in Germany one lone man with a gun was stalking the biggest monster of them all. The book was an international sensation and many actually believed a British big game hunter was loose in Europe stalking the German dictator. It was no longer a novel or a film, it had become an urban legend.

   Rogue Male was remade under its original title by Clive Donner with Peter O’Toole as the hunter and Sir John Standing in the Sanders role. It was an excellent film, somewhat closer to the novel than the Lang version and featuring one of the last performances of Alistair Sim.

   Geoffrey Household went on to write many classic novels of chase and pursuit including Watcher In the Shadows, The Courtesy of Death, Dance of the Dwarfs, and not long before his death the long awaited sequel to Rogue Male, Rogue Justice, which for the first time reveals the characters name and follows his mission in Nazi Germany and his final fate in post war Africa. It is one of the few sequels worthy of the original.

   But nothing could recreate the impact of Rogue Male or the Fritz Lang film version, Man Hunt. At a time when the world seemed to have gone mad and the forces of darkness threatened to overwhelm the forces of decency and hope, the idea that somewhere one sane man opposed the darkness, alone and with a gun from the shadows and rooftops, filled a need for hope and a spirit of resistance.

   Postwar study of German secret correspondence even revealed they took it seriously, thinking Household’s novel was based on an actual person. Many a rooftop was scanned looking for Household’s fictional hunter.

    Man Hunt is a fine film, one of Lang’s best American films, and features a strong screenplay by John Ford favorite, Dudley Nichols. The cast is first rate, with Pidgeon, Sanders, and Bennett all outstanding in their roles. Roddy McDowall is touching in a small but key role, and John Carradine is at his sinister best.

   I defy you not feel like cheering even today as Pidgeon descends through the clouds, and we are told this time he won’t miss. It is old Hollywood at its best.

   And time has given both film and book a deeper meaning. Today in the light of Lee Harvey Oswald and others, both have an ambiguity never intended at the time. Reading Rogue Male or viewing Man Hunt today might best be accompanied by Frederick Forsyth’s Day of the Jackal and the Fred Zinneman film of that book.

   Still, in 1941 when Man Hunt hit the big screen, there was no ambiguity. We knew right and wrong then and we knew what was needed. It was a darker and simpler time and one man with a gun could matter — or at least it seemed that way, and as symbols of hope went, it proved a remarkably resilient and powerful one.

SEVEN MILES FROM ALCATRAZ. RKO Radio Pictures, 1943. James Craig, Bonita Granville, Frank Jenks, Cliff Edwards, George Cleveland, Erford Gage, Tala Birell, John Banner, Otto Reichow. Director: Edward Dmytryk.

   Released in January 1943, this Grade B action picture is primarily a propaganda film for the war effort, during some of its darkest days.

   If a tough (but good-looking) gangster (James Craig) and a cheap (and pug-ugly) hoodlum (Frank Jenks) who’ve just broken out of Alcatraz can be convinced that the war is worthy of both their effort and sacrifice, then who’d be left on the home front who wouldn’t be?

   Absolutely nobody, except perhaps a stray underground German spy or two. (And by the way, as long as you ask, yes, it is that John Banner.)

   Breaking out of Alcatraz (don’t ask how — it’s a trade secret), Craig and Jenks make their way to a lighthouse somewhere in San Francisco bay, manned by a crusty lighthouse keeper (George Cleveland), his very pretty daughter (Bonita Granville), and a semi-dopey assistant (most amusingly played by Cliff Edwards). Most of the rest of the players are German agents, both male and female, and to a man (and woman), they are a dastardly lot.

   There’s a whole business about codes and a secret submarine, and a whole lot of running up and down the lighthouse steps and then into a dark dank storage area beneath the main floor. Add some shooting and punching, and while there’s not a whole lot of literary value to the proceedings, the result is a full hour’s worth of Saturday-afternoon-at-the-movies and don’t-ask-questions kind of entertainment.

   Previously on this blog:

      Part I:   Where the Spies Are (1966).

      Part II.  The Liquidator (1965).

AGENT 8 3/4.   J. Arthur Rank, 1964. Originally released in the UK as Hot Enough for June. Dirk Bogarde, Sylvia Koscina, Leo McKern, Robert Morley, Roger Delgado, John LeMessurier. Based on the novel Night of Wenceslas by Lionel Davidson. Director: Ralph Thomas.

   The earliest of the Bond spoofs and still one of the best, this bright comedy has a reluctant Bogarde drafted into service in the British Secret Service for a dangerous mission in Soviet occupied Czechoslovakia, where he finds himself seduced, pursued, and never quite sure what he is doing there.

   Unlike the other films I’ve been discussing, this was not a series novel, but one of only a handful written by Lionel Davidson, one of the most critically praised spy novelists, whose books The Rose of Tibet, The Menorah Men, The Sun Chemist, and Kolymsky Heights are among the best thrillers of the 20th century. Davidson is not prolific, but enthusiasts know that every one he pens is a jewel.

   Bogarde is always worth watching when allowed to play to his humorous side, and between the gorgeous Koscina and the droll black humor delivered by McKern and Morley, this film succeeds as a bright and witty charmer. It is a little short on action and perhaps relies more on comedy than the others reviewed here, but it is also well worth finding and viewing.

   This is far more comedy than the others, and the satirical barbs are somewhat sharper. In some ways it is closer to an Ealing comedy or even The Mouse That Roared than a Bond spoof, though there are certainly references to Bond beyond the title.

   Davidson’s novel is largely a place for the script to take off from, but some of the humor is still derived from it, and it is hard not to see Bogarde as the personable hero who’s in over his head…

      In conclusion:

   The spy film craze went from the sublime to the ridiculous, and too soon even the Bond films turned to cannibalizing themselves, but it also produced some bright, funny, attractive films like this and the others reviewed here. At their best they hold up better than many more serious films from the era, and they often feature lesser known players or character actors like McKern, Morley, and others in outstanding performances.

   No one is claiming them as great art, but they are a snapshot of an era, and even today, with Bond still around and now competing with Jason Bourne and Mission Impossible franchises and the Austin Powers films (inspired by the American Bond spoof, Our Man Flint), they are a reminder that everything old really is new again — eventually.

       

   Previously on this blog: Where the Spies Are (1966).

THE LIQUIDATOR. MGM, 1965. Rod Taylor, Jill St. John, Trevor Howard, Wilfred Hyde-White, Akim Tamaroff, David Tomlinson, Eric Sykes. Song over opening credits sung by Shirley Bassey. Based on the novel by John Gardner. Director: Jack Cardiff.

   The driving Bondian theme song by Shirley Bassey, accompanied by handsomely done animated titles, lets you know what you are in for in this well done British spy spoof based on John Gardner’s Boysie Oakes novels.

   Rod Taylor is well cast as Boysie, a handsome amoral bungler, coward, and general screw-up, who is mistaken by Colonel Mostyn (Trevor Howard at his best) of MI6 for a cold blooded killer when they meet during the fall of Nazi-held Paris.

   Twenty years later Mostyn is second in command of MI6, and a series of defections and had headlines has convinced his boss (Hyde-White) that what the service needs is an executioner, a liquidator who will rid them of embarrassment before it gets that far.

   Mostyn remembers Boysie, whom he finds burying his partner (they owned a pub together) whose wife he has been having an affair with.

   Mostyn jumps to conclusions, and before he can protest, Boysie finds himself the private executioner for the British Secret Service.

   And it isn’t a bad life. He has a lush apartment, a nice stipend, a sexy sports car, a parade of beautiful girls, and there is always the sardonic Mostyn’s secretary Jill St. John — if only there wasn’t that silly rule about inter-service romance.

   Then the first problem arises. They actually want Boysie to kill some one.

   He does his best, but he just can’t manage it. But rather than give up his new life, he finds an out. Charlie Griffin is a sort of private version of Boysie, a likable Cockney (Eric Sykes) who finds this new political work both fulfilling and challenging. A perfect working relationship is formed.

   Seems Boysie has it all now. If he could only control that libido.

   Which is the one thing he can’t control. So he plans a little getaway with St. John on the Cote d’Azur. Just pull the wool over Mostyn’s eyes and have a little fun.

   You know that won’t go well, and it doesn’t. Boysie is captured by a Soviet agent (Akim Tamiroff) and rescued by an annoying David Tomlinson, who puts him and St. John under house arrest.

   But Boysie is as lucky as usual. They need him. There is a mission, a security test at an RAF base (wouldn’t you know it, just the idea of flying makes Boysie deathly ill), a mock assassination of the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip.

   Which is how Boysie ends up the only conscious person on a top secret RAF fighter plane with no idea how to land the thing.

   Thanks to the cast and a script that closely follows Gardner’s novel, this spy spoof works both as a send-up of Bond and as damn good spy film on its own.

   Taylor’s way around a reaction shot and his ability to look dashing and frightened out of his wits at the same time make him an ideal Boysie, and the direction by former cinematographer Cardiff is tight and well paced.

   Howard, St. John ( who never got her due as an actress), Sykes, and Tomlinson are all superior, and you will find yourself humming the title song even if you don’t want to.

   Gardner, a former commando who turned leftist Church of England reverend, wrote Boysie as a reaction to the Bond phenomena, proving himself a serious suspense and spy novelist. He guided Boysie, Moystn, and Griffin through ten novels with ironic endings, and then in the greatest irony, he ended up writing fourteen books about James Bond himself.

   Boysie never made it to the screen again, but this was still one of the brightest moments of the spy craze.

Coming soon:

   Agent 8 3/4 (1964) with Dirk Bogarde and Sylvia Koscina.

Editorial Comment: For my review of this same film, check it out here, posted in July of last year on this blog.

   In the wake of the success of Goldfinger, spy films were everywhere. Some were great, some awful, and some forgettable, but among the best were some well-remembered little films like the three British films to be reviewed here.

WHERE THE SPIES ARE. MGM, 1966. David Niven, Françoise Dorléac, Nigel Davenport, John Le Messurier, Cyril Cussack, Eric Pohlmann. Screenplay by Wolf Mankowitz, Val Guest & James Leasor based on his novel Passport to Oblivion. Directed by Val Guest.

   One of the brightest of the spy spoofs that appeared in the wake of the Bond craze that took off with the success of Goldfinger, this film was based on the first novel in the James Leasor’s Dr. Jason Love series.

   Leasor was a British thriller writer who also wrote historical fiction and popular history (Nemesis, The Sea Wolves, etc).

   In the film version, David Niven (who is a bit older than the character in the books, but otherwise perfect) is Dr. Love, a country GP who once did a bit of intelligence work. He’s approached for a simple mission that should be a holiday and enticed into it because he collects vintage Cords. That’s part of his cover as well.

   What could go wrong?

   Just about everything.

   First some one blows his plane up, then his contact is killed. Love stumbles on a Soviet-backed assassination plot designed to set the Middle East on fire. He’s betrayed by the beautiful Dorléac, damn near killed, and ends up being kidnapped on a Soviet ‘peace mission’ flight and has to arrange a last minute Arctic escape.

   A terrific cast and the personable Niven make this one a pleasure. The script is smart, and for once funny. Add into the mix good location filming and a superior cast, and you have a film that works both as a spy film, a comedy, and a spoof. And it doesn’t hurt that Niven was not only a friend of Ian Fleming, but one of the real life models for James Bond (a role he only played in the disappointing spoof Casino Royale).

   This one is well worth catching. First class all the way.

Coming soon:

   The Liquidator (1965) with Rod Taylor, Trevor Howard and Jill St. John.

SECRET MISSION. General Film Distributors-UK, 1942. Hugh Williams, Carla Lehmann, Roland Culver, Michael Wilding, James Mason, with Stewart Granger, Herbert Lom. Director: Harold French.

   The sole purpose of the movie seems obvious: to boost the morale of the home front during the early days of World War II. Four men, including one member of the Free French (James Mason) undertake a daring mission into occupied France to obtain useful information about German positions and armaments and to free an important prisoner of war.

   Carla Lehmann plays Michele de Carnot, the sister of Mason’s character Raoul, as the only other important member of the cast.

   She dislikes the English, causing some plot complications, but she hates the Germans more, which relieves some of the viewers’ concerns considerably. She also finds herself falling in love with Major Peter Garnett (Hugh Williams), the leader of the secret mission, which provides the romance the story line needs.

   There is also more than a tinge of screwball comedy in this film, provided in part by the utter stupidity of the Germans in this film, but also by Michael Wilding’s antics as the Cockney-accented owner of a French pub, on this mission very reluctantly for fear of returning home to his ever-demanding wife. (In case you are wondering, yes, this is same Michael Wilding who later married Elizabeth Taylor.)

   The only reason, I am sure, that this movie is known at all, is that James Mason is in it. He’d been in films for about seven years when this movie is made, but he is not the star, far from it.

   The leading role is that of Hugh Williams, who plays stalwart very well. He’s not devil-may-care enough to play The Saint for example, but he’d make a decent Bulldog Drummond, I think.

   Part of the plan, as it works out, is rather daring if not out-and-out unlikely. Putting on a pair of rimless glasses, Major Garnett disguises himself as a wine salesman and with another of his small group of companions, walks right into German headquarters where they’re left alone in the commandant’s office long enough to take all of the photos they need to complete the rest of the mission, which expands to blowing up a secret underground bunker.

   A goal which also seems to require their walking around in woods at night in suits, neckties and trenchcoats, and hiding in bushes when German patrols go by, including an armored vehicle of some sort that plays loud segments of Wagnerian opera as it travels through the local area every minute of the day and night.

   When that seems to go well, they walk into town and sit in bars next to German soldiers taking a break from their patrols, allowing the proprietress to feed their unwary adversaries false identities for them as Gestapo officers.

   If you were to tell me that both of these last two paragraphs sound like something straight out of Tommy Hambledon’s adventures, I’d agree with you, except that the pair of authors who wrote Manning Coles usually made the reader swallow their stories. Maybe escapades like this sound more plausible in print than they do on film.

   Or maybe it’s that this isn’t a very good movie. I found it enjoyable enough, but I have a feeling that it would be very easy to tear the plot apart, shred by shred, if I were so inclined.

   I’ll refrain from doing so, though, and let my description stand for itself, thus allowing you to decide for yourself whether this low budget wartime film with higher aspirations is worth 90 minutes of your spare time.

Q-PLANES. Columbia Pictures-UK, 1939. Aka Clouds Over Europe (US). Laurence Olivier, Ralph Richardson, Valerie Hobson. Cinematography by Harry Stradling; art direction by Vincent Korda and Frederick Pusey; director: Tim Whelan. Shown at Cinevent 41, Columbus OH, May 2009.

   Also known as Clouds Over Europe, this is a dandy espionage thriller, with Ralph Richardson stealing the acting honors from Olivier (a bit grumpy, it seemed to me, although this was probably mostly due to the character he played).

   Olivier is an impatient test pilot who keeps being passed over for flights because of his fiery temper, while Richardson is a secret operative, unflappable and prone to off-the-cuff humorous asides, with a sharp intelligence that his cover as a man-about-town conceals.

   The program notes made much of Richardson’s character Tony McVane as a dapper precursor of James Bond, although Michael Klossner commented to me that he found him more like the Avengers’ John Steed, with his signature cane and posh outfits.

   The production team and cast were all first class, with the director just a year or so away from his co-directing stint on The Thief of Bagdad.

           

THE McKENZIE BREAK. United Artists, 1970. Brian Keith (Captain Jack Connor), Helmut Griem (Kapitan Willi Schleuter), Ian Hendry (Major Perry), Jack Watson (General Kerr), Patrick O’Connell (Sergeant Major Cox). Based on the novel Bowmanville Break by Sidney Shelley. Director: Lamont Johnson.

   Here’s the funny thing. The novel this movie is based on takes place in Canada, where there really was a semi-successful escape of Nazis from a prisoner of war camp in 1943.

   The McKenzie Break takes place in Scotland, another venue altogether, and as far as I’ve been able to determine, is totally fictional. It’s a film that boils down to a battle of wits between two men, Captain Jack O’Connor, an Irish journalist pressed into intelligence by the British, and Kapitan Willi Schleuter, a U-Boat Commander who’s become the spokesman for the German prisoners under circumstances that can only be called suspicious.

   Unorthodox means, in other words, are what O’Connor is expected to use, first to quash the continual defiance and uproar caused by the prisoners, which Major Perry is quite unable to handle, and to learn what it is that’s behind it.

   A tunnel, that is, and escape. O’Connor is a wily old bird, but the Germans are even wilier, and far more ruthless. Willi Schleuter, handsome and blond, also has an ever-present and wicked gleam in his eye.

   If you’re ever inclined to root for the underdog, you might even find yourself hoping that he’ll actually pull it off — escape, that is. It’s the only thing on his mind, and no person or other obstacle dare not stand in his way.

   Perhaps I was too used to seeing Brian Keith in situation comedy on TV. I did not expect to see a big, gruff, burly man with a strong rolling Irish accent with a way with the ladies. (There is a short bedroom scene with one of perhaps the only two women who appear in this movie, and both are discreetly and quite adequately covered at all times.)

   Major Perry’s problem is that he outranks O’Connor, but O’Connor is the one with the authority (and the pull) to do as he wishes — not that all of his plans work out as successfully as he so confidently expects they will.

   If I were to reveal that an escape does take place, I hope I am not revealing too much, one that leaves a lot of chaos — shall we say? — behind.

   But it’s here that the story line begins to sag a little. Make that a lot. There seems to be only one airplane that’s capable of tracking down the escapees, and who do you think is riding along? Three guesses and the first two don’t count.

   There is otherwise a lot of enjoyment that can be gotten from watching this movie, one that I didn’t even know existed until it showed up on cable TV the other day. Watch it if you can.

MASQUERADE. United Artists, 1964. Cliff Robertson, Jack Hawkins, Marisa Mell, Michel Piccoli, Charles Gray, John Le Mesurier, Felix Aylmer. Screenplay: Michael Relph & William Goldman, based on the novel Castle Minerva by Victor Canning. Directed by Basil Deardon.

   It’s the early sixties, and the British Lion’s bite isn’t what it once was. In the Arab state of Ramault, once liberated by the Brits in WW II, that means the treacherous leader has plans to rid himself of his nephew, the twelve year old heir to the throne, and sell out to the Russians, depriving England of those precious oil concessions.

   That’s why the Brits have called in Colonel Drexel (Jack Hawkins), the man who liberated Ramault and assigned him to kidnap and protect the young prince. Drexel, a latter day T.E. Lawrence, does things his own way, and he insists on his wartime ally American David Fraser (Cliff Robertson) as his aide in protecting the prince. The government isn’t sure. Fraser has a history of financial problems and a tendency to trouble.

    “Yes, David always was an Errol Flynn fan,” Drexel dryly observes, but he’ll have Fraser or no one, and Fraser needs the work. Currently he’s been reduced to posing as a male model for magazine ads.

   Still, Fraser is no happier about it than the government: “Drexel, I never worked with you. I always worked for you.” But when he faces the realities he agrees to follow Drexel one more time.

   But no sooner than they are set up in a villa where they bring the prince than Robertson finds himself seduced by lovely Marissa Mell and menaced by her boyfriend (Michel Piccoli) and the prince kidnapped from under his nose — all the Machiavellian work of his buddy Drexel, who after a lifetime of service to the Empire finds he is growing older and has nothing but a few ex-wives and no money to show for it. The ransom he gets for the boy will take care of that — and if that means setting up his old friend as the fall guy — well, Fraser is the adaptable sort. He’ll find a way out of it.

   Now Fraser is labeled a traitor and forced to rescue the boy, who still thinks Drexel is a hero and believes Fraser set him up to save himself, but that’s not his only problem, which include Mell and her circus folk in Drexel’s employ, a pet vulture, a phony private eye, and the one question he doesn’t want answered, how far will Drexel go? To kill the boy — or him?

   This clever spy spoof mixes humor with action and an unusually intelligent and quip-filled script handled by an expert cast who know their way around a dry line or a raised eyebrow. The scenery is handsome, the direction crisp, and the plot keeps twisting right up to the final scene. Robertson was born to play this sort of whimsical hero and Hawkins plays Drexel with some of the same style he brought to his role in The League of Gentleman, reviewed earlier by Steve here.

   It’s based on a novel by Victor Canning, a major British thriller writer who rivaled Eric Ambler, Geoffrey Household, and Hammond Innes in his day and whose works were frequently adapted to the big and small screen, including his most famous, and atypical book, The Rainbird Pattern, which became Alfred Hitchcock’s Family Plot.

   Canning’s books veered from adventure to Cold War dramas, from taut suspense to picaresque humor. Panther’s Moon, Queen’s Pawn, The House of Turkish Flies, His Bones Are Coral, The Great Affair, and Finger of Saturn are some of his better known titles.

   From the catchy title tune and the animated titles, to the little twist at the end, this is a too little seen spy parody from its era, directed with a light but sure hand by Deardon and acted with wit and tongue in cheek by the entire cast.

   If you’ve never seen this one and you like the better spy spoofs of the era — the best of which always seemed to be British — catch this clever and entertaining film. But don’t listen too closely to the title tune the first time you watch it. It gives away a few plot points, however unintentionally.

HOTEL RESERVE. RKO Radio Pictures-UK, 1944. James Mason, Lucie Mannheim, Julien Mitchell, Herbert Lom, Clare Hamilton, Frederick Valk, Raymond Lovell, Patricia Medina. Based on the novel Epitaph for a Spy by Eric Ambler. Directors: Lance Comfort, Max Greene (Mutz Greenbaum), Victor Hanbury.

    There must be a well-known rule of thumb, something like Murphy’s Law except that I don’t know the name, that when a movie has three directors, it’s not very good. While there are some good moments in Hotel Reserve, it’s no exception to prove the rule.

    I don’t think it was the author’s fault. Back in the 1950s when I first started reading “grown-up” mysteries, Eric Ambler was one of my favorite authors. His spy novels written in the 1940s were wonderfully descriptive and intense, filled with ordinary citizens getting into the most intricate plots — and all the better, finding their way out.

    I’ll have to re-read them sometime. Perhaps they won’t hold up or match my memories, but I think they will. In Hotel Reserve it is a man named Peter Vadassy (James Mason), an intense medical student who’s half-Austrian and half-French and anxiously awaiting his French naturalization papers, who gets into trouble during a short vacation at a French seaside resort, circa 1939.

    It seems that someone accidentally used his camera to take some photographs of a defense installation, and the police, particularly intelligence chief Michel Beghin (Julien Mitchell) are not amused. Although he knows Vadassy to be innocent, he sends him back to the hotel to find the real culprit, under the threat of deportation if he fails.

    The set-up is fine. This had all the signs of a pretty good amateur detective story, but what follows instead is a mish-mash of comedy and inept B-movie clunks on the head and angry confrontations.

    The other vacationers are difficult to keep track of — who’s who and why they’re there — even Vadassy’s would-be girl friend, Mary Skelton (Clare Hamilton).

   That the latter is surprisingly wooden in both attitude and delivery is explained by the fact that this is the only movie she ever made. (It is claimed by several sources that Clare Hamilton was the sister of Maureen O’Hara; at least one person leaving comments on IMDB is not so sure.)

    If you read through the list of the cast that I provided above — I didn’t list them all, as most of them have very small parts — and assuming that you recognize some of the names, you may pick out the true culprit(s) rather easily.

    James Mason, alas, didn’t have that luxury. He does well in the part, frightfully earnest to the end, but he’s undone by an indifferent script, a ludicrous ending, and three directors, none of whom can be compared to, say, a certain Mr Hitchcock, except badly.