Undercover Agent aka Counterspy - 1953 film review

As I settled down to watch another of the long-forgotten films that have been resurrected on the excellent Talking Pictures TV channel, I was startled to see on the titles that the screenplay was based on a short story by Julian Symons. The film, Undercover Agent, is also known as Counterspy, and was released in 1953. The story it was based on is called "Criss Cross Code", but I'm unfamiliar with it, and I now plan to set about tracking it down.

Nobody ever thinks of Symons as writing espionage fiction, as the film's titles would suggest, although a few of his early short stories (and this one must have been among his very earliest) touch on international intrigue. The film is a thriller, and although it's creaky in parts, the screenplay is a lively one, co-written by Guy Elmes and Gaston Lazare (the latter name sounds as though it may possibly have been a pseudonym - I can't trace any of Lazare's other work).

The cast is a cut above the average for a British B-movie. Dermot Walsh, later to play Richard the Lionheart in a popular TV series of that name, improbably plays a meek but persistent auditor, who is called in to look over the books of a company where some mischief is afoot. His wife is played by Hazel Court, who was at the time married to Walsh in real life. The principal villain is played by Alexander Gauge, memorable in the role of Friar Tuck in the TV series Robin Hood. Here, Gauge acts rather like a poor man's Sydney Greenstreet in The Maltese Falcon. Hermione Baddeley plays a fortune teller, and even less likely is the casting of Bill Travers - yes, the chap from Born Free - as a brutal thug.

Yet somehow it all makes for agreeable light entertainment, mainly because the pace of the script doesn't allow one time to reflect on the daftness of it all. I'm not sure what Symons would have made of it, and I strongly suspect it bears only a limited resemblance to his story. He probably cringed, but it's no mean feat to have a short story turned into a film, even a comparatively short movie such as this one. An enjoyable curiosity..

Torment (aka The Paper Gallows) - 1950 film review

A film about two crime writers - what could be better? Well,what if one of them were heroic and handsome? Yes, that's better. And what if the other were deranged and homicidally inclined? Perfect! These are the key ingredients that meant I found the chance to watch Torment irresistible. I absolutely deny that the screenplay based on real life incidents in the crime writing world!

Torment was known in the US as The Paper Gallows (a title explained near the end of the story, and a rather good title, too, which deserves a fresh life). The director was John Guillerman, whose best known work in the crime film genre was the lavish production of Christie's Death on the Nile in the late 70s. He also came up with the script. It's a young man's work, and not short of energy if rather lacking in sophistication..

The two Brandon brothers are Jim, a very successful writer, who shares his posh house with his brother Cliff. The pair are played by Dermot Walsh (whom I recall from my youth as the star of Richard the Lionheart  a series that I watched avidly when I was a child) and John Bentley, who was best known for starring in Crossroads, a TV show which in contrast I made sure I avoided.. Cliff, poor fellow, dreams of writing the ultimate crime novel. Any temptation I had to identify with him was killed off early on, even before he did away with the family cat, horrid fellow.

The Brandons have a pretty young secretary called Joan. She fancies Jim, but Cliff fancies her. It's a recipe for calamity, and calamity duly follows. This is a short, snappy film, quite engaging if not, I'd like to think, entirely authentic in its portrayal of a crime novelist battling his demons. .