Just when we thought such nonsense was all over, no less than ten Russian 'sleeper' spies in America have been exposed and exchanged in a spy swap with the Ruskies. One of them was even a glamour gal, just to keep the Hollywood touch to the story. So dusty old films like this one are now surprisingly and perhaps acutely relevant again. This is a powerful and highly tense drama with the towering Robert Ryan playing a man who was, and still is (because you can never quit) a card-carrying Communist Party member in the USA who has tried to go straight. But Thomas Gomez, the ruthless and terrifying leader of the Russian spy ring in San Francisco isn't having it. He is going to make Ryan follow orders or else. Into this mix comes one of Hollywood's most sizzling femme fatale actresses of the 1940s, Janis Carter. She was truly something-plus. And in this film she brings all the temptation and the allure, as Ryan's wife played by Laraine Day is rather a tepid good gal who does not raise anybody's temperature or heart rate. Janis and Ryan has been an item earlier on in the good old days when they were both Commies together, but while Ryan has lost his interest in spying for the Party, she remains a dedicated Party agent. It all gets very very intense. The film has some superb snappy dialogue and is extremely well directed by the highly talented Robert Stevenson (1905-1986, of English birth), famous for TOM BROWN'S SCHOOLDAYS (1940), JANE EYRE (1943) with Orson Welles, DISHONORED LADY (1947, see my review) and MY FORBIDDEN PAST (1951, also featuring Janis Carter), not to mention one of my favourite films, OWD BOB (1938, see my rave review) the fascinating early aviation epic NON-STOP NEW YORK (1937, see my review), and KING SOLOMON'S MINES (1937). Willian Talman does a scary job of playing a smoothie amoral hit-man who will bump anybody off for the spy ring for a thousand bucks and dresses nattily on the proceeds. The film is full of intrigue, blackmail, double-cross, threats, murder, and the relentless pressure of the Party which will not allow anyone out of its clutches and will do anything to get what it wants. Can Ryan escape the trap in which he is caught? Will his respectable and rich wife find out? Will his old chums in the trade unions realize that he made the dock strike go ahead because he was blackmailed into it? Can anyone escape unscathed from this web of conspiracy and betrayal? This film fit right into the McCarthy Era and, alas, it seems that it is not as dead an issue as we had all assumed.