An American oil company representative called Bill Martin (Paul Maxwell) on his way to London from Baghdad agrees to deliver a top secret message to MI5. On his arrival he is abducted by two men posing as police officers and taken to a small hotel where he meets Sharp (John Arnett) who claims to be his contact man but in actual fact is in charge of a ring of enemy agents. Martin hands over the message but makes the mistake of letting Sharp know that he has a photographic memory, which makes him a marked man. He escapes to his girlfriend, Barbara (Clare Owen), who introduces him to her uncle, John Bowen (Colin Tapley), who has connections with MI5. At his home on the Sussex coast, Martin is introduced to his real contact, Oliver (Reginald Marsh), who tells him that the top secret message contained map references for enemy rocket bases. Martin agrees to help Oliver round up Sharp's gang by setting himself and Barbara up as bait and the pair check into a Seaford hotel watched closely by MI5 agents waiting for the enemy to make their move...
The title promises a suspenseful, tense and action packed spy thriller but it cannot ultimately disguise the fact that this is a mediocre British b-pic (made by quota-quickie specialists Butcher's) in every sense of the word. Director Ernest Morris was a true b-pic veteran who clocked up an impressive twenty-two of these routine features in eight years! Here he is defeated by the script which consists of much talk in small rooms (hotel rooms actually) and precious little action apart from a car chase and a climax on board Sharp's boat where the villains plan to dump Martin and Barbara overboard but these are listlessly staged and provide no thrills or spills. There is very little to watch apart from the location shooting along the Sussex coast which is attractively shot in black and white by lighting cameraman Walter J Harvey and trivia buffs will recognise Eric Pohlmann in the cast who voiced the unseen Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the early James Bond movies.
The title promises a suspenseful, tense and action packed spy thriller but it cannot ultimately disguise the fact that this is a mediocre British b-pic (made by quota-quickie specialists Butcher's) in every sense of the word. Director Ernest Morris was a true b-pic veteran who clocked up an impressive twenty-two of these routine features in eight years! Here he is defeated by the script which consists of much talk in small rooms (hotel rooms actually) and precious little action apart from a car chase and a climax on board Sharp's boat where the villains plan to dump Martin and Barbara overboard but these are listlessly staged and provide no thrills or spills. There is very little to watch apart from the location shooting along the Sussex coast which is attractively shot in black and white by lighting cameraman Walter J Harvey and trivia buffs will recognise Eric Pohlmann in the cast who voiced the unseen Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the early James Bond movies.