For one horrible moment it looks as if Mason is going to play the whole film in an ill-becoming naval beard. Fortunately he gets the sack early on and is able to shave it off.
As you know I operate on the principle that any film with Herbert Lomas is an entertaining one. Good old Lomas has a typically spooky informative role here, even if but a brief one. And as for finding my favorite comic detective/spy chaser Tom Walls on the wrong side of the law for once, it's a pleasure...
If this comedy-thriller is a bit shy in the laughs department — despite (or maybe because of) its hard-working heroine — it certainly delivers the thrills. Three or four scenes (a rendezvous with a corpse in a spooky house; attempted murder on a speeding train; Chesney playing the secret code) are staged with all the flair and panache of the master himself. In fact, when you come right down to it, the script has quite a few echoes of The 39 Steps, The Lady Vanishes, Number 17, and Young and Innocent.
The Director: A refugee from Hitler's Germany who served in the Royal Air Force during the war, Lamac has an extraordinarily large number of distinguished European films to his credit including The Bat, Little Dorrit, White Horse Inn, Hound of the Baskervilles and The Ghost Train.
As you know I operate on the principle that any film with Herbert Lomas is an entertaining one. Good old Lomas has a typically spooky informative role here, even if but a brief one. And as for finding my favorite comic detective/spy chaser Tom Walls on the wrong side of the law for once, it's a pleasure...
If this comedy-thriller is a bit shy in the laughs department — despite (or maybe because of) its hard-working heroine — it certainly delivers the thrills. Three or four scenes (a rendezvous with a corpse in a spooky house; attempted murder on a speeding train; Chesney playing the secret code) are staged with all the flair and panache of the master himself. In fact, when you come right down to it, the script has quite a few echoes of The 39 Steps, The Lady Vanishes, Number 17, and Young and Innocent.
The Director: A refugee from Hitler's Germany who served in the Royal Air Force during the war, Lamac has an extraordinarily large number of distinguished European films to his credit including The Bat, Little Dorrit, White Horse Inn, Hound of the Baskervilles and The Ghost Train.