State Secret – 1950 | 104 mins | Drama, Thriller | B&W

Plot Synopsis

Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat drew on their experience writing on political intrigue thrillers including Alfred Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes (1938) and Carol Reed’s Night Train to Munich (1940) to adapt Roy Huggins novel into a serviceable suspense thriller with a sprinkling of humour. The film’s US title was “The Great Manhunt”, which seems apt as the story is a procession of espionage clichés that recalls Geoffrey Household’s novel “Rogue Male”. Gilliat directs with plenty of panache and Robert Krasker’s studio cinematography and location shooting is stunning, but despite an atmospherically brisk opening the film gradually descends into a one-dimensional chase thriller.

Dr. John Marlowe (Douglas Fairbanks Jr), an eminent American surgeon residing in London, is called in to visit the authoritarian European state of Vosnia to receive an honour from the country’s medical fraternity. Marlowe is asked to demonstrate his pioneering technique on a Vosnian patient, but during the operation he realises the patient is the country’s ailing dictator, General Niva (Walter Rilla), wounded in a recent assassination attempt. When his patient dies, the head of the state police, Colonel Galcon (Jack Hawkins), explains that with a forthcoming election news of the president’s death would be suppressed and the doctor must meet with ‘an unfortunate accident’.

Marlowe escapes his captors and goes on the run in Vosnia but with the British and American embassies cordoned off and the police hunting him, the only friend the doctor can find is Lisa Robinson (Glynis Johns), the half-English singer in a female trio touring the country. The pair attempt to blackmail counterfeiter Karl Theodor (Herbert Lom) to help smuggle them out of the country.