Flight from Vienna

This E.J. Fancy production has a good script for the first thirty minutes, decent actors, good night photography, obvious day-for-night shots. It also has abysmally awful production values that are not helped in the least by the shooting at night and the combination of stock shots and ham-handed post-production that make you notice them instead of what's going on.

The first thirty minutes are about a high-ranking Communist spy -- Theodore Bikel -- who wanders into Vienna and tries to defect -- but no one seems to want him. After half an hour, some one suggests that there's a scientists behind the Iron Curtain that would be welcome in the west, so he heads back to Hungary and we spend some time watching him try to get himself, his wife and the scientists across the border. A few warm moments of decent, underplayed acting are inserted into undercranked MOS sequences punctuated by very dramatic music. That, however, takes only fifteen minutes and there's still another fifteen minutes to go....

Other reviews here have quite rightly highlighted what a poor film this is. The fault lies pretty well entirely with the production and direction. It is potentially a good story - but this story had been done before and since always to better effect. The screenplay is pedestrian and makes nothing of the opportunities for tension and character development. Direction seems to be non-existent with the poor actors doing the best they can with poor material. Nothing is made of the iconic Viennese setting, the drama of the border crossing or the constant tension of the protagonist being a hunted man. If this were not bad enough the cinematography, lighting and sound are distinctly amateur.

Is there anything of value in this then? . Well Theodore Bikel shows early signs of the genuine talent that would become more apparent as his career developed. John Bentley gives a dependable performance in line with his more famous "Paul Temple" role. Of interest is Donald Grey who became better known on screen in the TV series "Saber of the Yard" where as a one-armed actor he chose to play the detective with an empty sleeve. In this he wears a prosthetic arm carefully turned away from the camera. Probably because of his disability and distinctive voice, in his later career he became known for voice overs, most notably in Gerry Anderson's Captain Scarlett.

Finally, anyone interested in film composers may detect the uncredited early work of Edwin (Ted) Astley here. This is from the beginning of Astley's career, before he developed the distinctive ITC style that provided the scores for The Saint, The Baron, Danger Man and many other great TV series of the 70's. Here, his style is complex and orchestral, borrowing ideas and actual cues from "Scotland Yard" an early 50's TV series by him.

John Bentley had the misfortune to be best known as Noele Gordon's husband in that feeble soap "Crossroads." However, starting with "Calling Paul Temple" in 1948 and right through to 1963, when the form was dying out, he starred in a series of low-budget British B movies. Some, particularly those made by Terence Fisher, were pretty good. This one isn't. It's one of the dullest films I've ever seen, and I see now why I'd never heard of its director, Denis Kavanagh.

The main character, played by Theodore Bikel, is not at all sympathetic. He's a loyal member of Hungary's Communist equivalent of the KGB and only escapes to Vienna because his mentor has been purged and he fears being next. The premises in Budapest where these charmers operated (and before them the Black Arrow fascists, the other side of the same debased coin) is now open to the public, billed as The House of Terror.

Bikel escapes alone, leaving his wife to suffer the consequences. (Greater love hath no man, than he sacrifices his wife to save his own hide.) In Vienna he meets British agent, who takes him to meet his boss, The latter is suspicious and wants Bikel to prove he's not a plant by getting him to return to Hungary and help an aged professor to escape. This time he condescends to rescue his wife. Not only hasn't she been punished for his defection, she's not under surveillance.

Both escapes are ridiculously easy. No gun turrets, no guard dogs, no No Man's Land with mines. Just snip a bit of barbed wire and you're free. The Commies send assassins after Bikel, but they are comically incompetent. One misses Bikel in a Viennese park, and manages to kill the film's only interesting character (a shady wheeler-dealer) instead. The other shoots at Bikel on the runway at Paris airport, but only gets him in the shoulder, then promptly gets arrested.

Truly inept.

Hungarian police Colonel Sandor Kosice (Theodore Bikel) escapes across the iron curtain to seek political asylum in Vienna. Capt. Philip J. Lawton (John Bentley) and the authorities are suspicious although Sandor insists that he is running for his life. Philip offers him an opportunity. He is sent back to Budapest to help a scientist escape.

It is a lower quality British B-movie cold war thriller. The staging is rather static after an initial action escape section. It is good that they start getting out into the streets. That adds some of the energy back, but the sound quality is not good. The production quality is simply lower. I don't know these actors but they are doing good work. Despite the quality issue, the movie is good enough to follow.

A tinny but reasonably engrossing Cold War quickie largely shot in Vienna with mainly post-synced dialogue (of which there is plenty) centring on the exploits of a Hungarian defector; released the same year things in that poor country got really ugly.

We rarely see Viennese star Theodore Bikel the folk singer in movies; but he here briefly appears strumming a guitar in the opening sequence before he gets down to the serious business of spiriting his wife and the usual World Famous Scientist from behind the Iron Curtain.

It's only an hour long, slickly cut together and it's incredible age makes it interesting today as a period piece.