Master Spy

I saw this film yesterday morning. I like British low budget, (usually) black and white films from the 1950s and 1960s so I made the effort to ensure that I was available to watch it. Not only was I not disappointed; it turned out to be one of the best of its type.

The plot was very full, with plenty of twists and turns. I will not say what these are, but suffice it to say that they make for a very satisfying concept when one reflects on the film.

The conceptual basis for the story is interesting. It shows how two elements of life in the 1960s had come to the fore. One is the concept of spying and the other is the prominence of science and scientific research. "The white heat of the technological revolution", in Harold Wilson's phrase from that year's General Election campaign. One may conclude that the film was up to date in that sense. (The film "Ring Of Spies", made in the previous year, dealt with these themes from a different aspect.)

A few points arise from the milieu and setting. One is that, in contrast to what was to become a common suggestion/complaint a few years later, there is no sense that it is unusual to have women in senior positions in the research team; indeed, quite the contrary. The other is that several of the characters are shown smoking, regularly. Should there ever be a film suggested that would deal with this subject and this period, the makers will need to bite this particular bullet in the interests of accuracy.

An incidental fact, but one which identifies the film as very much of its period, is the style of spectacles worn by both June Thorburn and the senior civil servant's secretary. This "fashion" style, with prominent rims, belongs almost exclusively to the early and mid-1960s.

Turning to the cast, there is a good collection of British "second rank" character actors. I particularly noted Peter Gilmore's portrayal and of course Stephen Murray, who was completely unrecognisable from the (voice of the) Commander in the long-running radio series "The Navy Lark".

There is also the, to my mind, most attractive player in the film, the charming (and ultimately tragic) figure of June Thorburn. I am always pleased to see her name in the cast list of films made during the decade which began in the first half of the 1950s. That this film was in fact her final one, despite her death not occurring for another three years, shows that her time as a leading actress was over. This, I am sure, will have to been due to a combination of personal reasons and the change in the British film industry, which saw the decline and largely the end of the lower budget films from the mid-1960s onwards.

Had things continued, I am sure that she would still have been cast, as she always makes her mark, playing leading roles in films that do not have an obvious appeal to female members of the audience and making her mark in them. "Fury At Smuggler's Bay" (1961) and her penultimate film, 1963's "The Scarlet Blade", are the films which I have most in mind here.

All told, then, this is a film which has much to recommend it. If you like this type of film, it will be worth making the effort to see it, should it be shown again.

No fast action here, as spying business is a very slow and tedious affair, as already Somerset Maugham made clear in his early short stories, as that activity mainly tries your patience until it breaks, and that's when the mistakes are committed. Stephen Murray makes a very credible character as the defector from Yugoslavia seeking asylum in Britain and getting employed in an advanced nuclear research centre, where he can be at large doing whatever research he wants and using the results for his own ends, but unfortunately his collaborator is the wrong kind of man, and when he prompts the execution of Murray's secretary, for having found out about their business, Murray declines, and things are messed up. It's a rather ordinary spying story of double crossing and double purposes and the main issue getting busted, and the whole enterprise reaches a rather hasty end, without the original purpose getting fulfilled. But no one dies, and that at least is something in this rotten business where the end always justifies the means and usually get shipwrecked on the way.

Despite the title and the credit sequence depicting a chessboard Professor Turgenev is just a pawn in a much bigger game. Unlike the glamorous foreign locations paraded behind 007 this film is set in a thoroughly everyday black & white Britain.

Stephen Murray in a rare big screen lead plays Cambridge-educated professor of physics Boris Turganev, a leading expert on the acceleration of neutron rays but just an amateur in the world of espionage.

His patronising disdain for women, demonstrated by his outspoken discomfort at being given June Thorburn as an assistant is one of several aspects of the film that now looks very dated; but the other men are just as bad and the casting of Ellen Pollock as a senior member of the team serves as compensation while the ending is pretty cool.

The IMDB reviews for Master Spy are all over the place but I have to say that I rather enjoyed it. Now, I also think that being a non-British but American citizen could perhaps have influenced my opinion for the better. I've been watching a lot of the British B dramas/thrillers/suspense films lately and one thing that I consistently enjoy that few others mention, is the pure Britishness of them all. It's true, I admit it. Now having admitted that there is more to that in Master Spy. I think all of the performers did a solid job, even the minor characters were well developed. The story itself was somewhat basic but there are some fun twists at the end that all made for an interesting and fun viewing experience.

This low budget British spy film is apparently based on the book 'They Also Serve', which I haven't read. The plot is thin and the screenplay bland - there seems to be little for the cast to do but read the words. The music is irritating and intrusive. The photography and lighting lacking in creativity. The result is just barely watchable.

It is impossible not to draw comparisons with Hitchcock's Torn Curtain which was made just two years later and deals with the same subject. Torn Curtain however has action and movement, characters you care about, suspense and humour. Master Spy unfortunately, has none of these.