Cloak Without Dagger

In places this resembles a sixties rather than a fifties spy movie, with it's sinister Chinese femme fatale and plot involving nuclear weapons, and boasts the promotion of the rather stern-looking Mary Mackenzie (who usually played unglamorous character parts and actually declares at one point that "I could never be described as lush!") to the sharp-witted, sharp-featured and sharp-suited heroine who does most of the sleuthing.

"Operation Conspiracy" is a clumsily written spy story. It begins in London during a fashion show. A runway model faints and soon after dies. A reporter who used to be a military spy during WWII catches the girl as she falls and she's the main character in this film.

Later, the reporter lady meets one of the staff at the hotel and he happens to be a long lost love. However, now he's a waiter and says he has no interest in this old past life.

What follows is a clumsy flashback sequence where she spots a wanted man without much information about him and only seconds after she hears about him. She just KNOWS it's him. In other words, she had knowledge NO ONE could have had unless they were reading a script.

After the flashback, the woman finds a dead man in the hotel. When she tells her old friend, he minimizes it...like she's some hysterical woman even though he knows she used to be a military police operative. It's obvious that either this is really badly written, he's working under cover OR he's a part of whatever nonsense is happening. She doesn't seem to think much of this and just goes to bed instead of to the police.

What follows is a spy yarn which OFTEN has plot holes and is very poorly written in places...such as when she passes out for no apparent reason. People do NOT do this...it only happens in films. She also hires a guy to work as a private detective for her even though she has no proof of who he is! And, by this point I was bored because of the indifferent writing...and I assume you'll likely feel the same.

A harmless thriller, it's easy viewing. There's nothing too taxing here, and that's the main problem, it's very clunky, and talk about clichés, everything you think will happen, does. The twist was exactly the one I had expected, but it was watchable enough.

It was made with a small budget, that doesn't matter, the helicopter shots look good. It doesn't show The British Army in the best of lights.

Mary Mackenzie did a good job, I was saddened to read that she dies so young.

Leslie Dwyer is perhaps the best performer for me, despite being surrounded by dashing young things, I feel he is the standout. Funny how he would become such a well known face in later life with Hi De Hi.

It's rather amusing seeing Frank Thornton in the part of a villain, a very early part for him.

Alright, 5/10.

CLOAK WITHOUT DAGGER is a cheapie put out by Balblair Productions, who released precisely three films during their short-lived career in the film business: this, THE BLACK RIDER, and STOCK CAR. All of them were written by prolific screenwriter A. R. Rawlinson and STOCK CAR is probably the best of the rather nondescript bunch, a gangster story set in and around a garage. CLOAK WITHOUT DAGGER is more undistinguished, a film in which the villains are spies working for their own purposes.

It starts off well with some top intrigue inside a nondescript hotel and goes downhill from there. Leslie Dwyer is a likable enough familiar face in the British B-film genre but he's miscast as a detective here. Mary Mackenzie is much better as the plucky heroine who literally stumbles over a corpse at one point. There are welcome roles for Allan Cuthbertson, Bill Nagy, and Frank Thornton, but the whole thing feels rather lifeless and drawn out, a far cry from the best of the spy thriller genre. Perhaps the budget just wasn't up to the job.

Feisty female reporter meets an old flame, but is he mixed up in the riddle of the body in the bathroom? And what is the hotel detective doing at the weapons testing facility? Rest assured, these and other intriguing questions are eventually answered.

The absence of hi-tech spy gizmos of the James Bond variety is made up for by plenty of opportunities for sofa-based detectives to test their skill in unraveling a good mystery.