La route de la mort

This is being advertised as part of a film noir collection. Its is definitely not noir. It is a cheap B&W second run British post-war espionage mystery. It has some very good London exteriors showing WWII bombed out building, streets, and vintage cars but that's about it. George Raft is his usual upright, erect, suave self and the story is hokey, naturally there is a female romantic interest thrown in as usual formula but it is not objectionable or at all a waste of time, it's a good display of a has-been American actor on the cheap to a a thrifty British production and that's all. It is watchable, you don't want to turn it off, so see it for what it is without any high expectations.

The Soviets have been kidnapping scientists from all over the world. FBI agent Steve Rossi (George Raft) sneaks into England to try to infiltrate the kidnapping ring. He is captured by MI5 agent Joan Miller and she joins his mission.

This is a British espionage thriller. There isn't much thrilling. There is not much action to speak of other than a slow ride down an elevator. The elevator is more interesting than the fight. There is no great spy craft. It's a lot of static talking with intermittent moments of something possibly interesting. It's not enough.

"It has some very good London exteriors showing WWII bombed out building, streets, and vintage cars but that's about it," notes another reviewer here, and that sums up "Escape Route". I watched it mainly for the nostalgia of the outdoor scenes in London, especially close to the Thames. The plot isn't too bad, though I wasn't convinced by Rossi's ploy to publicise his arrival in London - would the police have really plastered photographs everywhere of an American who had slipped through Immigration? And what happened to the taxi driver whom Rossi told to wait when he checked out the first address. There was no sign of him when Rossi left the building and walked off.

Raft was 51 when this film was released and looked it, despite wearing the toupee that can be discerned in shots of the back of his head. When a it wasn't a stuntman doing some of the more athletic scenes, Raft still looked clumsy and some of the punches were all too obviously "pulled".

This is no noir, and at least on my disc, the sound was not good.

Many actors post-war went to England and did a lot of these B movies, which are done with next to no budget. Among the actors who participated: Dennis O'Keefe, Robert Preston, Dane Clark, and Cesar Romero. I have to say they're fun and sometimes atmospheric.

This one, with George Raft, has some good atmosphere - bombed-out London and some nice interiors.

In the story, nuclear scientists are kidnapped and taken behind the Iron Curtain. An undercover FBI agent (Raft) and a British agent (Frederick Piper) are assigned to capture the kidnappers. Raft sneaks into the country, escaping immigration, in order to draw attention to himself so he would be seen as wanted and nonthreatening.

What winds up happening is that the British agent's assistant, played by Sally Gray, ends up with Raft as they track the kidnappers.

This is pretty ordinary stuff. I like both Gray and Raft. Raft had a real warmth about him when he was at Warners, but I think he's one actor who needed a good director. Here he's elegant but monotoned.

Just okay. Unfortunately, this was Sally Gray's last film. She was invited to go to Hollywood but instead married a Lord who was in the House of Lords, stayed married to him for 52 years, and never worked again. He was 100 when he died; she was 91.

The story goes that her stepson was a friend of John Lennon's and is the subject of "A Day in the Life of a Fool."

Airplane engineers are being snatched off the street, so George Raft, an airplane designer, flies to London to take up Clifford Evans' job offer, only first he has to find him. This leads him to Sally Gray, who turns out to be working for British Intelligence. They start pursuing Evans together.

This is a rote movie and everyone seems to be putting in just enough energy to collect their paychecks. The script starts and stops for no clear reason, as bad guys try to kill Raft and then leave after the first attempt fails; a bad guy takes a swing at Raft, misses by several inches, and Raft falls down. The entire production is run in such a sloppy, uncaring manner that the viewer must be similarly unengaged.

There is some decent inadvertent documentary work in the site location; as Raft and Miss Gray wander about London, there are some nice views of still unrepaired war damage. However, given the generally low level of excellence, that made me think the film makers were ripping off shots from THE THIRD MAN and NAKED CITY.

This was Sally Gray's first movie since 1949 and her last. She would retire from the movies to become Baroness Oranmore and Browne, Baroness Mereworth in a fifty-year marriage and live to be 91. It's a happy ending that satisfies me.