Londres appelle pôle nord

THE HOUSE OF INTRIGUE is a WW2 spy thriller based on the true story of a British agent who ends up being captured by the Nazis and forced to broadcast messages back to his allies back home, thus leading many men into a trap. The film is centred around a gruff but kindly performance from Curd Jurgens as the fatherly Nazi officer who may be the one good German in the whole of their army.

The film itself is an Italian production directed by Duilio Coletti, a rather old fashioned guy who had been working since the 1930s. Well-paced it isn't; the plot is jumbled and needlessly complex, with far too many extraneous figures taking centre stage, and there's a definite lack of real protagonists. The best thing about it is probably the downbeat, deeply pessimistic climax.

Dawn Addams (later of Hammer's THE VAMPIRE LOVERS) is the female of the piece, about the only distinguished role in the whole thing (apart from Jurgens). The TV print I watched of this movie was pretty horrendous, which may have affected my enjoyment of the film somewhere. I suspect a book retelling the same story would have been more interesting.

An elaborate production in colour & Cinemascope largely set in occupied Holland (yes, there are windmills!) which rather anticipates 'Operation Crossbow' but without the slam-bang 'Guns of Navarone'-style climax. It moves back and forth through an international cast presided over by a paternal Curd Jurgens during his brief fifties tenure in war films playing 'good' Germans. (He plays an intelligence officer who would treat captured spies humanely if only he didn't have to answer to diehard Nazis given to pronouncements like "Well? What do I tell Mr. Himmler?" or "I warned you many times, humanity has no place in war").

Apart from Jurgens most of the rest of the cast tend to come and go (while Albert Lieven is ever-present flanking Jurgens but given remarkably little to say or do). No attempt as usual has been made to make female lead Dawn Addams look remotely in period (who makes a Bond Girl arrival in Holland by rubber dingy, worming her way at night across a beach and cutting through barbed wire in a diving suit while carrying a chic new wardrobe to change into once on dry land).