Counterspy Meets Scotland Yard

This follow-up to "David Harding, Counterspy" is just as boring, if not more. As before, the various men in suits, no matter what side they're working for, show no traces of personality to help us tell them apart, and although this round there are two female roles as opposed to the first film's one, they are more underwritten. The film shows us EXACTLY how the enemy spy ring operates early on, and then we have to wait for about an hour for the heroes to catch up: hardly a recipe for excitement. In fact, 67 minutes have rarely felt longer, which proves once again the relativity of time. * out of 4.

I actually like these movies, they're quick and sometimes quite entertaining.

Ron Randell plays a Scotland Yard inspector working in the US to help find out who is leaking government secrets at a missile testing ground to the Russians. The American agent investigating purportedly committed suicide, but further investigation proves that he was murdered and that it was set up to look like suicide.

The leak is revealed to the audience fairly quickly, and she doesn't know she's a leak. It's none other than Amanda Blake in her pre-Gunsmoke "Miss Kitty" days. She and the star, Ron Randell, became engaged during this time, though they never married.

Black and white, pretty good, and I could listen to Ron Randell talk forever. What a voice.

That's the first Seymour Friedman movie I comment. He was an acceptable B director. Most of his movies were made for Columbia Pictures, and not under Sam Katzman's rules, except one or two; I am not absolutely sure. Wallace Mac Donald produced most of his movies.

This one is not a film noir but a spy tale, as so many in these anti red years. Nothing special in this story of enemy agents tracked by David Harding. We already saw him in a Ray Nazzaro's film : David Harding Counterspy - one of the are non western Ray ever shot !! -, and a buddy hunter from SY. An opportunity to specify cooperation between UK and US in spy hunt.

Guided missile, charming secretary, dark rooms, a little talk and some good action sequences - for a B movie, I mean, nothing more. What could be expect more?

Well, in short, you can waste 67 minutes on it. Try "Forgotten Noir" disc set. It's in it. With eight other ones. You won't regret.

All the people in this did excellent work. All of them, from actors to writers and director.

Other than Amanda Blake, who earned eternal fame for her "Gunsmoke" role, probably none of the actors is especially well known today, but one of them is the great John Doucette, to be seen in so many of John Wayne's films, and another is Harry Lauter, who starred in his own TV series, "Tales of the Texas Rangers," and some 300 other roles..

Ron Randell might be still known, and certainly deserves to be, judging just from "Counterspy."

It's a neat, fairly compact story, awfully well told, and surprisingly modern looking.

There is a large cast, again of mostly unknowns, but of immensely talented performers, voicing lines that are perfect in context.

This lovely film makes we wish there were others in the series, even though usually I don't like series movies.

The last scene is not perfect, but most of this motion picture comes close. I just cannot recommend it enough, and you can see it on YouTube.

Australian actor Ron Randell becomes the Scotland Yard man in the USA helping solve a case of badly leaking government secrets at a missile testing ground in Counterspy Meets Scotland Yard. An American agent played by Harry Lauter gets killed during his investigation and the bad guys went to great lengths to make it look like a suicide.

The leak is an innocent one and it's played by Gunsmoke's future Miss Kitty, Amanda Blake. How the information is being gotten out of her is the key to the whole film, but it involves our developing missile guidance systems which the Russians would like to steal.

The villains are a clever and ruthless bunch and the film is from the B unit at Columbia Pictures. Doesn't have any great production values, but the story is an intriguing one and the players are all fine in their parts.