Counterspy Meets Scotland Yard

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.

Another low budget film from Forgotten Noir Vol. 4. This one rates a little higher than Radar Secret Service. The script is pretty basic, the directing OK and the cast a step above RSS. The story is more involving and although it's more a spy film than film noir it has many of the elements of film noir. Dark streets, a fast moving pace, a narrative beginning and those fine old cars. Amanda Blake tops a decent cast and the espionage adds a tension to the film which satisfies. Being almost addicted to Film Noir I have to admit that these films, as cheesy as they may appear, are very entertaining! The DVD set Forgotten Noir Vol. 4 has surprisingly good prints and the movies though just over an hour in length are fulfilling.

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.

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.

"Counter Spy Meets Scotland Yard" may not be high art, but it is an enjoyable spies and sleuths programmer that pits the good guys, led by Howard St. John and Ron Randell, against a nefarious network of villains out to defrock truth, justice and the American way. Released by Columbia Pictures in 1950, "Spy" also includes B film stalwart June Vincent and Amanda Blake, who was to find fame (and maybe fortune) on the television version of "Gunsmoke" as Miss Kitty, as two friends not quite as in sync with each other as one of them seems to think.

As scripted by Howard Green (based on the radio series "Counterspy") and directed in no nonsense fashion by Seymour Friedman, this one is an engrossing, low-rent potboiler that nicely entertains the entire 67 minutes of its economical running time.

Personally paired as 'our feature attraction' with the Columbia-released Gene Autry production "Gene Autry and the Mounties", it made for a great nostalgia film package, the sort that used to routinely play my beloved Granada Theatre here in Hamilton.

Oh how I miss those days!