Highly Dangerous

Fairly daft but won't hurt you. Dane Clark is amiable, a more than competent actor and has an understated way that works with the rather poor chances of comedy he's handed. Margaret Lockwood looks good and don't knock her as an actress either, this isn't Macbeth. And remember this was 1950, don't compare it with present day overblown and infinitely less believable efforts. As another reviewer said "See it once.", I've seen it twice - and lived. I notice a minimum of 10 lines is required There isn't much more to say coupled with other reviewers opinions. I wouldn't make a special effort to see this film but there have been a lot worse. Ten lines? Good. Goodbye.

Nicole Kidman was following an honourable tradition when she played a gorgeous neuro-surgeon in Days of Thunder for Highly Dangerous casts beautiful Margaret Lockwood as an entomologist. On this evidence the main job qualification seems to be that you don't find insects repulsive. What next, JayLo as a nuclear physicist?

Despite being written by the estimable Eric Ambler, the screenplay for Highly Dangerous seems to me to be somewhat misjudged. The `humorous' elements, while never being remotely funny, serve to drain the excitement away from the dramatic sequences. I think the film would have worked much better as a straight thriller without all the nonsense of Margaret imagining she is a character in a radio serial after she's been given a `truth drug'

Highly Dangerous has many elements typical of a Cold War drama of its time, the implacable police chief (a typecast Marius Goring), the brutal armed forces, the dissident priest who shelters the fugitives etc. Interesting that the war in this case is biological.

Apart from the interest this film will have for the fans of Margaret Lockwood, a big British star of the years around World War II, Highly Dangerous is at best a fair time-passer.

Many of the other reviews refer to the thin and unbelievable plot and casting. I beg to differ. 90% of modern films are pure unbelievable west coast Amertican dross, just think of the fare from Will Ferrell, Adam Sandler, Cameron Diaz, Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, and all the high school, college, so called coming of age movies awash with those stupid Californian accents, etc, etc, etc.

This is a British B/W film of the early 50s and has the benefit of Margaret Lockwood playing against type in a plot line which holds up well, it is a movie after all, escapism, and perfectly encapsulates the early post war, cold war fears and demons of the time, played in a gentle tongue in cheek way by the cast and director.

I enjoyed it immensely, and so will you. Give it a go, far superior to most modern movies.

Margaret Lockwood is Frances Gray, a scientist who takes on a government assignment that is "Highly Dangerous" in this 1950 film also starring Dane Clark, Wilfred Hyde-White and Marius Goring.

Frances Gray works with bugs, so the government asks her to go to a country of opposing ideology and get a sample of bugs being used by them, possibly for germ warfare. At first, she says no, and then relents and travels to this unnamed country posing as a tour director checking out possible tour locations.

Her cover is blown immediately by the chief of police (a heavily disguised Goring) who is on the train with her, and shortly afterward, her contact is killed, and she is arrested, drugged and questioned. The head of the British consulate, tipped off by a newspaper reporter she met previously (Clark) secures her release.

The film starts out as a drama, but the mood lightens once she's out of prison. Under the influence of the drug she's been given, she plots a way to get into the lab based not on reality but on the antics of a radio spy on a program her nephew likes. The reporter knows it won't work, but when the first part of it actually does, he goes along.

Margaret Lockwood went through several phases during her career - this was her mid period, after the ingénue of "The Lady Vanishes" and before the older woman in "Cast a Dark Shadow." She does a good job and looks very attractive.

The stronger role was Clark's - he was being groomed as another John Garfield but never quite got there - he's very good, handling both the dramatic and the comic aspects well. Goring is a far cry from Victoria's husband in "The Red Shoes" -this seems an odd role for him, but he's excellent.

An odd film but, if taken for what it is, a good one.

Frances (Margaret Lockwood) volunteers to go into an Eastern un-named country (with a peculiar un-named language that the actors have had to learn) as a spy to smuggle back insects that are being used in the development of germ warfare. When her contact Alf (Eugene Deckers) is murdered, she continues her mission with reporter Bill (Dane Clark). However, the Chief of Police, Razinski (Marius Goring) seems to pop up at every stage of her mission......

The problem with this film is that there is no real tension or feeling of danger. The lives of Frances and Bill are in danger and yet there is no suspense. They should have been more scared. Dane Clark is like-able but what have they done to Lockwood? She looks like Angela Rippon (English newsreader from the 1970's with terrible, frumpy hair). Lockwood's look is NOT good. Turning to the rest of the cast, they are all fine.

The plot is extremely daft with the inclusion of some nonsense about how Frances incorporates a radio show to determine her actions in order to get the job done. There are also numerous unreal situations, eg, the escape to the woods by Frances and Bill with a whole army unit combing the grounds for them. Basically, these two clowns would have been caught and shot. For the sake of the film, we have a different outcome. Overall, it's lightweight fluff but I'm not sure this was the intention.