Counterspy Meets Scotland Yard

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.

The good thing about these old films is that they are always well written and efficiently made with a professional handsome tempo that keeps you following on whatever happens, with actors of clear articulation that don't make you miss one word and with generously sumptuous and gorgeous music. The Americans might have made it without calling on Scotland Yard, but Britain sent a man across just in case to give a helping hand in a matter that concerned the world. There is some psychiatric mumbo-jumbo as well with hypnotism and dirty tricks, but the intrigue is well spun and fascinating to get involved in, as it is practically impossible to discover. Ron Randell gets roughed up by the villains but succeeds in getting the message through of how the foul play gets through by almost getting lost on the way, but there is Amanda Blake also...

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.

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.