Contre-espionnage

Well, that's not an authentic red scare period film, as were BIG JIM MC LAIN, INVASION USA, WHIP HAND, and so many US propaganda films that spread during the fifties. It speaks of the war between Western authorities and Behind the iron Curtain forces, the "evil" ones, but in a smart, sensitive, and brilliant way. It is purely espionage, spy scheme, as there were so many in the sixties, and even after. Ernest Borgnine is excellent in this ambivalent role, for whom the audiences of this era, who were more used to be on the good American side, for once, could feel a bit discomfortable with such an unusual lead character. Solid Andre De Toth directing.

This is a decent Cold War film about a Russian film director working in the United States. While he is not a Communist, his "friends" are and while he tells himself he isn't working for them, he has accepted favors and naively thinks it will all somehow work out. However, when he is confronted by the CBI(?) (a fictional US government agency), he realizes he's become a Communist stooge and agrees to help the US in a counter-espionage mission behind the Iron Curtain.

While the film is a decent enough time-passer and the last 1/3 of the film is pretty exciting, it has one giant problem and a few small ones. Oddly, they decided to cast Ernest Borgnine as the Russian Director yet he never even sounds the least bit Russian and you can STILL detect his New York accent. This makes the entire film seem rather cheesy and very tough to believe. Had they recast the film and perhaps punched up the first 1/3, it could have been an exciting spy yarn. Oddly, just a few years later, Borgnine was cast as a Russian in ICE STATION ZEBRA and he was able to do a decent Russian accent! Additionally, when Borgnine's character went to Moscow, it looked like a bad travelogue with all the stock footage inserted rather haphazzardly into the movie. As it is, it's just passable entertainment and a mildly interesting curio of the Cold War.

By the way, don't get the idea I hate Cold War films--I am a history teacher and naturally love a good espionage film and could recommend several good ones such as I MARRIED A COMMUNIST and ASSIGNMENT Paris.

Had no idea if I was going to enjoy this film from 1960, but I had a good idea that Ernest Borgniine, ( Boris Mitrov) would put his heart and soul into his role and he did just that through out the entire film. This was a true story concerning a man who was called Borris Morras, and in this picture was called Boris Mitrov a double agent between the United States and Russia during the Cold War Era. Boris Mitrov is a successful Hollywood producer who was born in Russia and got himself involved with Russian Spys who were willing to bring his father and brothers back from Russia to his home in Los Angeles. However, Boris Mitrov is being watched by our Government Agents and they decided to enlist Boris to become a double agent for the United States in order to be cleared of the charges for espionage against the U.S. There is plenty of suspense and this story takes many twists and turns.

I saw also directed by André De Toth "The Mongols" (1961)I mongoli (original title) with the one and only Jack Palance, a movie I liked when I was a teenager. Here in "Man on a String" we have the one and only Ernest Borgnine, another excellent actor, who delighted me in many films, especially in "Emperor of the North" (1973), with the great Lee Marvin, "The Wild Bunch" (1969), "All Quiet on the Western Front" (1979). I've seen him also in the excellent "Marty" (1955), with which he won the Oscar. Here he plays another complex role, in fact, a double role... All the other actors are very good, Kerwin Mathews probably in his best role, Colleen Dewhurst, very good too, etc. all of them. Just watch and judge for yourself!

Ernest Borgnine, now almost 90 years of age and still acting for Hollywood, went in 1960 to Berlin to play the main character called Boris Mitrov in an east - west drama of director André de Thoth called Man On The String. He is the man on the (black and white) run for cover through east Berlin before the great Wall was built and Kennedy named himself a Berliner. Borgnine has learned in Moscow the names of American spies in the states; he memorizes them and is picked up by a friendly helper next to the American sector and is taken in a nice Mercedes sedan car back to Uncle Sams sector where he spills the beans. Not much later Billy Wilder went to Berlin as well an made a great comedy about Coca Cola and the rest of the world. De Thoth picture isn't funny at all and actually the time before and after the making of the big Wall was not to laugh at. So director de Thoth decided to play the semi documentary card and one must say he succeeded in giving an impression of the area around the Brandenburg Gate and the nowhere land that is today called again Pariser Platz. So the artwork he took straight from the streets and ruins of cause of the western sectors. 15 years after the war quite some parts of West Berlin still looked pretty far from nowadays and were well to use as action areas suggesting the Hollywood staff had permission to film beyond the American sector right in the middle of East Berlin.

Borgnine is an unusual type of spy and he decorates the scenes in the Moscow offices of the soviet secret service fairly well. Of cause he is not Paul Newman who is also a spy memorizing a secret formula in the Torn Curtain of Mr. Hitchcock a little later but not a bad alternative.

The area next to the reborn American embassy and also not far from the Russian embassy was in the meantime nicely swept and one would need skilled optical and digital works to bring back an image of the invisible iron curtain of 1960. Spy games of the old fashion type are presently not fashionable, spy games star no more Borgnine but Redford and Pitt and are placed in the near east in colour and scope. I am beginning to like Borgnine in his black suit tumbling over the ruins of Berlin and showing his life long gap between teeth.