Master Spy

The film starts promisingly enough, with what we can only assume is a Russian scientist, Boris Turganov, played by Stephen Murray successfully seeking political asylum and for next 20 minutes the storyline unfolds as the scientist is introduced to his new British scientist colleagues and working conditions. Yet once the 'Russian' scientist settles into his new role, interest starts to falter as very early on it's clear as daylight that two of the main characters are obviously are up to their neck in spying and espionage. Most of the scenes are in either Dennis Wheatley's drawing room is his rather grand house, where everyone is well mannered and polite, and in the laboratory, where again there is very little action. Considering this is a Cold War spy film, it's very short on suspense or dramatic twists and turns. The film needed a Herbert Lom to give the film an 'edge' and menace, and although Stephen Murray, who takes the lead role does a reasonable job as the Russian scientist, his performance is too bland and too low key! Indeed, my problem with the whole film is the lack lustre script, which never allows the characters to be more than just one dimensional. Also, the characters never convince me as serious scientists working in a top secret government laboratory. For instance, Peter Gilmore, playing Tom Masters a cynical young scientist, seems more interested in 'skirt chasing' and chatting up young women, and as such comes across as an unnecessary distraction to the story. John Carson, cast as the handsome and suave Richard Colman, is wasted, as he has little to do apart from befriend his love interest, Leila played by June Thorburn. Yet it is Leila, the young female top scientist, who is the least convincing, by her timid and dull demeanour as well as her 'secretarial' manner, even when the director has her wearing glasses in the laboratory, to make her look 'studious' and something of a boffin, it doesn't really work. However, there are compensations. Alan Wheatley is always a joy to watch, as is Ernest Clark, both British stalwart character actors of the 50's & 60's. In a sense the film is a disappointment, as it promised so much at the beginning but quickly loses its way half way through. Nevertheless, it's still worth watching.

I saw this film yesterday morning. I like British low budget, (usually) black and white films from the 1950s and 1960s so I made the effort to ensure that I was available to watch it. Not only was I not disappointed; it turned out to be one of the best of its type.

The plot was very full, with plenty of twists and turns. I will not say what these are, but suffice it to say that they make for a very satisfying concept when one reflects on the film.

The conceptual basis for the story is interesting. It shows how two elements of life in the 1960s had come to the fore. One is the concept of spying and the other is the prominence of science and scientific research. "The white heat of the technological revolution", in Harold Wilson's phrase from that year's General Election campaign. One may conclude that the film was up to date in that sense. (The film "Ring Of Spies", made in the previous year, dealt with these themes from a different aspect.)

A few points arise from the milieu and setting. One is that, in contrast to what was to become a common suggestion/complaint a few years later, there is no sense that it is unusual to have women in senior positions in the research team; indeed, quite the contrary. The other is that several of the characters are shown smoking, regularly. Should there ever be a film suggested that would deal with this subject and this period, the makers will need to bite this particular bullet in the interests of accuracy.

An incidental fact, but one which identifies the film as very much of its period, is the style of spectacles worn by both June Thorburn and the senior civil servant's secretary. This "fashion" style, with prominent rims, belongs almost exclusively to the early and mid-1960s.

Turning to the cast, there is a good collection of British "second rank" character actors. I particularly noted Peter Gilmore's portrayal and of course Stephen Murray, who was completely unrecognisable from the (voice of the) Commander in the long-running radio series "The Navy Lark".

There is also the, to my mind, most attractive player in the film, the charming (and ultimately tragic) figure of June Thorburn. I am always pleased to see her name in the cast list of films made during the decade which began in the first half of the 1950s. That this film was in fact her final one, despite her death not occurring for another three years, shows that her time as a leading actress was over. This, I am sure, will have to been due to a combination of personal reasons and the change in the British film industry, which saw the decline and largely the end of the lower budget films from the mid-1960s onwards.

Had things continued, I am sure that she would still have been cast, as she always makes her mark, playing leading roles in films that do not have an obvious appeal to female members of the audience and making her mark in them. "Fury At Smuggler's Bay" (1961) and her penultimate film, 1963's "The Scarlet Blade", are the films which I have most in mind here.

All told, then, this is a film which has much to recommend it. If you like this type of film, it will be worth making the effort to see it, should it be shown again.

As noted by the other reviewers, Master Spy is no classic, but it is a must-see for fans of British B movies of the era. The story is fairly routine, but is much enlivened by the cast - Alan Wheatley (excellent as always), John Carson (with his James Mason-sound-alike voice!), Peter Gimore playing his role to perfection, and most interestingly the tragic June Thorburn cast against type as a scientist who becomes dangerously involved in the espionage plot. With her shorter, blonder hair, Miss Thorburn here is a dead ringer for Angela Douglas, a likeness I had never noticed before, and she is totally credible and brings much to what could have been a nothing part. Very sadly she died in a plane crash a couple of years after completing this, her final film.

This low budget British spy film is apparently based on the book 'They Also Serve', which I haven't read. The plot is thin and the screenplay bland - there seems to be little for the cast to do but read the words. The music is irritating and intrusive. The photography and lighting lacking in creativity. The result is just barely watchable.

It is impossible not to draw comparisons with Hitchcock's Torn Curtain which was made just two years later and deals with the same subject. Torn Curtain however has action and movement, characters you care about, suspense and humour. Master Spy unfortunately, has none of these.

Despite the title and the credit sequence depicting a chessboard Professor Turgenev is just a pawn in a much bigger game. Unlike the glamorous foreign locations paraded behind 007 this film is set in a thoroughly everyday black & white Britain.

Stephen Murray in a rare big screen lead plays Cambridge-educated professor of physics Boris Turganev, a leading expert on the acceleration of neutron rays but just an amateur in the world of espionage.

His patronising disdain for women, demonstrated by his outspoken discomfort at being given June Thorburn as an assistant is one of several aspects of the film that now looks very dated; but the other men are just as bad and the casting of Ellen Pollock as a senior member of the team serves as compensation while the ending is pretty cool.