Highly Dangerous (1950)

Director:

Roy Ward Baker

Writer:

Eric Ambler (written by)

Release Date:

12 October 1951 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Thriller

Tagline:

... to have ... hold or HATE!

Plot:

A British lady entomologist travels to a Balkan country to look into germ warfare trials using various bugs as carriers.

Plot Keywords:

Spy

Cast

Margaret Lockwood	...	Frances Gray
Dane Clark	...	Bill Casey
Marius Goring	...	Commandant Anton Razinski
Naunton Wayne	...	Mr. Hedgerley
Wilfrid Hyde-White	...	Mr. Luke, British consul (as Wilfrid Hyde White)
Eugene Deckers	...	Alf, the 'contact'
Olaf Pooley	...	Detective-Interrogator
Gladys Henson	...	Attendant
Paul Hardtmuth	...	Priest
Michael Hordern	...	Lab Director Owens
George Benson	...	Sandwich Stand Customer
Eric Pohlmann	...	Joe, the bartender
Joan Haythorne	...	Judy
Patric Doonan	...	Customs Man
Anthony Newley	...	Operator

Runtime:

90 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

Finland:K-12 | Sweden:15 | UK:U

Filming Locations:

Pinewood Studios, Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, England, UK

Company:

J. Arthur Rank Organisation

Trivia:

The film debut of John Horsley.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Player (1992)

a nice surprise

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.