Rated:

UK Dvd + Scans

Adapting from his own bestseller, Leon Uris wrote the original screenplay for this lacklustre spy story. Alfred Hitchcock, who had no real enthusiasm for the project, eventually asked for a rewrite by Samuel Taylor, who had worked on Vertigo, but there was still far too much plot, too many explanations, and not enough character depth to bring this Cold War thriller to life.

Shot around the globe with a cosmopolitan, if not particularly starry, cast, the action centres on a Cuban revolutionary and the presence of double agents in the French secret service. Hitchcock was so at odds with his material that he reportedly shot three different endings for perhaps the poorest film of his Hollywood career.

Still there are positives. The comparitively little known cast include Frederick Stafford scoring as the French security investigator and with neat work by Philippe Noiret and Michel Piccoli as two French Quislings. John Vernon is a powerful Cuban political leader.

But you know when Hitch is not really interested in a project when he concentrates less than usual on his cool, blonde heroine, and it's Karin Dor as a Cuban spy and mistress of Stafford who steals most of the thunder.

UK Dvd + Scans + Free Bfi Postcard