JohnHowardReid Copyright 30 December 1960 by 20th Century-Fox Film Corp. New York opening at the Victoria: 17 February 1961. U.S. release: 8 February 1961. U.K. release: 29 January 1961. Australian release: 23 February 1961. 8,971 feet. 99 minutes.COMMENT: For once, there was a pretty fair consensus among the critics as to the faults of this picture:"A first-class idea for a spy story is unnecessarily spoiled in this otherwise more-than-competent programmer... Screenwriter Balchin should have known better than to put a 'frame' around the story and tell the heart of it in flashback. The easily foreseen result of such ineptitude is that the spectator's pleasure is spoiled by knowing how it all ends", wrote Flavia Wharton in Films In Review.The reviewer for Variety also found "A weakness of the film is that it is revealed at the beginning that the hero gets through his ordeal safely." Time's critic tended to agree: "An ingenious spy thriller that raises subtle and uncomfortable questions of political morality. If a citizen betrays his country, the crime is called treason and the penalty, in wartime, is death. But what if a country betrays one of its citizens?" As for myself, I concur with most of the above. Suzy Parker is certainly dull all the way through. And some of the other acting is suspect. One of the faults of British films is that most players make no attempt whatever at conveying foreign nationals. Bosley Crowther noted that "Robert Stephens plays a Nazi captain as if he were a product of an English public school," but Mr. Stephens is merely part of — rather than an exception to — the tradition.Many of our problems center with the surrounding frame story which is not only poorly written but slackly directed too. Terseness and imagination from both quarters increase dramatically once the flashback starts. Here Balchin's suspenseful, to-the-point writing obviously incorporates his first-hand knowledge of the organizing and modus operandi of spying.The budget appears quite lavish by British "A"-feature standards and CinemaScope is well utilized.

dougdoepke I recall seeing this film on first release and being astonished by its cynical portrayal of Allied war planning. Except for an odd-man-out like Attack (1956), WWII was treated in this pre- Vietnam period as a difficult yet idealistic march to victory. There was little hint of such ruthless tactics as are portrayed here. Thus the movie's grim version of the logic of war became something of an eye-opener for a new generation used to less disturbing accounts of the people in charge.I doubt that many people saw the film. It's not the kind of production that invites an audience, with its ugly b&w photography, deglamorized Suzy Parker, and downbeat 100 minutes. Then too, the screenplay's use of flashback undercuts the suspense in an odd dramatic turn, since we know from the outset that Lieut. Raine (Dillman) survives his ordeal no matter how bad it becomes. My guess is the producers wanted to reassure audiences from the outset that Raine was not being deliberately sent to his doom. That may have lightened the mood and lessened the guilt, but it comes at the expense of both impact and suspense.Dillman's excellent as the conflicted Lieutenant, while Parker does a lot better than expected for an ex-super model. And, of course, there's jut-jawed Harry Andrews as the Machiavellian captain in charge, who gives his cynical scheme all the military authority of Moses passing down the Ten Commandments. Also, I like the way Capt. Stein, the lead Nazi interrogator, is portrayed against stereotype as a civilized, sympathetic type. In passing—note how the infamous water-boarding technique is used as a last resort to pry information from the hapless Raine, a surprisingly topical note from a 50-year old movie.The movie makes a significant point, I think, whether the point was intentional or not. Now, the logic of war has long approved sacrificing a few men in order to save many more. It's not a happy logic, but it has a certain utilitarian morality to it—better to lose 10 men than 1000. At bottom, this is the accepted reasoning Capt. Rawson is applying to Lt. Raine—better to sacrifice this one man than the thousands who might otherwise be saved. So, why does the process of preparing Raine for sacrifice cause so much unease, as I think it does. There are several disturbing factors in play that are unlike more standard military situations. Above all, Raine is not only being deceived about his mission, he's being exploited as a person whose frailties are being turned against him. Rawson is counting on fear of pain overcoming what shame Raine might feel as a result of being tortured into releasing information that will mislead German defenses. Thus it's not death that Rawson is counting on or that Raine is facing, instead it's permanent shame. As a result, it's not so much Raine's body that's being sacrificed to the Allied cause as it is his soul. Even if he survives, he will carry that burden of guilt and shame, which for the brave man Raine is, comes at the cost of his self-respect. And Rawson knows it. And that I think is what's so unsettling about the captain's scheme even though the military logic is pretty straightforward.Anyway, I wish the movie had had the capacity to follow through on its provocative premise with an unhappy ending. That way I think it would have achieved some of the distinction of a Paths of Glory (1958) that did follow through on its cynical premise. But this was a studio production (TCF) and I guess as a business in 1960 they felt they could only go so far. However, note how the very last shot of the lovers reconciling is shot from an impersonal distance, thereby fulfilling story requirements but canceling the all-important emotional impact. Looks to me like some kind of effort at softening the happy ending. Compromised or not, the movie is still worth viewing for its provocative premise, though I wouldn't recommend it after a hard day at work.

blanche-2 Bradford Dillman is a soldier chosen for a dangerous mission in "A Circle of Deception," a 1960 film also starring Suzy Parker, Harry Andrews and Robert Stephens. The story is told in flashback as Paul Raine (Dillman) remembers his assignment after a visit by his ex-lover, Lucy (Parker).In order to divert German troops from an attack site, Paul is chosen because according to his psychological profile, he will break under torture and give the Germans the information the Allies want them to have. Paul knows his mission is risky, but Lucy, an assistant to the captain (Andrews) who thought up this scheme, knows the entire story. She's enlisted to go out with Paul, since he seems interested, and evaluate if he's really the man for the job. She becomes a little more involved than planned.Filmed in black and white, this isn't a big budget movie, but it's good. Dillman was a young star then under contract to 20th Century Fox, but despite being both attractive and a good actor, with the studio system abolished, he found most of his success in television. Parker, one of the first supermodels, was a staggering beauty who was given several opportunities in Hollywood. She was lousy in every one of them. Like Grace Kelly, she had a cool, sophisticated look, and also like Grace Kelly, in person she had a fantastic sense of humor and a wonderful personality - and like Grace Kelly, she never got one role to showcase them.Though Dillman and Harry Andrew are both very good, it's Robert Stephens as the German captain who imprisons Paul that gives the most chilling performance. A brilliant stage actor, he's a knockout in this, and one wishes he had pursued more film work before his death in 1995. He could have had an Oscar-level career.All in all, "A Circle of Deception" is very good, and the black and white helps to keep up the British wartime atmosphere. Dillman and Parker met during the making of this film, married in 1963, had 3 children, and stayed married until Parker's death in 2003. Her last work on film was in a 1970 "Night Gallery" episode, in which she looked absolutely gorgeous, but through the '50s, '60s (and possibly into the '70s) she was on every magazine cover and in every fashion layout imaginable.The torture scenes are not for the feint of heart - to be honest, I fast-forwarded through them. The rest of the movie is both interesting and suspenseful.

Daryl Chin (lqualls-dchin) When 20th Century Fox entered TV in the 1950s, one of the programs was an hour-long anthology series. This series took many Fox classics (THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR, HOUSE OF STRANGERS, MIRACLE ON 34th STREET, THE LATE GEORGE APLEY, YOUNG MR. LINCOLN, et al) and reduced them to less-than-an-hour. One of the entries in that series was titled DECEPTION, and it starred Linda Darnell and Trevor Howard; it was about a woman intelligence officer in charge of a complicated spy mission: she has to pick a man who will turn out to be a coward, so that he can be given false information which he will divulge (under torture) to the Nazis. Unless i'm very much mistaken, this is one instance when the TV episode was embellished into a feature film (made in 1961). The movie provides a lot more exposition, but the story is the same, including the female intelligence officer seeking out the man after the war. This film stars Suzy Parker as the intelligence agent, and Bradford Dillman as the man; soon after this movie, they would marry and she would retire from acting. Though they don't have the same depth as Darnell (an exceptional performance) and Howard, Parker and Dillman are nevertheless quite a glamorous couple (as they were in real life).(Though the film is well-done, the TV show, in this instance, packed more of a punch, and the performances of Linda Darnell and Trevor Howard were exceptional.)