Syl The late legendary actor Robert Mitchum stars in this film where his employer dies under mysterious circumstances. Genevieve Page was wonderful as the widow. She played the role perfectly and I'm surprised that I haven't seen much of her work before. She played the widow with a complexity rather than the silliness often accompanied with films of the time period. The other actresses who played Mrs. Lindquist and her daughter also done a brilliant job. The film is set on the French RIviera where they go to Vienna, Austria and later Stockholm, Sweden. Mitchum was the perfect actor to play this role as Bishop. He is leading man material with his appearance. His performance is perfectly under-rated where he tries to solve the mystery of his late employer. The foreign intrigue adds especially only after a decade later than the end of World War II. This film is a gem to watch where movies were just an escape but filled with romance, adventure, and intrigue.

T Y Though advertised as a noir, when this movie kicks off it feels like a feminine Douglas Sirk movie. And color noirs are extremely rare & problematic. After an unpromising, hazy, faded opening sequence, and after it abandons 'travelogue,' and 'class-envy feature,' the noir part finally arrives and it's shot really nicely. The compositions get nice and dark. A sequence with Mitchum in a dark house in Germany with a blind housekeeper is pretty striking and dreamlike.There's so much right about this movie that the two major things wrong with it are very disappointing; 1) The movie traipses through genre after genre, unsure if the Noir angle (so popular in the 40s) is enough/still salable to '50s audiences. It goes through romance, cloak-and-dagger movie, Hitchcock flick, Swedish woo-woo film (horny, easy blonds), etc. It gets very uneven as it tries to be all things to all viewers.2) It has the worst score in all of film history. Here's the irritating, percussive theme you have to listen to ad nauseum: "Click... clock.... click click clock!" Tense moment? "Click... clock.... click click clock!" Romantic moment? "Click... clock.... click click clock!" Tense negotiations? "Click... clock.... click click clock!" Police chase? "Click... clock.... click click clock!" It's beyond inept. It even plays as background music about 11 times. Brilliant though the theme is (sarcasm), it does nothing to underscore romance, tension etc. You've spent the money to film in European locations. Spend a buck on the score.Give it a look. Bring some earplugs.

secondtake Foreign Intrigue (1956)An underrated transition film, a low budget affair that is pure European color and style. Visually, it almost presages the Euro-American "Charade" which was decidedly more up budget. Here, the director, an unknown Sheldon Reynolds, takes advantage of all the empty spaces and long pauses the pace required. The lighting is flat, almost anti-noir, with widescreen grandness and yet an oddly impersonal intimacy. Not to be contradictory--the scenes are generally quiet, with close conversations, but everything is filmed from a certain, and constant, distance.It is this steady, quiet pace that makes the film work. And Robert Mitchum. He needs no explanation. The first of the two or three main women he connects with is a bit false, but the main one is a caricature of the Nordic beauty, and with sincere energy and charm. At times it really does look like she is smiling at Mitchum, not his character, as if she can't believe she's touring Stockholm, etc., with this famous man, and the movie gets away with it. Mitchum for his part keeps his cool, except for the necessary fist fight once or twice.It's 1956, and international intrigues like this are slowly rising into a genre of their own. People come and go, scenes are not what they seem at first, people have false identities and foreign accents. The big theme (too big to believe, but that's okay, it's supposed to be) is that realignment of global power after WWII. The real thing, made up of shadowy individuals who seem to be above nationality, and only know about intrigue, money, and winning at any cost.I don't want to pump this up too much. It's slow at times, and the acting not always right on. The effects (the atmosphere, the fights, etc) are sometimes so archly false you can't quite accept it even as theatrical, but just a cheap. But that's the exception. Fall into the pace of it and it's not bad at all.

kuciak I first saw this film as a young boy, and then for years it could not be seen on television, or for that mater anywhere else. I saw the film for the last time in the early 70's, until it was released again early again in this century.Others have gone into the plot of this film, and I will not do that. What is interesting for me is that the plot of the story is interesting, and it has one of the most unusual ending of any film made in the 1950's. Also while some have criticized Mitchums performance and if he is walking through this film, I think he plays it just right, a man of cool. Ela Fitzgerald once commented that she liked the way Mitchum walked. During the open sequence we see him, I am sure she is referring to this film. Watching him, you realize that if the opportunity had come, and he had wanted to, he could have been the American equivalent to James Bond. Perhaps he could have played the character that Dean Martin would play of Matt Helm, and in films that would have been more in keeping with the books. He really carries this film. His performance reminds me a little of the character he played in OUT OF THE PAST, a wiser Jeff Bailey perhaps.I see parallels with MR. ARKADIN and THE THIRD MAN, it really tries to be the latter, though does not succeed. It does have the classic look of the film noir, darkness with light shinning through certain areas of the frame, unusual for a color film of the time, and can be quite enjoyable to watch. Also the traces of the Noir film come immediately through when he informs his employers sexy young wife that she now has to become the grieving widow.Eastman color, while cheaper than the original Technicolor, does have a tendency to fade over time. When I first saw this film in color, it was rather gorgeous to look at. Perhaps the comment about the horrible Eastman color is due to the fading of these prints.If you liked Robert Mitchum in other films, I highly recommend this film just to see him. Without him the film would not be worth seeing at all.