jamesraeburn2003 An alcoholic, blackmailing dentist called Feldon (Norman Bird) is visited by a sinister hooded stranger who forces him to rob his own victim, the businessman John Brent (Stewart Grainger). When he visits Feldon for a dental appointment which, in fact, acts as a cover for the pay offs, the dentist injects him with a truth serum in order to extract the combination to the safe at the shipping company where he works and makes impressions of the keys to his house and the vault so they can be duplicated without him being any the wiser. Feldon hands them over to his confederate and we learn that Brent's estranged wife, Nicole (Hara Harareet), is the mystery man's accomplice: her 'Secret Partner'. They have hatched a fool proof plan to steal £130,000 from the shipping company and frame Brent for the lot. The police led by Superintendent Hanbury (Bernard Lee) arrest him on his boat in France where he is holidaying, but he escapes and sets out to clear his name. But who is Nicole's mysterious secret partner? The interior designer, Clive Lang (John Lee), her new boyfriend, or Dr Rickford (Conrad Philips), who is clearly attracted to her? Or Brent's business associate Charles Standish (Hugh Burden) who is jealous because he has been passed over for promotion in the favour of him? Hanbury discovers that Brent has form for embezzlement and has since changed his name. However, he is not convinced that he has an open and shut case like his colleagues do and wants to retire from the force with the satisfaction of having solved it correctly...From the formidable producer-director team of Michael Relph and Basil Dearden, The Secret Partner was their attempt at a suspenser in the Hitchcock mould with a dash of film noir thrown in for good measure. It isn't entirely successful in the latter because Harareet's character isn't allowed enough scope in her involvement with the three men; all of whom the audience are invited to suspect may have been manipulated by her into doing the crime. In that respect it adds to the intrigue, but due to insufficient development the passions and emotional element are all but lost. Furthermore, Nicole is a femme fatale of a kind, but she repents her ways later on and, sadly, Harareet seems rather wooden in the part.However, The Secret Partner most certainly works as a satisfying thriller thanks to an excellent script by the reliable writing duo of David Pursall and Jack Seddon who throw in red herrings and plot twists aplenty to keep us guessing and guessing wrongly right up until the end when we finally learn the identity of Nicole's secret partner. I must confess it wasn't who I expected it to be. Basil Dearden's taut direction and Raymond Poulton's sharp editing combine to do justice to the appealing plot and sustain the tension throughout. Harry Waxman's b/w camera-work neatly captures the authentic London locations that add to the sense of place and mystery. Aside from Stewart Grainger as the hero who adds a touch of Hollywood glamour in a part straight out of Hitchcock, there is a wonderful supporting cast of first rate British actors to enjoy who all go through their paces with vigour.

blanche-2 "The Secret Partner," from 1961, is a nifty British film starring Stewart Granger, Haya Harareet, and Bernard Lee. Granger is a successful businessman, John Brent, who is being blackmailed by a dentist. The man knows that in the past, Brent went by another name and was caught embezzling. Because of all the money Brent spends on blackmail, his wife (Harareet) believes that there's another woman. When he has a party for business and tells people she's in Zurich, his wife returns and, in front of the guests, announces that she's leaving him.When a safe at his business is robbed, suspicion falls on him because he is one of two people who have the combination. His office keys show filings from being copied. He denies ever giving anyone the combination or having the keys copied. The dentist, meanwhile, is having problems of his own - he's visited by a mysterious man who makes some demands of him.Since it's to be the last case of a retiring detective superintendent (Lee), he's anxious to solve the robbery. It all seems a little too pat for him.Nifty mystery with not only some twists, but an unexpected ending.I really liked this film. Granger does a good job as the man with problems everywhere he looks. Harareet is beautiful, but doesn't have much of a role. Lee is likable as the retiring superintendent, reminding us that justice isn't always found in the courts.Recommended.

Robert J. Maxwell There's nothing particularly offensive about this later effort in Stewart Granger's career. Basil Dearden directs with mature competence, Bernard Miles provides his usual solid support, and the plot carries a viewer along without having to drag him by the heels. If Haya Harareet is no more than a blandly attractive figure as Granger's wife, well, so what? Granger is a well-off businessman who has one of those shameful secrets in his past that make blackmail profitable. The extortionist is Granger's dentist. I never did like dentists anyway. They're always smiling and saying things like, "Turn this way a little," and then they hurt you even though you've never done them any harm. To top it off, you have to pay them.Anyway, this weedy little surgeon is visited one night by a mysterious masked man who instructs him at gun point to knock Granger out with gas, inject him with a fast-acting barbiturate, and squeeze out of him the combination to the office safe, meanwhile making impressions of the office keys. The whining little creep complies with a combination of fear and greed.Evidently the masked man has set up a frame because as the Superintendent, Bernard Miles, investigates the crime the evidence begins to pile up against Granger himself. Granger escapes the grasp of the police and most of the film is taken up with his pursuit of the mysterious man in the mask.There's a twist at the end. The prognosis is problematic but it seems that just desserts will be served, followed, one hopes, by a postprandial snort of nitrous oxide.Granger had a long career beginning in Britain in a few classy productions before moving to MGM around 1950 to become a kind of latter-day Errol Flynn. He was handsome enough. His voice was a resonant baritone. And he looked good in period wardrobe. But he was more than dismissive of his own career, downright bitter at times. The curious thing is that, as he aged, he STILL looked good in a stereotypical way. He went gray at the temples and seemed never less than vigorous, sometimes distinguished, but the trajectory of his fame followed a familiar downward arc. But if he'd never made a movie other than, say, "Scaramouche" or one or two others, he'd be worth at least a footnote.I can't say too much for this particular movie. It's strictly routine. It's the sort of thing that Hollywood was grinding out as B features during the 1930s -- mysterious masked man prompts scared dentist into crime and frames hero. Should someone throw open a door and find a ransacked apartment, the musical score goes, "Ta-DAHHH!" All familiar stuff. But, as I say, it's in no way offensive. It's just that there's nothing very original about any of its properties. With a little tweaking it could have been an inexpensive Charlie Chan mystery.

dbdumonteil A good thriller,which loses steam halfway through ,but regains its interest in the last thirty minutes,thanks to a very good unexpected twist.Yes there was such a thing almost fifty years ago.An aging Stewart Granger portrays a wealthy British Bourgeois with a shady past whose marriage with Nicole (the beautiful Haya Harareet,famous for her part of Esther in "Ben Hur") is on the rocks. His dentist blackmails him ,and around him ,everybody may be a potential danger.The plot involves drugs,robbery,a soon-to-be-retired cop and plenty of foggy views of London in a bleak black and white.It's not in the same as league as Hitchcock,but it's quite entertaining.