***Out In The 1950s B-Film Noir Night- Counterspy Meets Scotland Yard

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

DVD Review

Counterspy Meets Scotland Yard, Amanda Blake     

Recently I reviewed a 1950s film noir, Radar Secret Service, about, well, how radar helped kept the American government’s information about the uses of atomic material out of the hands of a nefarious foreign power in the red scare Cold War night (although we know who that unnamed foreign power was, the Russkies). The film under review, Counterspy Meets Scotland Yard (yeah, not a very inventive title) travels along that same route except it highlights old-fashioned human power at work trying to preserve national security  rather than, uh, radar in order to keep the nation’s long range missile development secret. And unlike the dreary C-film noir status of Radar this one is a true B-film noir. Here’s why.

The American government set up a spy branch to deal with national security secrets-the missile developments mentioned above in this case-but an agent out in the Western desert was murdered while on the trail of suspicious activity around a missile test site there. Additional agents, including a friendly assist from Scotland Yard’s stop counterspy man, are thrown at the case to find out how the suspected leak was happening. And how that agent was murdered. Naturally it was curtains for that nefarious gang once the good guy spy-catchers were on the trail. Apparently a crooked doctor was giving “truth serum” to one of the clerical staff in the murdered agent’s office. Once the good guys found out that bit of information it was easy to roll up the operation as they unwound the method of delivery after the material was involuntarily divulged. Yeah, it was hidden in the water cooler-we knew that all the time. Just like we knew the spy-catchers in the 1950s Cold War night were going to preserve American security.