I saw this movie on one of the free movie channels on TV recently and was delighted to see it available on a well known internet video distribution site. This is a gripping and thought provoking tale of Cold War espionage where nobody seems to be as trustworthy as they should be and many are not who they say they are.

Set mostly in the grim, grey, oppressive environment of Communist East Germany the film revolves around a scientist, Professor James Bower, played by Montgomery Clift in his last role before he died, who is sent behind the Iron Curtain to help a Russian scientist defect to the Free World. He is recruited into this role by a shady CIA agent played by Roddy McDowell.

Bower travels to East Germany and an intelligence agent from the Communist state learns of Bower’s mission and tries to get Bower to mind his own business. During his time in the German Democratic Republic Bower begins to learn that there is a backstory to his mission and it is a backstory that involves some microfilm that both sides, East and West appear to desire.

This is a cracking yarn with action, psychological manipulation of the characters and gives a reasonable impression of what life was like behind the Iron Curtain before the people of the Eastern bloc regained their freedom and ousted the Communists. It’s well filmed, well scripted and well acted and the ‘hotel room scene’ (I’ll say no more than that to avoid giving too much away) is very powerful.

This film is quite dour in it’s settings and scenery but then that is probably because it is set in East Germany, which was by all accounts a very dour place. Although this film does have a depressive, oppressive quality to it, there was one occasion when I raised a smile. I was looking at some of the lietmotifs of Communism on display in the film, the internal checkpoints, the prohibition on leaving, the grey buildings, the Communist propaganda posters everywhere, the oppression and the lack of freedom, and I thought ‘all this must be what Jeremy Corbyn’s wet dream must look like. ‘

I hope you enjoy this film because I know I did.