British Intelligence (aka "Enemy Agent")
Starring: Margaret Lindsay, Boris Karloff, and Holmes Herbert
Director: Terry Morse
It's World War I. The German high command dispatches the beautiful master-spy Helene (Lindsay) to London to support an operation managed by legendary German agent Strengler--the infiltration of
the very highest levels of the British war ministry. By posing as a French refugee, she is taken into the home of newly appointed minister, Arthur Bennett (Herbert). Here, she is intergrated into a complex web of spies who report Bennett's every move and every top secret government dealing back to Berlin... the milkman, Bennett's secretary, and even Bennett's butler (Karloff) are all German spies! But British Intelligence have recognized something is amiss with the Bennett household, and they've got an operation of their own going. There is a double-agent in the German spy ring.
"British Intelligence" is a nice little spy movie with healthy doses of World War II propaganda. Despite its outdated political messages, the film is still fun to watch today for anyone who enjoys spy movies. The film consists of a steady stream of plot twists and turns as British and German agents and double-agents try to trap and outwit each other. The film is well directed, with fine acting, great lighting and camera work, and no padding whatsoever. The final chase scene through the streets of London as it is being bombed by German zeppelins is very tense and expertly executed.
On the downside, the film starts to feel a little like a "Spy Vs. Spy" cartoon (from the old "MAD Magazine") toward the end, and the ending that I'm sure must have seemed ironic or poetic to viewers in the 1940s feels EXACTLY like the end of a "Spy Vs. Spy" cartoon.
Still, the film held my interest until the end, and it's a nice little time capsule featuring a tight story and fine performances. It's a dated film that's worth seeing today (unlike "Black Dragons", another WW II "beware the enemy spies in our midst"-type movie [URL=http://www.rottentomatoes.com/vine/journal_view.php?journalid=245672&entryid=249117&view=public]I review here[/URL]).
July 4, 2006
