Eva Bartok ("Karin") is an erstwhile air hostess who, when her plane makes an unexpected landing, is compulsorily repatriated to her family home in largely bombed-out Dresden where her mother still lives. Her British fiancé "Jim" (Richard Greene) is soon on the trail as he flies to East Germany to try and rescue her.
The plot was rather confusing, and we're introduced to characters that seem like they'll be major but are only in one or two scenes, it's not a short film but seems to get very little done.However, acting wise it's not bad at all Richard Greene is fun as always and Eva Bartok puts up a surprisingly admirable performance as the stewardess.
BEYOND THE CURTAIN is a Cold War thriller that absolutely pales in comparison to that classic of the genre, THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE WORLD, although it does contain a mildly similar, behind-the-curtain type plot. But where SPY excelled, BEYOND THE CURTAIN merely plods along endlessly until a fitfully exciting climax.
The passenger plane that Richard Greene is piloting strays out of the air corridor from Berlin. The plane is forced down by Russians.
This is another of those cold war thrillers with manhunts in the ruins of Berlin, this one from the year before the Berlin wall was put up. For some reason this one has been neglected and almost ignored, presumed to be outdated and totally overshadowed by the earlier masterpieces by Carol Reed ("The Third Man", "The Man Between"), "The Big Lift" 1948 and others, but this is actually in line with them and not much worse although more modern.
Richard Greene plays an airline pilot whose air stewardess fiancée is kidnapped by the East German authorities when her plane is forced down to an Eastern Germany airport.The stewardess,played by Eva Bartok,is then sent to a house of detention in Leipzig and then returned to her mother in Dresden by the sinister doctor played by Marius goring.
