The Great Manhunt

This is a movie which for so long seems to have been on a backburner despite its strong cast and speedy flow. Made in 1950, yet it contains much cinematography (albeit black and white) which would be in keeping with a film made many years later.

Douglas Fairbanks Jr. is "Dr.

STATE SECRET is a typical 'on the run' thriller of 1950, made in the Hitchcock mould. It's fairly enjoyable for what it is, although the direction feels a little plodding compared to that of the master and I do feel that similar films made from the mid '50s onwards tended to be more exciting.

When you see films of the caliber of 'State Secret' it makes you ask how the industry can 'loose' them for so long between the rare screenings! The credits for this near forgotten classic are masterful.

I read one of the below reviews and it mentioned this movie was a little like 1950's "Crisis" with Cary Grant so I had to see it. And as it was, it was well worth the time as this movie was as I stated a "very good movie.

State Secret casts Douglas Fairbanks, Jr, as an American doctor practicing in London who goes on a goodwill tour behind the Iron Curtain to demonstrate a ew surgical technique.Fairbanks is wined and dined and feted and then performs the operation and bad for him that he recognizes his patient is the country's dictator.

This is impressingly well done as everything in it is totally convincing, especially the language specially constructed for this film - it sounds a little bit like Romanian and some Yugoslav languages but is neither of them. Glynis Johns is the most impressing acting contribution here, while Jack Hawkins is superb as a superior leader in charge as usual, and Douglas Fairbanks Jr is exactly the right type for the naïve doctor who is called on to operate on a dictator without knowing it before it's too late.

Based on a novel by the creator of the TV series 'The Virginian'. This cracking Cold War retread of 'The Prisoner of Zenda', with Italy standing in for the fictitious Balkan republic of Vosnia (national anthem courtesy of William Alwyn), is a consummate job all round that ranks alongside antecedents like 'The 39 Steps' and 'The Mortal Storm' and deserves to be much better known today.

I found the establishing scenes at the beginning of this film to be the weakest point (in particular the inexplicable decision to shoot just a handful of voice-over scenes using a narrator's-eye camera), but from there on it grows from strength to strength, climaxing in a real humdinger of an ending.An astute decision which adds to the tension is to use an opening scene which makes it clear that the protagonist's escape attempt is ultimately foiled, and treat the rest of the picture in flashback from there; we are constantly, almost subliminally aware that disaster awaits in some unknown form just around the bend, which lends a sense of brooding menace to what might otherwise be a lighthearted caper.