On Secret Service

When it comes to spy flicks, I expect a lot of action, even if it doesn't get to the level of James Bond. In this one, we get to see the background work, with people working out cryptographic messages by hand, and everyone hot to figure out who Spy 77 is... a secret known only to spymaster Karl Ludwig Diehl, in the same role he played earlier in the year in the German version of the picture, SPIONE AM WERKE. That movie, by the way, would be banned in Germany a couple of years later.

There's a pretty good cast at work here, with Greta Nissen as the beautiful spy, and Esme Percy as a blackmailing reporter, ready to name names unless his price is met. Unfortunately, there's little sense of tension in the movie, in part because of the gracefully moving camerawork of Cyril Bristow and Jack Parker. The plot moves along too slowly, and the beauty shots make it feel as if those are the point of the movie..at least until the shocking end.

The director was Arthur Woods, and this was his first movie as a director. He was a man who could handle a wide range of subjects and do a good job. Eventually, he went to work for the Americans who were satisfying the British production laws. Hie directed the fine THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT along the way. His last movie was HAUNTED HONEYMOON in 1940. Woods was a pilot, and he volunteered for the RAF. On February 8, 1944, while serving as a fighter pilot, his plane collided with another, killing him at the age of 39.