John Bentley had the misfortune to be best known as Noele Gordon's husband in that feeble soap "Crossroads." However, starting with "Calling Paul Temple" in 1948 and right through to 1963, when the form was dying out, he starred in a series of low-budget British B movies. Some, particularly those made by Terence Fisher, were pretty good. This one isn't. It's one of the dullest films I've ever seen, and I see now why I'd never heard of its director, Denis Kavanagh.
The main character, played by Theodore Bikel, is not at all sympathetic. He's a loyal member of Hungary's Communist equivalent of the KGB and only escapes to Vienna because his mentor has been purged and he fears being next. The premises in Budapest where these charmers operated (and before them the Black Arrow fascists, the other side of the same debased coin) is now open to the public, billed as The House of Terror.
Bikel escapes alone, leaving his wife to suffer the consequences. (Greater love hath no man, than he sacrifices his wife to save his own hide.) In Vienna he meets British agent, who takes him to meet his boss, The latter is suspicious and wants Bikel to prove he's not a plant by getting him to return to Hungary and help an aged professor to escape. This time he condescends to rescue his wife. Not only hasn't she been punished for his defection, she's not under surveillance.
Both escapes are ridiculously easy. No gun turrets, no guard dogs, no No Man's Land with mines. Just snip a bit of barbed wire and you're free. The Commies send assassins after Bikel, but they are comically incompetent. One misses Bikel in a Viennese park, and manages to kill the film's only interesting character (a shady wheeler-dealer) instead. The other shoots at Bikel on the runway at Paris airport, but only gets him in the shoulder, then promptly gets arrested.
Truly inept.
