Robert Ryan plays an idealistic journalist who sets out to expose the corrupt Duke (Stewart Granger) of a mythical Balkan country in this low budget espionage melodrama drearily directed by Don Chaffey. The Duke is a man of means in his home country, and at first one has to wonder why Ryan goes after him after leaving incriminating evidence of the Duke's dirty dealings with a U.S newspaper editor at the film's start. However, there is a subplot involving Ryan's relationship with the Duke's wife (Nadia Gray), which causes additional complications. In the process, Ryan plays a deadly cat-and-mouse game that almost gets him killed.
In spite of good performances by the cast - Ryan and Granger are both good playing against type - this lackluster B-movie is no masterpiece, perpetrating a dull soap opera atmosphere until the dramatic final scene.
Apparently, the distributor did not have much faith in the movie, as revealed in its poster that boldly proclaimed a series of spoilers: "Bribe him, frame him, poison him, seduce him. Do what you must but stop him..." The cover of the Pan Books re-release of Morris West's novel, "The Big Story," upon which THE CROOKED ROAD was based, teased the movie as, "A breathless suspense thriller of intrigue and corruption in modern Italy," although the film was shot over a period of two weeks in Yugoslavia in 1964.
