Eva Bartok hires skipper Forrest Tucker to smuggle scientist Arnold Marlé, As the movie progresses, various murky forces with thugs, helicopters, and police at its disposal tries to stop him.
When this was made, the forces at work were apparent and obvious to its audience; so obvious that this could easily be interpreted as paranoid anti-Communist propaganda. Nothing of the sort is ever mentioned in the movie. This would seem to make it vaguer and duller, and at the same time more universal. Indeed, some of the accompanying comment notes " Set against a war-torn backdrop, it explores the indomitable human spirit and the relentless pursuit of liberty." This seems at odds with Eric Pohlmann's willingness to get his neck broken once he's promised $5,000.
Over all, I find its lack of specificity unengaging, its use of the same block of docklands to represent several different ports cheap rather than betaking of any sort of universality. With Marius Goring and Guy Middleton.
