"Man on a String" stars the great Ernest Borgnine ("The Wild Bunch") as Boris Mitrov, a character inspired by the real-life Borris Morros. Boris is a Russian-born American citizen running a film studio who is essentially blackmailed into becoming a counter-spy. This will see him travel to both Berlin and Moscow to gather information for the amusingly dubbed "C. B. I." (the "Central Bureau of Intelligence"!).
"Man on a String" is largely notable for taking a documentary-style approach, complete with narration, by both Clete Roberts ("The Swinger") and Borgnine himself. The Roberts narration mostly tells us things we can already see for ourselves, while Borgnines' voice-over is more interesting as he observes the progress of his homeland and its citizens decades later. Overall, the film is generally entertaining, although it's largely dialogue and performance driven, only working in some action and suspense during the finale. But this finale is quite good, as we see the unarmed Boris running for his life and we wonder *how* he can possibly get out of a life-or-death situation.
Borgnine is thoroughly engaging here, and is ably supported by fantasy star Kerwin Mathews ("The 7th Voyage of Sinbad") here wearing a suit and tie as Boris' "assistant" at the studio. The excellent supporting cast also includes Colleen Dewhurst ("The Dead Zone"), Alexander Scourby ("The Big Heat"), Glenn Corbett ("Chisum"), Russian-born character actor Vladimir Sokoloff ("The Magnificent Seven"), who's endearing as Boris' father, and Ed Prentiss ('Trackdown').
Partly working as a travelogue, the globe-hopping also helps to make this espionage thriller decent entertainment, and in fact the film employed four different cinematographers for its four main settings. The efficient direction is courtesy of Hungarian-born Andre De Toth, who made his mark as a filmmaker with such efforts as the original "House of Wax" and the film noir classic "Crime Wave".
Seven out of 10.
