The House of Intrigue

THE HOUSE OF INTRIGUE is a WW2 spy thriller based on the true story of a British agent who ends up being captured by the Nazis and forced to broadcast messages back to his allies back home, thus leading many men into a trap. The film is centred around a gruff but kindly performance from Curd Jurgens as the fatherly Nazi officer who may be the one good German in the whole of their army.

The film itself is an Italian production directed by Duilio Coletti, a rather old fashioned guy who had been working since the 1930s. Well-paced it isn't; the plot is jumbled and needlessly complex, with far too many extraneous figures taking centre stage, and there's a definite lack of real protagonists. The best thing about it is probably the downbeat, deeply pessimistic climax.

Dawn Addams (later of Hammer's THE VAMPIRE LOVERS) is the female of the piece, about the only distinguished role in the whole thing (apart from Jurgens). The TV print I watched of this movie was pretty horrendous, which may have affected my enjoyment of the film somewhere. I suspect a book retelling the same story would have been more interesting.