Highly Dangerous

As my Father, Antony Darnborough produced this film and my uncle Muir Mathieson conducted the music, I might be slightly biased although I still feel that biological warfare was virtually unknown to the general public at the time and therefore this film was useful on many levels.

Perhaps it can in some way highlight the efforts made by the hundreds of brave and talented civilians during the cold war, many of course had little or no idea what they were letting themselves in for and no training in interogation techniques.

Classic line: "A few moths ago some people were shot in the woods - accidentally. Tourists"

James Darnborough

Highly Dangerous is a rare original screenplay by novelist Eric Ambler. It draws heavily on elements of his early pre-1939 thrillers, but reposts them behind the Iron Curtain. This film leans particularly on Ambler's first novel The Dark Frontier, most notably with the super-agent coda, which is very fashionable today.

Ambler's problem with Highly Dangerous is that most of the plot devices he invented single-handedly in the 30's were used to the point of saturation by film-makers during the 40's. By the time he got around to an original screenplay it all seems very unoriginal. For that reason I like to think of this film as British cinema's homage to all Ambler's great work in the 30's. An adaptation of one of Ambler's post war novels, say, Judgement On Deltchev, would have been much more satisfactory at this point in his career - as it was, he had to wait ten years until Topkapi before the cinema recognised his post-war novels.

Margaret Lockwood makes for a very beautiful and personable innocent, drawn into a cold-war plot about a form of biological warfare, not entirely a new thing, but a change from the nuclear threats of the time. Lockwood's career was on the decline, and this film can't have offered her very much compensation. Additionally, she is badly served by her make-up artist, her hair being mocked up to middle-age very badly.

Don't treat this film as a serious attempt to translate Ambler's art to the screen - you can find that in just about any war-time thriller - from Journey Into Fear to The Mask of Dimitrios. Highly Dangerous is minor Ambler, and an opportunity for a fading Lockwood to make one more impression, and what an impression - innocent, scientist and secret agent.

Many of the other reviews refer to the thin and unbelievable plot and casting. I beg to differ. 90% of modern films are pure unbelievable west coast Amertican dross, just think of the fare from Will Ferrell, Adam Sandler, Cameron Diaz, Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, and all the high school, college, so called coming of age movies awash with those stupid Californian accents, etc, etc, etc.

This is a British B/W film of the early 50s and has the benefit of Margaret Lockwood playing against type in a plot line which holds up well, it is a movie after all, escapism, and perfectly encapsulates the early post war, cold war fears and demons of the time, played in a gentle tongue in cheek way by the cast and director.

I enjoyed it immensely, and so will you. Give it a go, far superior to most modern movies.

A slick, tongue-in-cheek adventure film with dramatic photography by Reg Wyer and lively music by Richard Addinsell, making early use of germ warfare as a subject.

Set in a small Balkan country similar to that in 'State Secret' (down to the made up language occasionally used by the locals). Eric Ambler's script shamelessly recycles much of his pre-war novel 'Journey into Fear', with Margaret Lockward in the Joseph Cotton role, whimsically cast as an entomologist turned amateur spy and Marius Goring padded out and hamming it up like Orson Welles was as Col. Haki was in the former.

Margaret Lockwood whose beauty cast her in many a regal and aristocratic role plays a scientist in this Eric Ambler story Highly Dangerous. She's an entomologist who goes behind the Iron Curtain to investigate a rumor that the Reds are conducting germ warfare experiments using insects as carriers.

Dane Clark is an American reporter who suspects she's more than a travel agent which is her cover story. Marius Goring the local secret police chief suspects one and all. Wilfrid Hyde-White the local British consul wants Lockwood and Clark to keep on breathing.

Lots of similarities here to the 39 Steps. A bit more serious though. Clark and Lockwood acquit themselves well in the roles which have some humor though.

Would have liked to see Robert Donat in this.