Triple Deception

First to clear up any misunderstandings this was Ranks attempt at an A feature.As usual it lacks originality.The substituted agent must have been used many times prior to this.Michael Craig gives a lacklustre performance with a truly awful mid Atlantic accent.The colour photogrAphy and the views of Paris are the best features of a truly forgettable film

Michael Craig would have been a terrific James Bond. I don't know if he was ever screen tested. He had the look and physical abilities. The story has more twists than a mountain road and a climax right out of a Bond film. Arnall and Bates brought eye candy and acting skills. The fight scenes were brutal and more realistic than the usual phoney slugfest.

The film that made Michael Craig is a well paced colourful crime thriller shot in the location of Paris where Craig is mistakenly taken for a known smuggler who he resembles quite uncannily & is persuaded to go under-cover to infiltrate a counterfeiting organisation & also keep his cover with his smuggling colleagues.Apart from falling for the same local cabaret singer (Julia Arnall)who the real Steve Chancellor was enmeshed with, & the double crossing begins & along the way he struggle's to get to the truth until the climatic finale to unmask the ring leaders which include Brenda De Banzie & the ice cool menace of Anton Diffring.

As I was watching this I started to notice that the story arc seemed familiar. This 1956 film has all of the hallmarks of the 1960's James Bond films. The gangs, the double-crosses, the big schemes, the villain bosses, and the women. It's not a bad yarn.

For me, a thoroughly enjoyable, well-paced, beautifully shot and above-par acted thriller.

The locations are interesting and vibrant, the fight scenes are well choreographed, fast (for their time) and thus more realistic than most I've seen from this period and the plot twist interesting enough, even 60 years later.

It is for me, slightly reminiscent of a Hitchcock thriller with elements of an early Bond film. It also reminds me of a very good 1950s 'story for boys'.

I have given it a 9/10 simply to try and counterbalance the unfairly low rating it has so far received - in reality I would rate it a 7 or 7½.

Recommended to anyone interested in film-noir, 1950s Paris and/or appreciative of the beauty of mid-century Technicolor.