***SPOILERS*** American US Navy ballistic engineer Howard Graham, Joseph Cotton,is in Istanbul Turkey trying to get the Turkish Navy the latest state of the art coastal defenses. This is in the event of a possible German invasion, in order to outflank the Soviet Red Army, of that natural country.
It isn't that long that Graham is targeted by this bumbling and enormously overweight assassin Peter Banat, played by Jack Moss in his only acting role, who's being paid by the Nazis to murder him. Banat, the best hit-man the Nazis can get, is so clumsy and incompetent that he couldn't hit the broad side of a barn from as close as a distance of less then ten feet! This makes Banet not only one of the most bizarre hit-man in movie history but at the same time one of the most comical.
Put on a boat traveling to the Black Sea port of Batumi by Turkist police Col. Haki, Orson Wells, it's thought that this would keep Graham safe and out of arms way until he can safely return to the USA. As you would expect the over-sized Banat ends up a passenger on the boat together with his intended target Howard Graham. Also on the boat is Banat's boss a Germen Agent called Muller who's disguised as an old man, that's about as far as I can go without revealing his identify, intent on living out his last days at sea.
After a number of near misses by the butterfingered hit-man Banat it's decided by his boss, who now reviles himself to Graham, Muller to get the job done himself! This "Master Plan" by Muller is to be done in such a mind boggling and incomprehensible way that it makes even the totally incompetent hit-man Banat look like a genius in comparison! By then Graham, who's anything but a hero, makes his escape from both Muller Banat and a group of Nazi agents in a hotel in Batumi where his wife Stephanie, Ruth Warrwick, has been staying, courtesy of Col. Haki, since the start of the movie.
The big final has Graham chased along the ledges of the hotel, some eight stories up, during a driving rainstorm by the almost blind, with his glasses all wet and fogged up, Banat. Col. Haki who joins the chase in order to keep Banat from killing Graham ends up falling through a hotel window as he tries to come to Graham's aid. Like we've seen all throughout the movie Banat proved to be a total dud in not only using up all his ammunition but foolishly trying to murder Graham bare handedly which proves to be, with his massive weight unable to support him, his own undoing.
The whole story is told to us in a long and boring flashback by Howard Graham himself as he writes his wife, who seemed to have walked out on him, Steph explaining his unexplainable actions in the film. In Graham's letter to Steph, which he later tears up, he's trying to prove to her that his relationship with dancer and singer Josette Mantel (Delores Del Rio),another passenger on the boat he was on, was of purely innocent nature and nothing ever came of it.
P.S It seemed that both the movie's star and director Orson Wells as well as its screenwriter Ben Hecht had their names removed from the credits. This must show how much they liked, or disliked, the film that they were so much involved in making.
It isn't that long that Graham is targeted by this bumbling and enormously overweight assassin Peter Banat, played by Jack Moss in his only acting role, who's being paid by the Nazis to murder him. Banat, the best hit-man the Nazis can get, is so clumsy and incompetent that he couldn't hit the broad side of a barn from as close as a distance of less then ten feet! This makes Banet not only one of the most bizarre hit-man in movie history but at the same time one of the most comical.
Put on a boat traveling to the Black Sea port of Batumi by Turkist police Col. Haki, Orson Wells, it's thought that this would keep Graham safe and out of arms way until he can safely return to the USA. As you would expect the over-sized Banat ends up a passenger on the boat together with his intended target Howard Graham. Also on the boat is Banat's boss a Germen Agent called Muller who's disguised as an old man, that's about as far as I can go without revealing his identify, intent on living out his last days at sea.
After a number of near misses by the butterfingered hit-man Banat it's decided by his boss, who now reviles himself to Graham, Muller to get the job done himself! This "Master Plan" by Muller is to be done in such a mind boggling and incomprehensible way that it makes even the totally incompetent hit-man Banat look like a genius in comparison! By then Graham, who's anything but a hero, makes his escape from both Muller Banat and a group of Nazi agents in a hotel in Batumi where his wife Stephanie, Ruth Warrwick, has been staying, courtesy of Col. Haki, since the start of the movie.
The big final has Graham chased along the ledges of the hotel, some eight stories up, during a driving rainstorm by the almost blind, with his glasses all wet and fogged up, Banat. Col. Haki who joins the chase in order to keep Banat from killing Graham ends up falling through a hotel window as he tries to come to Graham's aid. Like we've seen all throughout the movie Banat proved to be a total dud in not only using up all his ammunition but foolishly trying to murder Graham bare handedly which proves to be, with his massive weight unable to support him, his own undoing.
The whole story is told to us in a long and boring flashback by Howard Graham himself as he writes his wife, who seemed to have walked out on him, Steph explaining his unexplainable actions in the film. In Graham's letter to Steph, which he later tears up, he's trying to prove to her that his relationship with dancer and singer Josette Mantel (Delores Del Rio),another passenger on the boat he was on, was of purely innocent nature and nothing ever came of it.
P.S It seemed that both the movie's star and director Orson Wells as well as its screenwriter Ben Hecht had their names removed from the credits. This must show how much they liked, or disliked, the film that they were so much involved in making.