One of the later Cold War thrillers to come out of the 60s, with the twist here being that this one enmeshes both Britain and America as co-protagonists against the dread Reds of Russia.
More than that, it's a starring vehicle for Frank Sinatra, heading up a largely British cast, who features as a long-retired top ranking US soldier corralled into assisting British intelligence in their top-secret plan to assassinate a double-agent who's been picked up by their Russian counterparts and is being shipped off presumably to Siberia. I say shipped off but luckily a good portion of his journey will apparently be by road, giving our guys every chance to take him out en route before he can do the dirty.
So surely this is a job you would think, for Jimmy Bond or even Harry Palmer, but it seems they're too famous so the high-level decision is made to recruit Sinatra's Sam Laker civilian character who since becoming a widower years before now lives in London apparently designing furniture.
How he's nefariously drawn into the secret service net who'll and forced by fits and starts into being a reluctant killer on civvy street is then played out tensely, if somewhat painstakingly, over the rest of the movie.
Sinatra is about the only American actor in the cast of this very British feature with a host of experienced faces well known to Brits (like me) of a certain vintage, such as Peter Vaughan, Derren Nesbitt and Edward Fox.
Ol' Blue Eyes doesn't quite convince me he fits in with the Brits in all this but director Sidney J Furie knows how to keep the ingredients simmering in what could have been a mere potboiler into something a bit more heated, even if the ending seemed a bit sudden and straightforward.
More than that, it's a starring vehicle for Frank Sinatra, heading up a largely British cast, who features as a long-retired top ranking US soldier corralled into assisting British intelligence in their top-secret plan to assassinate a double-agent who's been picked up by their Russian counterparts and is being shipped off presumably to Siberia. I say shipped off but luckily a good portion of his journey will apparently be by road, giving our guys every chance to take him out en route before he can do the dirty.
So surely this is a job you would think, for Jimmy Bond or even Harry Palmer, but it seems they're too famous so the high-level decision is made to recruit Sinatra's Sam Laker civilian character who since becoming a widower years before now lives in London apparently designing furniture.
How he's nefariously drawn into the secret service net who'll and forced by fits and starts into being a reluctant killer on civvy street is then played out tensely, if somewhat painstakingly, over the rest of the movie.
Sinatra is about the only American actor in the cast of this very British feature with a host of experienced faces well known to Brits (like me) of a certain vintage, such as Peter Vaughan, Derren Nesbitt and Edward Fox.
Ol' Blue Eyes doesn't quite convince me he fits in with the Brits in all this but director Sidney J Furie knows how to keep the ingredients simmering in what could have been a mere potboiler into something a bit more heated, even if the ending seemed a bit sudden and straightforward.