User Reviews

This comedy thriller, in the same vein as Hitchcock's pre-war Gainsborough movies, but much less accomplished, sees an upper-class twit (skint, but owning an expensive Bentley!) pursuing a girl across Spain whilst incidentally bringing to justice a smuggling ring headed by her father. The hero is played by Peter Haddon whose main claim to fame is that he was the first actor to play Lord Peter Wimsey on screen (in The Silent Passenger) but whilst he manages some amusing moments, he lacks the charisma a real star might have brought to the part. Although the movie contrives some half-hearted references to its Spanish Civil War context, on the whole it seems rather anaemic, with a notable absence of suspense. Its main set-piece, for instance, an avalanche which wrecks a train, is over in about five seconds, with the carriages looking as though straight out of a Hornby catalogue. Nevertheless there are some saving graces: some well-handled location shooting, plus interesting cameos from stalwarts of the period, including Hay Petrie, Ivor Barnard, and, most notably, Alan Jeayes whose portrayal of the smuggler boss is played with his usual suave professionalism. On the whole, though it passes an hour and a half or so not unpleasantly, one wonders why its producer and director bothered to make it at all. As a chase movie, for instance, Dusty Ermine, made a couple of years later, is infinitely better in all ways.