A member of British Intelligence assumes a fictitious criminal identity and allows himself to be caught, imprisoned, and freed in order to infiltrate a spy organization and expose a traitor; only, someone finds him out and exposes him to the gang...
Direction
Huston's final cold war thriller — cynical to the bone.
Acting
Newman at his most guarded, Mason at his most slippery.
Cinematography
Oswald Morris captures institutional dread in beige and shadow.
Director
John Huston
Paul Newman
Rearden
Dominique Sanda
Mrs. Smith
James Mason
Sir George Wheeler
Harry Andrews
Mackintosh
Ian Bannen
Slade
Michael Hordern
Mr. Brown
Nigel Patrick
Soames-Trevelyan
Peter Vaughan
Brunskill
Roland Culver
Judge
Percy Herbert
Taafe
Robert Lang
Jack Summers
Jenny Runacre
Gerda
John Bindon
Buster
Hugh Manning
Prosecutor
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Newman and Huston clashed constantly; Newman resented the director's lack of preparation, while Huston found his star too method-y for a plot-driven thriller.
The prison escape sequence was filmed at a real disused Victorian jail in Dublin, with actual former inmates as extras — Huston wanted that institutional authenticity you can't fake.
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