This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

An American painter (Kerwin Mathews) has an affair with a bar owner (Nadia Gray) in a French village and agrees to help her murderer husband escape from a prison for the criminally insane.Something of a Hammer Horror, though not of the Gothic type (this killer prefers blow torches). This is constant suspense, with plenty of twists and turns, and you will definitely keep guessing throughout the plot. As Bosley Crowther wrote, it has "a plot of extraordinary cunning...(It) takes on a twitching suspense that simmers, sizzles and explodes in a neat backflip". Turner Classic Movies calls Jimmy Sangster's script "gimmicky and obvious", but they are dead wrong.Besides writing from Sangster, we have direction from Michael Carreras (the son of Hammer's founder). The cinematography is courtesy of Wilkie Cooper, who was raised under the wing of Ray Harryhausen on such films as "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad". He had previously shot this film's star, Kerwin Mathews, in that film (with Mathews as Sinbad, no less).Nadia Gray ("La Dolce Vita") plays the femme fatale, and does an admirable job, but she is overshadowed by Liliane Brousse, who plays her stepdaughter Annette. Her credits are short (this was her second to last film), but Hammer fans may have seen her in "Paranoiac" (1963) alongside Oliver Reed, which was also written by Sangster and directed by the visionary Freddie Francis.Although not well know, this is a must-see film for Hammer fans, and is available in the "Icons of Suspense" box set. Now if only Hammer would take a more active approach in releasing their back catalogue... hundreds of great treasures.

American artist Paul Farrell (Kerwin Mathews) is visiting France. He falls in love with hotel owner Eve Beynat (Nadia Gray). He helps her to get her husband George (Donald Houston) out of an asylum...and then everything falls apart.Well-directed with some beautiful b&w cinematography--but that's all this movie has going for it. The plot is old hat and the twists and turns that come fast and furious during the last half hour are now familiar and obvious. To make matters worse the acting is pretty terrible. Mathews is tall, handsome, hunky--and totally blank as Paul. His face NEVER changes expression. I actually smirked when he gives no reaction at all to finding a dead body. Even worse is Liliane Brousse as Annette and her thick French accent doesn't help. Gray and Houston are OK in their roles. This is OK to watch if you have nothing better to do but don't expect much. I give it a 6.

A good script from Hammer stalwart Jimmy Sangster who also wrote the excellent Paranoiac, and matched by sharp direction and photography. A shame, then, that the cast are such a let-down. The well-known ham Donald Houston lives down to his reputation - his voice was dubbed, a pity that his performance couldn't be erased. The French actress Lillian Brousse is excellent as the innocent daughter, but the American Kerwin Matthews makes for a very anodyne lead. The rest of the cast are British, utilizing French accents straight out of 'Allo 'Allo. Hammer have made some excellent non-horror movies such as Taste of Fear, and but for the dreadful acting this could have been one of them.

I enjoyed the first part of this thriller produced by Hammer. Kerwin Matthews is very appealing as the leading man and the first half of the movie I wasn't sure where it was going, who to trust and who was deceiving who. But the twist at the end made the actions of some of the characters in the first half of the movie illogical. When a films gives you a twist at the end, I like to be able to look back and say, oh wow, now I see it. "Ten Little Indians", 1965, and "The Sixth Sense" ,1999, both are good examples of surprise endings that make sense when you look back. This one doesn't. "Spoiler" When Eve's real motivations are revealed at the end and we find out who Georges really is, the whole first part of the film unravels and Eve and "Georges" behavior is inexplicable. " Spoiler" I would recommend this to other fans of 60's English Cinema with the caveat that it is worth watching for the actors, and the scenery (even in black and white) but the plot has lots of holes.