The Traitors

1962
1 Std. 11 Min.

IMDb-BEWERTUNG

IHRE BEWERTUNG

Patrick Allen, Jacqueline Ellis, and James Maxwell in The Traitors (1962)

Füge eine Handlung in deiner Sprache hinzuEspionage story telling how British and American security agents outwit ruthless and cunning traitors trying to steal secret project plans.Espionage story telling how British and American security agents outwit ruthless and cunning traitors trying to steal secret project plans.Espionage story telling how British and American security agents outwit ruthless and cunning traitors trying to steal secret project plans.

Siehe Produktionsinformationen bei IMDbPro

IMDb-BEWERTUNG

6,2/10

179

IHRE BEWERTUNG

Siehe Produktionsinformationen bei IMDbPro

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6CinemaSerf

The Traitors

Using some potently photographed imagery of a still recovering post-war London, this has a little more of a plausible story to it. It's just the sadly lacking effort of the dreadfully wooden Patrick Allen that holds it back. It depicts the scenario in the early 1960s where the rise of communism was an attractive thing for a political class that was prepared to betray their country in the hope of an Elysium to come. The story takes a while to get going, but the spying antics - they are trying to smuggle secret documents to their Soviet counterparts - present us with a slightly more sophisticated network of agents and with quite an interesting use for the public baths (no, not that one...!) The dialogue is fine, the supporting actors - principally James Maxwell and Jacqueline Ellis are efficient and it features quite an exciting last five minutes. A better cast might have made for a more compelling watch. As it is it is still watchable but Allen was never good enough to top the bill, and he certainly isn't here either.

7sjaytaylor

A visual document of long-lost London

It's one of those old B pictures with a lot of location shooting in London, which now makes for rather more compelling viewing than the film itself (which is very similar in feel and treatment to Sidney Lumet's altogether superior "The Deadly Affair" from five years later).

The cinema which features extensively and in which one of the spies meets his end is neither of those mentioned in previous reviews. It is actually the Grange Cinema on High Street KIlburn, dating from 1914 and Grade II listed, as a result of which is therefore still there, albeit now functioning, as so many do, as a third-world evangelical church.

6TheFearmakers

Patrick Allen, THE TRAITORS

The second of two British b-crimes pairing lantern-jawed Patrick Allen, honing one of the greatest voices in cinema history, with ingenue Jacqueline Ellis, THE TRAITORS... written by Jim O'Connelly who'd direct Ellis in THE HI-JACKERS the next year... follows the usual spy template popular in the 1960's...

Herein the titular gang of microfilm-carrying turncoats are shadowed by stalwart British agent Allen paired with an American with a British accent in future OTLEY actor James Maxwell...

Allen is married while Maxwell, single, takes Jacqueline Ellis's Mary, as a female agent, on a date, which, sadly, is about the only real screen-time she has, buried by Allen's troubled wife Zena Walker while the action and espionage, with an extremely meager budget, isn't very suspenseful...

The poster has a petrified dame with her mouth covered as Allen's getting pistol-whipped, and neither occurs in this average post-noir that's still an entertaining time-filler, economically filling its sixty-minute programmer's length.

10fenderred

The Traitors 1962

Although some may find the film slow to get going, this is often the way of real life counter intelligence work.

My copy was paired with the Wind of change film, I have watched Trtitors a few times and it is a pacey film, a few of the 'faces' from the 60's and 70's turn up, actors like Geoffrey Segal and Patrick Allen for example.

The black and white does give the air of 'old' film and does lend atmosphere to the mainly London locations. It is an intelligently scripted film, directed by Robert Tronson, later to direct Bergerac episodes for TV.

If you've not seen the Portland Spies film, then that is also another great film in the same type of interest, Portland being based on a true story.

All things considered, budget, script and behind the camera this is a good film.

6boblipton

Precursor To Lecarre

There are secrets being leaked and Patrick Allen is told to find out who and how, with American James Maxwell seconded for US interests.

It's a slow and deliberate movie, far from the slam-bang and sexcapades of the James Bond franchise. Allen is still in love with ex-wife Zena Walker, and she with him, but their marriage could not take the strain. Maxwell is interested in Jacqueline Ellis, but though she makes a lovely dinner companion, the work they do is too dirty for her to ever think of marriage. In between these reliefs, such as they are, from the main story, they track the route of the stolen secrets to a doctor's office, and set up in a betting shop across the street to surveil.... and run into problems when a successful bettor puts the shop in the red.

It's unglamorous and even occasionally dull to watch their progress, up until the slam-bang ending. The result is a film that is too realistic to be very entertaining, but stands as a useful correction to the usual image of spywork.

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Wissenswertes
The locations are very accurate. Portobello Road Market can be seen as Patrick Allen and James Maxwell track the doctor to his surgery, which is just off Portobello Road. The market ( which was then a normal market with some second hand stalls and shops) can be seen. The extra's were clearly normal members of the public who can be seen watching the filming and showing surprise as they walk into shot. The Dr's wife catches a 15 bus from Ladbroke Road ( which runs parallel to Portobello Road) alighting at Horse Guards, then walking to St James Park. The No 15 ran at the time via Ladbroke Grove through Trafalger Square. The Dr takes a taxi and catches a bus in order to meet with his contact. He alights at Halfpenny Steps (a pedestrian bridge, now replaced, across Regents Canal) in Maida Vale on the other side of which was the now demolished, Wedlake Street 'Baths' (swimming pool, baths and wash house) featuring the denouement of the film. In reality this is only a 10/15 minute walk from 'his' surgery but as a spy he is no doubt (unsuccessfully) ensuring he is not followed.

Patzer
There was no way the microphone could have been planted behind the grille, and of course there is no explanation of how this was supposed to have been done.