Rent State Secret (1950)
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- The East European state of Vosnia appears to outsiders as a civilised and beautiful country but is, in truth, a tightly controlled dictatorship. When a visiting American surgeon is duped into becoming dangerously involved in Vosnian power politics he goes on the run - a wanted man, his life is forfeit if he's captured!
- Actors:
- Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Glynis Johns, Olga Lowe, Therese Van Kye, Jack Hawkins, Walter Rilla, Karel Stepanek, Leonard Sachs, Herbert Lom, Robert Ayres, Howard Douglas, Martin Boddey, Russell Waters, Arthur Howard, Carl Jaffe, Gerard Heinz, Leslie Linder, Leo Bieber, Nelly Arno, Paul Demel
- Directors:
- Sidney Gilliat
- Producers:
- Sidney Gilliat, Frank Launder
- Voiced By:
- Alessandro Tasca
- Writers:
- Roy Huggins, Sidney Gilliat
- Aka:
- The Great Manhunt
- Studio:
- Network
- Genres:
- Action & Adventure, Classics, Drama, Romance, Thrillers
- Collections:
- Getting to Know..., Glynis & Angela: Ninetysomething Marvels
- BBFC:
- Release Date:
- 22/02/2021
- Run Time:
- 106 minutes
- Languages:
- English Dolby Digital 1.0 Mono
- Subtitles:
- English
- Formats:
- Pal
- Aspect Ratio:
- Full Screen 1.37:1
- Colour:
- B & W
- BLU-RAY Regions:
- B
- Bonus:
- US Version Reel 1
- Secret Publicity - An Interview with Forbes Taylor
- Image Gallery
- Those British Faces: Jack Hawkins
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Reviews (2) of State Secret
The Power and the Gawdy - State Secret review by CH
Pedigree. If any film has this, it is State Secret (1950). And yet how well is it known?
Adapted and directed by Sidney Gilliat, who had worked on Hitchcock’s international spy thriller The Lady Vanishes, its cinematographer was Robert Krasker who had just brought such a spirit to The Third Man’s take on post-war Vienna. Among the cast is a pivotal, ever-sinister Herbert Lom. He is startled along the way by American surgeon Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and showgirl Glynis Johns whom circumstances have flung together in a bid to escape - The Thirty-Nine Steps-style - after Fairbanks’s adroit way with a scalpel means that he is embroiled in political events during a visit to collect a Prize in a mid-European country called Vosnia.
What’s more, all this includes Jack Hawkins, who - echoes of Claude Rains in Casablanca - is not only a suavely brutal factotum who works on behalf of Vosnia’s President but is given, apparently, to speaking in Esperanto for much of his rôle (one gets the gist, which is rarely pleasant).
A narrow partition can divide hokum from the engrossing - and State Secret lands distinctly on the latter side. There is comedy along the way, notably when Fairbanks ducks into a theatre to avoid pursuit (another film-chase trope, one fatally emulated in November 1963 by... Lee Harvey Oswald) and hears a version of “Paper Doll” as cringingly rendered by Glynis Johns (the rest of the music is by Alwyn). All the while, there is a continual awareness of political malignancy, particularly so during the crowd scenes’ close-ups as a wide-eyed populace awaits a glimpse of their elected dictator on a balcony.
There is also something to be written about films which which end on a hill or mountainside, as does State Secret, a hundred minutes after a prelude in the self-same spot. This is brilliantly done - and it gives nothing away to say so here.
Be sure to make this film better known. A worthy aim, and a great treat.
A forgotten gem - State Secret review by MAJ
An outstanding, and sadly, almost forgotten gem of a movie. Well worth discovering. It grips like a strangler !