FILM & REVIEW Very clever thriller has Coburn as Elliott a one time academic now on the payroll of a large corporation. They have wangled him a top job in the White House but he has built up in London an organisation that provides information and services but to take on the new post he needs to wind up his contacts. He has a Foreign Office mandarin (Hendry), a scientist working on weaponry (Jayson) , a high class hooker (Kruger) and a masseuse (Andrews) . None of them know each other so he concocts a fiendish plan to get each one to kill the next in line - some are straightforward murders , others look like accidents so he sets his plan in motion. He is like a chess grand master moving each piece in turn with perfect symmetry as he scores each stage off in turn. He is also involved with a journalist (Grant) with this love/hate thing going on. It’s all very precise with great use of the wintry London locations and Coburn uses his suave charm to chilling effect. A little gem - 4/5