Spy melodrama from a story by Eric Ambler, with plot points which anticipate Graham Greene's The Third Man. Peter Lorre is a Dutch writer visiting Istanbul who hears of a ruthless, inscrutable agent for hire called Dimitrios, who has washed up in the Bosphorus with a fatal stab wound, and decides to research his past for a possible novel.
This proves hazardous because the trail leads to Dimitrios himself (Zachary Scott), who isn't as dead as he is supposed to be. There's an episodic plot made up of flashbacks to international scandals from which the agent provocateur vanishes without capture. Ultimately, Lorre allies with Sidney Greenstreet, one of Dimitrios' former gang of murderers, assassins and spies.
Lorre and Greenstreet made eight films together in the five years after The Maltese Falcon. And they are always good value. Zachary Scott makes his debut in the title role and he is ideal as the outwardly charming, inwardly unscrupulous conspirator, gaming the volatile capitals of the Balkans between the wars.
Hollywood routinely used this kind of foreign intrigue for their many serials. This is a class above that. There's a more coherent story. Production values are decent for a moderately budgeted ensemble thriller with no big stars. And the art direction and photography are full of shadowy atmosphere.