Monday, 8 February 2021

THE COUNTERFEIT TRAITOR **


 "The Counterfeit Traitor" is an overlong and certainly contrived WW2 espionage thriller that still manages, like all good espionage thrillers should, to generate a fair amount of suspense. William Holden is the American-born, Swedish oil-man blackmailed by the Allies into working as an agent in Nazi Germany and whose job it is to recruit others into helping him. A decent cast includes that fine and underrated actress Lilli Palmer with Hugh Griffith as Holden's British operative in Sweden as well as a silent Klaus Kinski, (which makes a change), and it's when things start to go wrong that the tension ups a gear. It's a Pelberg/Seaton production with George Seaton writing and directing so you know it's never going to be inspired but it's a robust entertainment nevertheless.

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