Counterspy Meets Scotland Yard (1950)

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The acting in this movie is really good.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

"Counter Spy Meets Scotland Yard" may not be high art, but it is an enjoyable spies and sleuths programmer that pits the good guys, led by Howard St. John and Ron Randell, against a nefarious network of villains out to defrock truth, justice and the American way. Released by Columbia Pictures in 1950, "Spy" also includes B film stalwart June Vincent and Amanda Blake, who was to find fame (and maybe fortune) on the television version of "Gunsmoke" as Miss Kitty, as two friends not quite as in sync with each other as one of them seems to think. As scripted by Howard Green (based on the radio series "Counterspy") and directed in no nonsense fashion by Seymour Friedman, this one is an engrossing, low-rent potboiler that nicely entertains the entire 67 minutes of its economical running time.Personally paired as 'our feature attraction' with the Columbia-released Gene Autry production "Gene Autry and the Mounties", it made for a great nostalgia film package, the sort that used to routinely play my beloved Granada Theatre here in Hamilton.Oh how I miss those days!

David Harding: COUNTERSPY MEETS Scotland YARD – 1950A low rent "Red Scare" programmer from the Columbia Pictures B- film unit. This was the second film based on the radio series, COUNTERSPY. Howard St John plays David Harding, the head of a government agency out to stop enemy spy types from stealing American secrets. An agent of St John's, Harry Lauter, leaves a message for St John that he has a lead on possible red spies. Lauter is head of the secret files office at a US rocket research base. The next day, Lauter is found dead after supposedly committing suicide. St John does not buy this for a second, and assigns John Dehner to look into the matter. Dehner soon rustles up a suspect in Lauter's death. The suspect however turns out to be Scotland Yard agent, Ron Randell. Both had been following the same lead. Randell had been in town delivering a part to the rocket research lab when Lauter died. Randell had decided to look into the matter himself. St John quickly asks Randell to join the U.S. team in the hunt for the spy-slash killer. One of the main suspects is Amanda Blake, in a pre-GUNSMOKE role. She is the main secretary for the record files section. It seems that Blake suffers from regular migraines and sees a local doctor, Everett Glass, for relief. Glass, along with his nurse, June Vincent, are really commie spies. They shoot Blake up with truth serum on her visits and have her repeat from memory, all the reports on the secret rocket tests. These are taped and dispatched every week for Moscow. The "Reds" have a hideout at the local bottled water plant. They use the company trucks to pick up the tapes etc and move them. The Government types soon tumble to the "Red" set up. They lay a trap for Glass, Vincent, and his thug, John Doucette. Needless to say fists and bullets are exchanged before the Commies are captured.Not bad at all for a back-lot quickie. The director, Seymour Friedman keeps the pace moving for the whole 67 minute run. Friedman turned out a number of these bottom rung programmers. Some of the better ones are, CRIMINAL LAWYER, CHINATOWN AT MIDNIGHT, CUSTOMS AGENT and LOAN SHARK.The d of p, Phil Tannura, is also known to noir fans. He worked on several BOSTON BLACKIE and WHISTLER films as well as, CUSTOMS AGENT, HI-JACKED and NIGHT EDITOR.I'd swear John Doucette pops up in every other film or TV show from the 50's. He had hundreds of bits in film and television between 1943 and 1987. Look quick and you will see director Fred Sears in a small part. As a director, Sears cranked out over 50 films between 1949 and 1957. These include one of the best low rent sci-fi films of the era, EARTH VS THE FLYING SAUCERS.

Australian actor Ron Randell becomes the Scotland Yard man in the USA helping solve a case of badly leaking government secrets at a missile testing ground in Counterspy Meets Scotland Yard. An American agent played by Harry Lauter gets killed during his investigation and the bad guys went to great lengths to make it look like a suicide.The leak is an innocent one and it's played by Gunsmoke's future Miss Kitty, Amanda Blake. How the information is being gotten out of her is the key to the whole film, but it involves our developing missile guidance systems which the Russians would like to steal.The villains are a clever and ruthless bunch and the film is from the B unit at Columbia Pictures. Doesn't have any great production values, but the story is an intriguing one and the players are all fine in their parts.

In the 1940s, the primary entertainment medium in the United States was broadcast radio. A number of the old-time radio (OTR) shows could be classified as drama. One was "Counterspy," started in 1942, a show about a fictional agency that combated espionage and sabotage within and outside the United States. Head of the agency was David Harding.This is one of two films based on the radio show. The first had the United States Counterspies mostly in the background. In this, David Harding takes a more active role -- even a bit more than on the radio show, where he delegated a lot of the field work to Agent Peters.The story involves enemy agents obtaining highly classified information on guided-missile technology. At the beginning of the film, one section head figures out what the leak is, but before he can relay the information to the Counterspies, he's killed. He did leave a 1950s equivalent of a voicemail before he's offed, however.After hearing the message, David Harding goes to the high-security area where the section head died, apparently from natural causes. Because of the suspicious timing of his death, he orders a covert exhumation for a full autopsy. As his people reach the cemetery after dark, they find someone else digging up the grave, and capture him (not without a fistfight).It turns out that the independent graverobber is an agent from Scotland Yard, independently wanting to get an autopsy for the same reasons Harding does, though without the clue of the voice mail. It turns out that the Scotland Yard agent is an old friend of Harding's, and they pool their efforts, though under the aegis of the U. S. Counterspies.Unlike the previous film, this one shows all sorts of tricks involving 1950s spy technology. There are radio communications, wire taps, room bugs, and all of those things that showed cleverness to the general audience of the day. Given the minimal role of the Counterspies in the first film, David Harding, Counterspy, this film appears to be trying to make up for it.Major Spoiler Alert The spies were extracting the data from the lead female in the film, a secretary with high security clearance, who was seeing a doctor for emotionally caused headaches. The Victor used a chemically augmented form of regressive hypnotherapy to retrieve the data The recording apparatus used will be completely alien to younger viewers. Fortunastely for her, before the doctor discovers the bug that the Counterspies planted, her exchange with the doctor demonstrates she's an innocent pawn, not a traitor.The latter parts of the film are pretty conventional, but the film is entertaining. A much better representation of the highly popular radii series than its predecessor.