State Secret (1950)

Too much of everything

Simply A Masterpiece

Absolutely Fantastic

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Douglas Fairbanks Jr. has invented a new surgical procedure. He's invited to a European dictatorship to demonstrate it. He discovers in mid-operation his patient is the country's dictator. When the dictator dies, the authorities, in the person of Jack Hawkins, can't let anyone know, so Fairbanks ... escapes and so begins the movie. It's Sidney Gilliat doing a Hitchcock thriller on his own, and doing it very well, thank you, with a fine cast, with heroine Glynis Johns showing up a third of the way into the movie in a cheap music hall singing "Paper Doll" very badly and Herbert Lom hilariously sleazy as a black-market fixer. There's an exciting mountain-climbing sequence shot in the Dolomites and the entire movie is shot through with a sardonic cynicism that is capped with Miss Johns' closing words to the show.

State Secret is a forgotten classic, made around the same time as the celebrated 'The Third Man', this film is equally, if not more enjoyable! A thriller in the Hitchcockian tradition, with a nice blend of comedy that doesn't detract from the thrills. Devilishly handsome, dashing and suave Douglas Fairbanks Jnr. in what is arguably his best role as the Doctor running for his life in a foreign country, ably supported by a menacing Jack Hawkins, pretty Glynis Johns, and a hilarious Herbert Lom, in one of the best 'cat & mouse' chases ever made! Nice locales, excellent black & white photography all add up to one hell of a ride! An even bigger mystery is why this film has never been given it's just desserts in an official DVD release? Perhaps it didn't have as catchy a theme as 'The Third Man'?

I fell in love for the first time whilst watching "State Secret" back in 1951.The object of my pre - pubescent affections was the delectable Miss G.Johns whose sweet husky voice sent tremors down my 10 year - old spine. When she sang "Paper Doll" - familiar to me from my mother's record by a black group called "The Inkspots"(yes,really) - I went into a sort of reverie that lasted until I saw Vera - Ellen in "On the Town" when all thoughts of Miss Johns were swept from my head. I never forgot the movie though,and years later I bought a book of film criticism called "Shots in the dark" that included a very positive review of "State Secret" which I read with fascination and a growing sense of awareness that there might be more to this movie in particular and to movies in general than I had realised. Certainly "State Secret" is a fascinating and entertaining,cleverly scripted and lovingly put together film.Mr D.Fairbanks jr. - in a role that could have been tailor made for Cary Grant - plays a surgeon sent to operate on the president of a Balkan state.He is very suave,with a nice line in white macintoshes.Unfortunately the president dies and Mr Fairbanks becomes persona non grata to the extent that he must be eliminated.Mr J.Hawkins is the security chief whose job it is to keep the president's death a secret.He is the very epitome of the canny opportunist in power,forever sniffing for a change of wind. Miss G.Johns is what used to be called a "chorus girl" marooned in this bleak state and she and Mr Fairbanks team up as innocents abroad to escape to the right side of the Iron Curtain. Mr H.Lom is memorable in a particularly well - written role. Redolent in part of "Foreign Correspondent",the movie has more humour than Mr Hitchcock would have allowed,and its villains are more fully developed and ambiguous than many of his. I have loved it for most of my life and thoroughly recommend it to those who would normally endorse M.Truffaut's comment that the words "British" and "Cinema" are antithetical.I suspect he must have missed "State Secret".

This is a wonderful film and well worth seeing; if you can find it! It used to be on TV all the time, but I haven't seen it in years and cannot find a copy. One very interesting fact about the movie is that it was, to the best of my knowledge, the first film to make use of Esperanto. In the film, all the citizens of the made up nation of Vosnia speak Esperanto! Esperanto was constructed in 1887 as a universal language, drawing words and structure from many different languages. The hope was that it would be adopted as an "everyman's language" and be equally difficult for all people to master. State Secret gives the viewer a chance to hear fluent Esperanto, as well as adding flavor to the underlying excitement of the plot.