Escape Route [I’ll Get You] ** (1953, George Raft, Sally Gray, Clifford Evans) – Classic Movie Review 12,573

The watchable if only moderate Lippert Pictures low-budget 1953 adventure thriller film Escape Route [I’ll Get You] stars George Raft as an FBI undercover agent on the trail of a band of spies.

‘DYNAMITE STORY of the FBI’s roughest, toughest manhunt! IT’S LOADED… with Searing, Screaming, Suspense!’

The watchable if only moderate Banner Films/ Lippert Pictures low-budget 1953 black-and-white adventure thriller film Escape Route [I’ll Get You] is directed by Seymour Friedman and Peter Graham Scott, and stars George Raft, Sally Gray and Clifford Evans.

His film career sadly in decline, George Raft came to Britain to make this modest but entirely acceptable and quite effective B-movie programmer as Steve Rossi, an FBI undercover agent on the trail of Michael Grand (Clifford Evans)’s band of spies, who are thought to be kidnapping leading nuclear scientists and smuggling them behind the Iron Curtain.

Raft gives a solid performance, and Sally Gray is a pleasant asset as Joan Miller, the woman from British Intelligence, MI5. But the slack pace is a problem and so is the lack of credibility in the far-fetched plot. The London location filming is another pleasing asset.

It was retitled I’ll Get You in the US.

It is the final film of Sally Gray, who married Lord Oranmore and Browne in 1950. Her husband of 52 years, a member of the House of Lords for 72 years, died in 2002 aged 100. She died aged 91 on September 24, 2006.

It is shot at Walton Studios and on location around London, mainly in the City of London when there was still much Second World War bomb damage.

The Man from Cairo (1953) is Raft’s last top billed performance as star, and the last of three films that he made for Lippert Pictures. Raft had appeared in two Lippert Pictures low-budget thrillers, Escape Route (1952), shot in England with Sally Gray, and Loan Shark (1952). After this, he resumed his original career as a dancer, including a show in Las Vegas. He said: ‘As far as films are concerned, I’m dead. Nobody has been breaking their necks trying to hire me.’ Nevertheless, he appeared in Rogue Cop (1954), Black Widow (1954), and A Bullet for Joey (1955).

Escape Route [I’ll Get You] is directed by Seymour Friedman and Peter Graham Scott, runs 79 minutes, is made by Banner Films Productions, is released by Eros Films (UK) and Lippert Pictures (US), is written by John V Baines and Nicholas Phipps, is shot in black and white by Eric Cross, is produced by Ronald Kinnock, and is scored by Hans May.

Release date: December 1952.

It was screened on Turner Classic Movies on 25 August 2020 as part of the Summer Under the Stars all-day tribute to George Raft.

The cast are George Raft as Steve Rossi, Sally Gray as Joan Miller, Clifford Evans as Michael Grand, Frederick Piper as Inspector Reid, Reginald Tate as Colonel Wilkes, Patricia Laffan as Irma Brookes, June Ashley as Beauty Shop Attendant, John Warwick as Security Chief Brice, Roddy Hughes as Porter, Grace Arnold as Neighbour, Cyril Chamberlain as Bailey, Howard Douglas as Taxi Driver, Arthur Lovegrove as Phillips, Anthony Pendrell as Rees, Norman Pierce as Inspector Hobbs, and Harry Towb as Immigration Officer.

© Derek Winnert 2023 – Classic Movie Review 12,573

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com