Man on a String *** (1960, Ernest Borgnine, Kerwin Mathews, Colleen Dewhurst) – Classic Movie Review 9804

Director André De Toth’s 1960 Man on a String [Confessions of a Counterspy] stars Ernest Borgnine in a Hollywood-ised biography of Russian double agent/ counterspy Boris Morros.  Borgnine plays him as Boris Mitrov, a character loosely based on Boris Morros, identified by the US Government as a counterspy in 1957.

It is a commendable, fast-moving, realistic black and white documentary-style spy action thriller. The assets of the acting, direction and location work (Berlin, Moscow, New York) are countered by some some conventional melodramatics and tedious Sixties American propaganda. Borgnine is outstanding, grabbing his opportunity in a good role for him.

The screenplay by John H Kafka, Virginia Shaler, James L Shute and James P Cavanagh is based on Boris Morros and Charles Samuels’s book Ten Years a Counterspy.

Also in the cast are Kerwin Mathews, Colleen Dewhurst, Alexander Scourby, Glenn Corbett, Vladimir Sokoloff, Friedrich Joloff, Richard Kendrick, Ed Prentiss, Holger Hagen, Bob Iller, Reginald Pasch, Carl Jaffe, Eva Pflug, Harro ten Brook, Ramond Burgin, Michael Mellinger, Winfried Groth, Mary Ann Holloway, Egon Strohm, Gerd Vespermann and Susanne Körber-Harlan.

Man on a String [Confessions of a Counterspy] is directed by André De Toth, runs 92 minutes, is made by RD-DR Productions and Columbia Pictures, is released by Columbia Pictures (1960) (US) and Columbia Pictures Corporation (1960) (UK), is written by John H Kafka, Virginia Shaler, James P Cavanagh and James L Shute, based on Boris Morros and Charles Samuels’s book Ten Years a Counterspy, is shot in black and white by Charles Lawton Jr, Albert Benitz, Pierre Poincarde (director of photography, Moscow) and Gayne Rescher, is produced by Louis De Rochemont, Louis De Rochemont III, Lothar Wolff, and is scored by George Duning and is designed by Carl Anderson.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 9804

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