The File of the Golden Goose * (1969, Yul Brynner, Edward Woodward, Charles Gray) – Classic Movie Review 12,736

Sam Wanamaker’s 1969 thriller film The File of the Golden Goose stars Yul Brynner as a US Treasury spy chasing a ring of counterfeiters called the Golden Goose in Britain, aided and abetted by London investigator Edward Woodward.

Director Sam Wanamaker’s 1969 British thriller film The File of the Golden Goose stars Yul Brynner as a US Treasury Secret Service agent called Pete Novak, chasing a ring of hundred dollar bill counterfeiters called the Golden Goose in Britain, aided and abetted by London old copper investigator Arthur Thompson (Edward Woodward).

The File of the Golden Goose is a would-be trendy Sixties British thriller, made mostly for the American market, which plods rather than swings, with over-generous performances (especially Charles Gray as the head of the counterfeiter operation, known as The Owl Harrison, who tries to tempt Woodward from the straight and narrow) and tourist picture-postcard views of the capital city.

It is directed without any special flair by American actor in Britain, Wanamaker. It was his first as director, and he went on to direct Brynner again in the 1971 Western film Catlow.

It is written by John C Higgins and James B Gordon, based on Higgins’s story, and is a reworking of his screenplay for the 1947 American film noir T-Men, directed by Anthony Mann..

The cast are Yul Brynner, Edward Woodward, Charles Gray, John Barrie as Superintendent Sloane of the Yard, Bernard Archard as Collins, Ivor Dean as Reynolds, Adrienne Corri as ‘Tina’ Richmond, Karel Stepanek as Mueller, Walter Gotell as George Leeds, Graham Crowden as Smythe, Geoffrey Reed as Martin, Ken Jones as Stroud, Janet Rossini, Joe Cornelius, Denis Shaw, Ivor Dean, Hugh McDermott, and Hilary Dwyer.

It is narrated by Patrick Allen.

© Derek Winnert 2023 – Classic Movie Review 12,736

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