A Circle of Deception (1960)

User Rating:

6.6/10   

Director:

Jack Lee

Writers:

Nigel Balchin (writer)
Robert Musil (writer)

Release Date:

November 1960 (UK)

Genre:

Drama | War

Plot:

Unbeknownst to him, a soldier is sent on a doomed mission because of the high likelihood of him divulging secrets if captured and tortured. |

Plot Keywords:

England | Torture | Disinformation | Whipping | Bombing

Cast

Bradford Dillman	...	Paul Raine
Suzy Parker	...	Lucy Bowen
Harry Andrews	...	Capt. Rawson
Robert Stephens	...	Capt. Stein
Paul Rogers	...	Maj. Spence
John Welsh	...	Maj. Taylor
Ronald Allen	...	Abelson
A.J. Brown	...	Frank Bowen
Martin Boddey	...	Henry Crow
Charles Lloyd Pack	...	Ayres
Jacques Cey	...	Cure
John Dearth	...	Capt. Ormerod
Norman Coburn	...	Carter
Hennie Scott	...	Small boy
Richard Marner	...	German colonel

Runtime:

100 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono | Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | UK:15

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

Leads Bradford Dillman and Suzy Parker first met on this shoot and later married.

Pretty fair WWII spy-as-decoy movie

Bradford Dillman is an American tapped for a dangerous mission behind enemy lines in the campaign of deception leading up to D-Day--except that he's only been told half the story by his superiors. The story is based on real-life exploits documented in Anthony Cave Brown's book *Bodyguard of Lies,* (the title of which was based on Churchill's famous comment, "In wartime, truth is so precious that she must always be attended by a bodyguard of lies"). Dillman is completely convincing as the spy who is selected precisely because his psychological profile shows that he *will* eventually break under torture. The depiction of torture itself is pretty grueling, by the way, especially for 1961, and one scene in particular was parodied in the 1984 Abrahams-Zucker movie *Top Secret!* (with Val Kilmer in the Dillman part). Incidentally, Dillman and his co-star, Suzy Parker, who was the top model in America at the time, and embarking on a film and television career, fell in love while making this movie and married shortly thereafter; she gave up both her modeling and acting career for domestic life as Mrs. Dillman not long afterward.