Aggiungi una trama nella tua linguaDoctor Fenton is abducted and forced to operate on a mysterious figure. Meanwhile, Inspector Austin investigates the murder of Fenton's assistant. All this has something to do with a missing... Leggi tuttoDoctor Fenton is abducted and forced to operate on a mysterious figure. Meanwhile, Inspector Austin investigates the murder of Fenton's assistant. All this has something to do with a missing diplomat.Doctor Fenton is abducted and forced to operate on a mysterious figure. Meanwhile, Inspector Austin investigates the murder of Fenton's assistant. All this has something to do with a missing diplomat.
- Sergeant Lewis
- (as Edward Dain)
- Detective
- (non citato nei titoli originali)
- Detective
- (non citato nei titoli originali)
Trama
Lo sapevi?
- BlooperFenton stands in the ambulance at the start of the film, steadying himself by putting his hand on the roof, fingernails uppermost. The shot changes, and his hand is suddenly palm-upwards.
- Citazioni
Wade: If you pull him through, your fee's doubled.
Mark Fenton: You don't have to bribe me to save a man's life. Just leave me alone.
- ConnessioniFeatured in Talkies: Patricia Dainton Presents... Operation Diplomat (2016)
Determined to forget the incident, he returns to the hospital, where he encounters a woman with the same distinct eyes as the one who worked alongside him the night before. He demands she visit him at his flat that evening - yet she doesn't turn up. Instead, within minutes of arriving home, he receives two other, separate visitors: Colonel Wyman of the Foreign Office (Eric Berry), who asks about Schröder, and then Schröder himself.
Apparently, the patient was Sir Oliver Peters, the chairman of the United Western Defence Committee, known as "the man who knows all the secrets". A bullet makes things even more alarming, yet Inspector Austin of Scotland Yard (Ballard Berkeley) is suspicious of Fenton and his tale of abduction, death, and disappearing diplomats, forcing the surgeon to mount his own investigation.
The only clues are "the golden valley" and a brand of cigarettes which repeatedly appear, yet with the aid of colleague Sister Rogers (Patricia Dainton), Fenton follows a treacherous trail to the kidnapped Sir Oliver, all the while wondering just who could be behind such a sinister, international scheme... One of several British television serials of the 1950s to be remade as a feature, Operation Diplomat was originally penned by Francis Durbridge, the popular and prolific thriller writer best known for the Paul Temple radio series. The character of Mark Fenton had already appeared in another such effort, The Broken Horseshoe, in which Robert Beatty had played the part for cinemas. Here, the tall, tanned and almost skeletally gaunt Guy Rolfe leads, and he makes for a likeable, though somewhat saturnine, amateur sleuth trying desperately to keep track of events. The audience will sympathise, as the mystery in this one is particularly tangled. A couple of things could have been clarified, but all the information is mostly present (or at least can be intuited). The pace is the selling point, with compelling developments occurring every ten minutes or so, as may be expected from something adapted from a serial - particularly one from Durbridge, whose tried-and-tested tropes appear again in an every-man hero, a cryptic word clue, casual and quite accidental conversations which turn out to be crucial, and a culprit apparently picked at random from an unwieldy stock of suspects.
The seventy minutes not only go by swiftly but the cast make it even better. Berkeley, later to become familiar to British audiences as the muddle-minded Major in John Cleese's legendary sitcom Fawlty Towers, is on fine avuncular form as the inspector, while the ever-reliable Sydney Tafler is always a pleasure to see, and professional-foreigner Anton Diffring is briefly afforded something other than a sinister bad guy role. Look out, too, for Desmond Llewelyn (Q in the Bond films) as a silent extra at the end.
Despite final dialogue teasing further adventures with the intrepid Mr Fenton, there was to be no other sequel. Durbridge wouldn't create another recurring character until giving us TV's Tim Frazer the following decade. A pity, as more fast-paced adventures would have been just what the doctor ordered.
- djfjflsflscv
- 20 dic 2021
I più visti
Dettagli
- Data di uscita
- Paese di origine
- Lingua
- Celebre anche come
- Jarrahe majeraju
- Luoghi delle riprese
- Cleopatra's Needle, Victoria Embankment, Londra, Inghilterra, Regno Unito(Fenton buys a newspaper and is picked up by an ambulance)
- Azienda produttrice
- Vedi altri crediti dell’azienda su IMDbPro
- Tempo di esecuzione1 ora 10 minuti
- Colore
- Proporzioni
- 1.37 : 1