Four years after OSS producer Richard Maibaum and star Alan Ladd are back in special ops – well, for the beginning segment of this film at least, where Ladd’s on a mission in Italy that results in his mate and girlfriend being killed. Since Ladd was a saboteur you think he’d go “fair cop, it was the war, we were trying to kill them”… but the deaths were due to a traitor. After the war he goes back looking for revenge. When he finds his ex-girlfriend has a smooth new husband – well, who do you think dunnit?
Ladd is in pretty good form, lots of cool torment and long-lost love; there is also a top-notch fight in a cellar at the end plus the song ‘Mona Lisa’ (which is actually part of the plot: it was used by Italians to warn Ladd of impending danger). But the revelation of the killer is too predictable and there is not enough action or suspense during the guts of the story; and this really needed to be shot in colour on location to get the most out of the Italian setting (which is fresh).
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