Movie review - "The Secret Partner" (1961) **1/2 (warning: spoilers)

Entertaining, unpretentious thriller from MGM's British arm with Stewart Granger in solid form as a shipping tycoon who is being blackmailed by his dentist - who is being blackmailed in turn by a mystery man (in a hooded mask and with a weird voice thingy, a little like Midnight Lace). There are some decent twists in this, even though at the end you kind of think "gee Granger went to an awful lot of trouble".

Granger is ideally cast as the cuckolded tycoon - he's kind of a weak character despite his wealth (blackmail victim, persecuted by police, wife cheating on him) and it's interesting to see Granger play this. 

 

Bernard Lee is excellent as the seen-it-all-befire investigating officer who is about to retire. There's lots of vaguely familiar British actors in the support cast and the female lead is the not very good Haya Harareet from Ben Hur.

It could have done with a bit more atmosphere and scenes like the dentist extracting information from Granger - this was creepy - and a little less TV feel. But it will play well on TV. 

 

It was made by the team of Basil Dearden and Michael Relph who usually threw in a bit of social consciousness in their movies around this time but there's none to be had.