This film gets a bad rap but I've always really enjoyed it. It's got pace, action, colour, historical background and two ideally cast stars in Rock Hudson and Yvonne de Carlo - both very suited for this kind of thing.
Borden Chase's story was supposedly based on Victor Hugo's Toilers of the Sea but I'm not sure how faithful it is. Chase does a good job, throwing us straight into the action - Hudson is a British smuggler in the Napoleonic Wars, who gets involved transporting Yvonne de Carlo back and forth across the channel. He thinks de Carlo is an aristocrat, then a French spy - in fact she's a British spy.
There's a pleasing amount of double crosses and misunderstandings, and de Carlo gets to be active, which suited her - she was less effective in roles where she just hung out and watched the hero. The baddies are smart; the supporting cast earn their keep as characters - de Carlo's untrustworthy boss, a suspicious French novel, a ruthless French spy, a double crossing British smuggler.
Bryan Forbes is irritating as Hudson's sidekick - I think he made a good move going into writing and directing. Maxwell Reed is better as the villainous fellow smuggler who pops in the second half; Reed wasn't a great actor either but his glowering looks were better suited to villains than heroes.
Location filming in England and France helps, so does Raoul Walsh's brisk handling. It's one of the best movies from RKO in the 1950s (admittedly not high praise).
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