The Secret Ways

Infobox Film | name = The Secret Ways
caption =
director = Phil Karlson
producer = Richard Widmark
Euan Lloyd
writer = Jean Hazlewood
starring =Richard Widmark
Sonja Ziemann
music = John Williams
cinematography = Max Greene
editing = Aaron Stell
distributor = Universal Pictures
released = April 24, 1961 (U.S. release)
runtime = 112 min.
language = English
budget =
imdb_id = 0055423

"The Secret Ways" is a 1961 thriller film based on Alistair McLean's "The Last Frontier (novel)".

Overview

American adventurer Michael Reynolds is hired by an international espionage ring to smuggle a noted scholar and resistance leader, Professor Jansci, out of Communist-ruled Hungary. Reynolds goes to Vienna to see the professor's daughter, Julia, and he persuades her to accompany him to Budapest. Once there, Reynolds is kidnapped by freedom fighters who take him to the professor's secret headquarters.

Meanwhile, one of Jansci's trusted aides is captured by the Hungarian Secret Police and forced to reveal the professor's hiding place. Reynolds, Julia, and Jansci are quickly rounded up and taken to Szarhaza Prison, where they are tortured by the sadistic Colonel Hidas. They are rescued by a resistance fighter known as The Count, who tricks the Communists into placing the prisoners in his custody. At the last moment the ruse is discovered, and The Count is killed as the other three race to the airport where a chartered plane is waiting. Hidas pursues them but is killed in an accident on the runway. Safe at last, Reynolds, Julia, and the professor leave Hungary.

According to an interview in Cinema Retro, associate producer Euan Lloyd stated that producer and star Richard Widmark did not like director Phil Karlson's proposed tongue in cheek direction of the screenplay written by Widmark's wife Jean Hazlewood. Widmark took over the direction of the film without credit. ["Cinema Retro" Issue #1 "Euan Lloyd Interview"]

Cast

Richard Widmark
Sonja Ziemann
Charles Regnier
Walter Rilla
Senta Berger
Howard Vernon
Heinz Moog
Hubert von Meyerinc
Charles Wagenheim
Oskar Wegrostek
Stefan Schnabel
Elisabeth Neumann-Viertel

References

External links

*imdb title|0055423