With lux production values and a sharp/ambivalent Revolutionary War spy story (Benedict Arnold, but focused around rather than on him), this John Sturges film (his M-G-M followup to his breakout BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK/’55) is ultimately dragged down by a confusing script and some crucial casting missteps. A pity as there are few enough American Revolutionary War films out there, even fewer good ones.* Cornel Wilde fences like the Olympic athlete he nearly was, but is otherwise too guileless an actor to play a double-agent hiding patriotic inclinations among the British high echelon. He’s been sent in to discover who’s leaking miliary secrets to the Brits. Extraneous love interest Anne Francis as a society lady with conflicting loyalties, equally unsatisfying and not sparking to Wilde. On the other hand, the Red Coats and their sympathizers get all the good lines and scene stealers with George Sanders’ civilian pro-Brit skeptic while top red-coat general Michael Wilding sees both sides of the conflict, than bets on the wrong horse. Worth a look for the attempt at complexity and for a good, if frustratingly obscured, historical story.
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: M-G-M contract star Stewart Granger (one of the few still around in ‘55) refused the lead citing script problems. More likely, he saw that Wilding had the better part.
DOUBLE-BILL: *Are there any good American Revolutionary War feature films? DRUMS ALONG THE MOHAWK/’39; JOHNNY TREMAIN/’57; and . . . ? Hollywood wags say it’s the wigs, those white powdered wigs, that put people off.
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