Break in the Circle ** (1955, Forrest Tucker, Eva Bartok, Marius Goring, Eric Pohlmann, Guy Middleton) – Classic Movie Review 13,011

Val Guest’s amusing, if far-fetched 1955 British thriller film Break in the Circle stars Forrest Tucker as an adventurer hired by a German millionaire (Marius Goring) to help a Polish scientist escape to the West.

Director Val Guest’s 1955 British thriller film Break in the Circle stars Forrest Tucker, Eva Bartok, Marius Goring, Eric Pohlmann, and Guy Middleton. It is made by Hammer Films in its pre-horror days.

Hired by millionaire German financier Baron Keller (Marius Goring), boat-owning adventurer Captain Skip Morgan (Forrest Tucker) helps to spring a Polish scientist from East Germany and escape to the West, in Val Guest’s creaky and preposterous but nevertheless amusing, and engrossingly fast-paced chase-thriller tale in the Hitchcock style, with his wry sense of fun.

Would you believe Hungarian actress Eva Bartok as a Scotland Yard agent, who saves Tucker from the gang who have abducted the scientist? Ah well, it’s a only a movie, and Bartok is very alluring.

The screenplay by Robert Westerby and Val Guest is based on a novel by Robin Estridge (writing as Philip Loraine).

It is made in murky, odd-looking Eastmancolor.

It runs 92 minutes and is shot in colour by Walter J Harvey, but the American print runs only 69 minutes and is in black and white.

It is the first feature for producer Michael Carreras and is partly shot on location in Hamburg.

The cast are Forrest Tucker as Captain Skip Morgan, Eva Bartok as Lisa, Marius Goring as Baron Keller, Guy Middleton as Major Hobart, Eric Pohlmann as Emile, Arnold Marlé as Professor Pal Kudnic, Fred Johnson as Chief Agent Farquarson, David King-Wood as Colonel Patchway, Reginald Beckwith as Dusty, Guido Lorraine as Franz, André Mikhelson as Russian thug, Stanley Zevic as Russian thug, Marne Maitland as The phony Kudnic, Arthur Lovegrove as Bert, and Derek Prentice.

Break in the Circle is directed by Val Guest, runs 92 minutes, is made by Hammer Film Productions, is released by Exclusive Films, is written by Robert Westerby and Val Guest, based on a novel by Robin Estridge (writing as Philip Loraine), is shot in Eastmancolor by Walter J Harvey, is produced by Michael Carreras and Mickey Delemar, is scored by Doreen Carwithen, and is designed by J Elder Wills.

Release date: 28 February 1955.

Eva Bartok (18 June 1927 – 1 August 1998).

Eva Bartok (18 June 1927 – 1 August 1998) acted in more than 40 films from 1950 to 1966. She was born Éva Márta Szőke Ivanovics but changed her professional name to Bartok after the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók. She enjoyed a busy personal life that included five husbands, including actor Curd Jürgens, and a brief affair with Frank Sinatra.

© Derek Winnert 2024 – Classic Movie Review 13,011

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