Counterspy [Undercover Agent] ** (1953, Dermot Walsh, Hazel Court, Hermione Baddeley) – Classic Movie Review 13,453

The 1953 British second feature comedy thriller film Counterspy [Undercover Agent] is based on Julian Symons’s novel Criss Cross Code, and stars Dermot Walsh, Hazel Court and Hermione Baddeley.

Director Vernon Sewell’s 1953 British second feature comedy thriller film Counterspy [Undercover Agent] is based on expert crime writer Julian Symons’s novel Criss Cross Code, and stars Dermot Walsh, Hazel Court, Hermione Baddeley, Alexander Gauge, Bill Travers, Archie Duncan, and Hugh Latimer.

A clutch of amiable B-movie names are assembled at London’s Merton Park studios for a typical British support feature about a company auditor (Dermot Walsh) who is asked to deliver a package of secret prints and drawings to a man whose body he discovers, and then becomes embroiled with a gang of spies who are using a nursing home as a front. Walsh is seized, along with his wife (Hazel Court), and taken to the home, where the gang leader plans to torture him by operating on him.

This thriller with comedy elements proves to be a fair, lively enough timepasser, with the implausible screenplay by Guy Elmes and Michael LeFevre based on Julian Symons’s novel Criss Cross Code. The far-fetched plot is nevertheless engaging enough. It is the slack comedy element that is the weakest link. But the eager to please cast keep it in motion. Hazel Court always good company, and so in her different way is Hermione Baddeley, Dermot Walsh slightly less so.

Counterspy is also known as Undercover Agent or Night People.

The cast

The cast are Dermot Walsh as Frank Manning, Hazel Court as Clare Manning, Hermione Baddeley as Madame Del Mar, Alexander Gauge as Smith, Bill Travers as Rex, Archie Duncan as Jim Fenton, James Vivian as Larry Fenton, Frederick Schrecker as Plattnaur, John Penrose as Paulson, Hugh Latimer as Inspector Barlow, Beryl Baxter as Plattnauer’s Accomplice, Gwen Bacon as matron, Maxwell Foster as Dr Stevenson, Howard Lang as policeman, Monti DeLyle as dance director, Frederick Buckland as police photographer, Reginald Hearne as detective, Paul Rich as music hall singer, Edwin Richfield as safecracker, Stuart Saunders as stagehand, and Ann Wrigg as nurse.

Counterspy [Undercover Agent] runs 68 minutes, is made by Abtcon Pictures, is distributed by Anglo-Amalgamated Film Distributors, is produced by William H Williams, is shot in black and white by A T Dinsdale, and scored by Eric Spear.

Release date: 1 August 1953 (UK).

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,453

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