The Man Inside

In John Gilling’s The Man Inside, everyone seems to be chasing down a stash of jewels, especially a giant blue diamond (“$700,000 of misery”), running from England to Portugal to Spain to France; in fact, if the film’s flavor of continental adventure conjures up images of James Bond, that may be because its producer, Albert Broccoli, went on to create and produce the 007 film franchise. Lead actor Jack Palance is past his prime here, the first in a series of films he made outside the United States, but he deftly carries the film as Milo March, a private detective hired by an insurance company to track down the diamond, which has been stolen by low-level bookkeeper Sam Carter (Nigel Patrick). Soon enough, March tracks down Carter, who’s enjoying his new life of financial freedom in Portugal, but so do other parties in pursuit of the fortune, namely Trudie Hall (Anita Ekburg), who claims the diamond belonged to her late father in Austria, and ruthless jewel thieves Lomer (Bonar Colleano) and Rizzio (Sean Kelly). They’re all playing a deadly game (March barely escapes a car bombing, Trudie is beaten up in a dark hotel room, an organ grinder is killed by a hit and run, a passport vendor is shot in the heart) and will ultimately converge on a speeding train for a thrilling climax. Anthony Newley is excellent as the sweet, hapless Ernesto, who becomes March’s pal and helper along the way, while Josephine Brown plays Trudie’s landlord, easily one of the top five most annoying characters of the noir cycle. The film’s no masterpiece (its cartoonish jazz score is a big weakness), but it’s a gripping, fast-paced story shot with plenty of noir flair and deserves a rediscovery.