The Secret Ways

The main reasons to watch Phil Karlson’s The Secret Ways are the stunning art direction and cinematography, which establish a practically nonstop noir environment and imbue the film with a sensibility more European than American. The film boasts a long list of assets — an older but still charming Richard Widmark as lead (and producer), noir legend Jacques Tourneur as director, a beautiful orchestral score by the soon-to-become-legendary John (credited as Johnny) Williams, and some outstanding action sequences, including an escape climax on an airport runway worthy of James Bond — but some may find overall weakness in the script, an adaptation of an Alistair MacLean novel penned by Widmark’s wife, Jean Hazlewood. Desperate for cash to pay off his debt to impatient bookies, American adventurer Michael Reynolds (Widmark) agrees to a proposition by a wealthy Swiss banker representing “private interests”: posing as a journalist, Reynolds will enter Soviet-occupied Hungary to track down and smuggle out a renowned resistance fighter, Professor Jancsi (Walter Rilla), whose daughter Julia (Sonja Ziemann) may be willing and able to assist. (“I’m an international spy,” Reynolds tells Julia sarcastically. “You behave more like an American gangster,” she replies.) Over nearly two hours, the film depicts Reynolds’ successes and failures, escapes and captures, the viewer often unclear on who the good guys are, as if the fog of war were still omnipresent. The cinematography by Max Greene (aka Mutz Greenbaum) shines consistently, especially whenever characters wander the streets of Budapest or Vienna at night, gaslights, cobblestones, alleys, turrets, steeples, and walled gardens like artwork gleaming through the shadows, deep focus highlighting a statue in the foreground while figures are chased beneath an arch in the distance (this film contains a lot of chases).