| Diplomatic Courier | |
| Director: | Henry Hathaway |
| Screenplay: | Casey Robinson Liam O'Brien |
| Producer: | Casey Robinson |
| Starring: | Tyrone Power Patricia Neal Stephen McNally Hildegarde Neff Karl Malden James Millican Stefan Schnabel Herbert Berghof Arthur Blake Helene Stanley |
| Cinematography: | Lucien Ballard |
| Editing: | James B. Clark |
| Music: | Sol Kaplan |
| Studio: | 20th Century Fox |
| Distributor: | 20th Century Fox |
| Runtime: | 98 minutes |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
| Gross: | $1.4 million (US rentals)[1] |
Diplomatic Courier is a 1952 American spy film noir directed by Henry Hathaway and starring Tyrone Power, Patricia Neal and Stephen McNally.[2] [3] The nightclub scene in the film features actor Arthur Blake, famous for his female impersonations, impersonating Carmen Miranda, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Bette Davis.[4] The plot was loosely adapted from the 1945 novel Sinister Errand by British writer Peter Cheyney.
In post-WWII Europe, Mike Kells returns to Paris from a courier mission, only to be immediately re-assigned by the State Department to fly to Salzburg and meet his Navy friend Sam Carew, who will pass a top-secret document to him on a particular train platform. On the Salzburg-bound flight, a tired Mike falls asleep on the shoulder of Joan Ross, a passenger, who takes a liking to Mike and expresses a desire to see him again.
At the Salzburg railway station meeting site, Sam ignores Mike because Sam is apparently being tailed by two men. Mike boards the same train and in the dining car, sits near a woman Sam seems to know. The train makes an unscheduled stop in Werfen, Austria. As the train leaves and enters a tunnel, the train car lights malfunction. Mike is shocked to see the two men throw Carew's body off the train. Mike whistle stops the train, and gets off to remain with Carew's body.
Col. Cagle and Sgt. Guelvada of the US Army tersely interrogate Mike as to what went wrong. They believe the woman is involved and order Mike to travel to Trieste to find her. Guelvada goes along.
She is identified as Janine Betki, a singer and a possible Russian agent. Mike goes to a club where she once performed. While there,he catches the end of a performance by "Maximilian", a comic impersonator. He runs into Joan there instead. After a strange man slips Mike some information, the man tries to flee for safety but is murdered in a hit-and-run incident by a car which had almost killed Mike a moment before. At the scene, Mike picks up the watch with the dedication to Sam that the man had been trying to sell him.
Janine is located and explains to Mike that she not only worked with Carew but also loved him and spied on the Russians on his behalf. Still, the colonel insists Janine was a loyal Soviet agent by showing Mike the dossier on her efforts as a Russian spy, a dossier which was compiled by Carew himself. Joan then contacts Mike and claims a sniper tried to kill her. After he leaves, it is Joan who is revealed to be the Russian agent when she meets with Rasumny Platov to discuss the strategy on getting the top secret papers, details of an invasion plan, back into Soviet hands.
Mike deduces that Carew hid microfilm in his wristwatch, one with a dedication to Sam engraved on the back. He retrieves the watch from the pawn shop where Janine left it, only to have Joan try to take it from him at gunpoint before she is surprised and overpowered by the faithful American Sergeant. Meanwhile, a complication arises that no one anticipated because the pawnbroker had cleaned the watch and removed the film. Mike is captured by the Soviets, drugged, his clothes and possessions searched, and when nothing is found, he is dumped in a river, from which he is rescued by a passing fishing boat. The Soviets use Maximilian impersonate the voice of Col. Cagle and fool both Janine and Mike. Janine bargains with the Soviet agent Platov for her freedom by agreeing to give the microfilm to them; in return they will accompany her on a train to the border of the security zone. In the end, the microfilm is recovered by the American authorities. Mike manages get on the train, and meets with Janine in the presence of her Soviet spymaster. When their train is sidetracked to let a train pass, Mike fights with Platov, and both he and Janine manage to escape through a window as the train with the Soviet agents moves off.
Patricia Neal said she enjoyed her role: "She was a cosmopolite, a free liver, and an exciting person."[5]
Bosley Crowther in The New York Times called it "a picture of no more than middling appeal.The fault seems to lie in the writing. Casey Robinson and Liam O'Brien...have assembled an impressive array of melodramatic occurrences, such as a mysterious murder on a train, muggings in Trieste, double dealings and, of course, a climactic "chase"...But they haven't concocted a story that has clarity or suspense, and Mr. Hathaway has not been able to direct it so that it looks like anything on the screen";[6] whereas Time Out called it a "Neat, taut espionage thriller".[7]