Too much of everything

The greatest movie ever made..!

Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

State Secret is a forgotten classic, made around the same time as the celebrated 'The Third Man', this film is equally, if not more enjoyable! A thriller in the Hitchcockian tradition, with a nice blend of comedy that doesn't detract from the thrills. Devilishly handsome, dashing and suave Douglas Fairbanks Jnr. in what is arguably his best role as the Doctor running for his life in a foreign country, ably supported by a menacing Jack Hawkins, pretty Glynis Johns, and a hilarious Herbert Lom, in one of the best 'cat & mouse' chases ever made! Nice locales, excellent black & white photography all add up to one hell of a ride! An even bigger mystery is why this film has never been given it's just desserts in an official DVD release? Perhaps it didn't have as catchy a theme as 'The Third Man'?

An involving, tight little thriller that should be better known, and is in need of some print remastering (though I consider myself lucky to at least have a copy). Although the decision to open the film with a sort of flash-forward is, in this case, a questionable one, since the viewer from that point on knows that the hero will eventually get caught, writer-director Sidney Gilliat manages to milk a lot of suspense out of the situations and the incidents that occur while Douglas Fairbanks Jr. is desperately trying to escape. The fictional language created especially for this film is a masterstroke, familiar-sounding enough to be believable but also alien-sounding enough to be impossible for a foreigner like Fairbanks to understand more than a word or two. All the actors give fine performances, and there is some very well done first-person point-of-view camera-work. The ending may strike you as a little too "deus ex machina"-ish. *** out of 4.

I found the establishing scenes at the beginning of this film to be the weakest point (in particular the inexplicable decision to shoot just a handful of voice-over scenes using a narrator's-eye camera), but from there on it grows from strength to strength, climaxing in a real humdinger of an ending.An astute decision which adds to the tension is to use an opening scene which makes it clear that the protagonist's escape attempt is ultimately foiled, and treat the rest of the picture in flashback from there; we are constantly, almost subliminally aware that disaster awaits in some unknown form just around the bend, which lends a sense of brooding menace to what might otherwise be a lighthearted caper. (It also makes it entirely plausible, for a few moments, that the whole adventure *will* end very badly indeed, thus delivering considerable emotional punch to an ending which does not insult the audience's intelligence.) The romantic interest is subtly -- no saccharine speeches are ever delivered, save in the most literal sense! -- and effectively indicated, and both Douglas Fairbanks Jr and Glynis Johns perform competently as the innocents on the run with a dangerous state secret. But the real show-stealers lie among the supporting cast, in particular Herbert Lom in an outstanding minor role as as Theodor the smuggler, and Jack Hawkins as the urbane Colonel who masterminds our hero's liquidation without personal rancour in an entirely disinterested spirit.As one would expect from a Gilliat/Launder production, the film boasts a sharp script, and the setting in a dictatorial Balkanesque state provides the opportunity for many mordant observations. The picture, however, is less a comedy than an intelligent thriller/chase scenario enlivened with flashes of black humour. Gilliat's original plot concept dates back as far as 1938, but the post-war setting proves equally apt. Production values are generally high (perhaps the greatest proof of that is that an entire mythical 'Vosnian' language was concocted for the use of the film, elements of which can be picked up by the attentive listener!) and the film is an effective piece of entertainment.

This is a wonderful film and well worth seeing; if you can find it! It used to be on TV all the time, but I haven't seen it in years and cannot find a copy. One very interesting fact about the movie is that it was, to the best of my knowledge, the first film to make use of Esperanto. In the film, all the citizens of the made up nation of Vosnia speak Esperanto! Esperanto was constructed in 1887 as a universal language, drawing words and structure from many different languages. The hope was that it would be adopted as an "everyman's language" and be equally difficult for all people to master. State Secret gives the viewer a chance to hear fluent Esperanto, as well as adding flavor to the underlying excitement of the plot.