In other hands, Graham Greene's fine spy novel might have become a good movie, but veteran director Otto Preminger has become sadly inept. The storytelling is uninspired, the photography flat and the sets amateurish: No wonder he had trouble financing the production. Nicol Williamson is cast as a British spy who returns from South Africa with a black bride, Kenyan model Iman. Williamson's partner (Derek Jacobi) is suspected—mistakenly—of leaking secrets to the Russians and is killed by his own side. The actors fight the script gallantly. Williamson is impressive, though given to overdoing it; Richard Attenborough plays an inspector on the case with just the right mix of sympathy and cunning; and Dutchman Joop Doderer, as the foreign agent who finally fingers the real culprit, is appropriately seedy. But the best reason for seeing the film is Robert Morley, who is deliciously devilish as a physician in the employ of British intelligence. (R)
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