The Devil's Agent

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The Devil's Agent
"The Devil's Agent" (1962 film).jpg
Belgian poster
Directed by John Paddy Carstairs
Screenplay by Robert Westerby
Based onthe novel Im Namen des Teufels
by Hans Habe
Produced by Emmet Dalton
Starring Macdonald Carey
Peter van Eyck
Marianne Koch
Christopher Lee
Cinematography Gerald Gibbs
Edited byTom Simpson
Music by Philip Green (composed and conducted by)
Production
companies
Emmet Dalton Productions
CCC Filmkunst (Berlin)
Distributed by British Lion Film Corporation (U.K.)
Release dates
September, 1962 (U.K.)
Running time
77 minutes
CountryWest Germany/U.K./Ireland
LanguageEnglish

The Devil's Agent (German : Im Namen des Teufels) is a 1962 drama film directed by John Paddy Carstairs and starring Peter van Eyck, Marianne Koch, Christopher Lee and Macdonald Carey. [1] It was a co-production between Britain, West Germany and the Republic of Ireland. It was based on a 1956 novel by Hans Habe. It is set in East Germany during the Cold War.

Contents

Plot

Mild-mannered Viennese wine merchant George Droste (Peter van Eyck), an intelligence expert during the Second World War, unexpectedly encounters old friend Baron Von Staub (Christopher Lee), and spends a weekend with him on his estate in the Soviet zone. The two revive a friendship interrupted by the war. However, when Von Straub's sister asks Droste to transport a small package to a friend in West Germany, the bewildered Droste is set up for a series of complicated spy games, at first becoming an unwilling dupe for the Soviet Union, and then retaliating by offering his services to a US intelligence agency.

Partial cast

Critical reception

TV Guide gave it two out of four stars, noting an "Occasionally gripping spy drama with a very good cast." [2] while Allmovie concluded, "Somewhat lost amidst the flashier James Bond clones of the late 1960s, The Devil's Agent holds up pretty well when seen today." [3]

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References

  1. BFI.org
  2. "The Devil's Agent".
  3. "The Devil's Agent (1962) - John Paddy Carstairs | Synopsis, Characteristics, Moods, Themes and Related | AllMovie".