Diplomatic Courier

Plot

In post-World War II Europe, Mike Kells returns to Paris from a courier mission, only to be immediately reassigned 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 station platform. On the Salzburg-bound flight, a tired Mike falls asleep on the shoulder of Joan Ross, who takes a liking to him and expresses a desire to see him again.

At the Salzburg railway station, 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 whom 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 whistlestops the train, and gets off to remain with Carew's body.

Col. Cagle and Sgt. Guelvada of the U.S. Army tersely interrogate Mike as to what went wrong. They believe that 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 Soviet agent. Mike goes to a club where she once performed and catches the end of a performance by "Maximilian", a comic impersonator. He runs into Joan there too. 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 driver who 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 Soviets on his behalf. Still, the colonel insists that Janine was a loyal Soviet agent by showing Mike the dossier on her compiled by Carew himself. Joan then contacts Mike and claims that a sniper tried to kill her. After he leaves, it is Joan who is revealed to be the Soviet agent when she meets with Rasumny Platov to discuss the strategy for getting the top-secret papers, containing details of a planned invasion of Yugoslavia, back into Soviet hands.

Mike deduces that Carew hid microfilm in the wristwatch with the dedication to Sam engraved on the back. He retrieves the watch from the pawnshop 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: the pawnbroker had cleaned the watch and removed the film. The Soviets use Maximilian to impersonate the voice of Col. Cagle, and fool both Janine and Mike. Mike is captured by the Soviets and drugged, his clothes and possessions are searched, and, when nothing is found, he is dumped in a river, from which he is rescued by a passing fishing boat. Janine bargains for her freedom with the Soviet agent Platov 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 to get on the train, and meets with Janine in the presence of her Soviet spymaster. When their train is sidetracked to let another 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.

Cast

• Tyrone Power as Mike Kells
• Patricia Neal as Joan Ross
• Stephen McNally as Col. Mark Cagle
• Hildegard Knef as Janine Betki
• Karl Malden as Sgt. Ernie Guelvada
• James Millican as Sam F. Carew
• Stefan Schnabel as Rasumny Platov
• Herbert Berghof as Arnov
• Arthur Blake as Max Ralli
• Helene Stanley as Airline Stewardess
• Charles Bronson as a Russian agent (uncredited)
• Lee Marvin as an M.P. (uncredited)
• Michael Ansara
• E. G. Marshall
• Nestor Paiva
• Dabbs Greer
• Peter Coe
• Ludwig Stossel

Production

Patricia Neal said she enjoyed her role: "She was a cosmopolite, a free liver, and an exciting person."

Critical reception

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." Sixty years later, a review in Time Out called it a "Neat, taut espionage thriller".

References

References

1. 'Top Box-Office Hits of 1952', ''Variety'', January 7, 1953
2. "Diplomatic Courier (1952) - Henry Hathaway | Synopsis, Characteristics, Moods, Themes and Related | AllMovie".
3. "Diplomatic Courier (1952)".
4. Kathryn Bishop-Sanchez. (2021). "Creating Carmen Miranda: Race, Camp, and Transnational Stardom". [[Vanderbilt University Press]].
5. HOWARD THOMPSON. (Nov 2, 1952). "PORTRAIT OF THE LADY NAMED NEAL". The New York Times.
6. Crowther, Bosley. (June 14, 1952). "' Diplomatic Courier,' Mystery With Tyrone Power, Makes Debut at Roxy Theatre". The New York Times.
7. "Diplomatic Courier".