ASSIGNMENT: PARIS (1953)

In Budapest, an American named Anderson has been found guilty of spying and sentenced to twenty years of hard labor—supposedly he admitted it at his trial, but Nick (George Sanders), chief editor at the Paris office of the New York Herald-Tribune, thinks the whole thing is a set-up. He sends reporter Jeanne Moray (Marta Toren), who has connections in Budapest, to the Hungarian embassy to get a comment from the ambassador, but another reporter, the hot-headed American Jimmy Race (Dana Andrews) scoops her. We soon discover that Jeanne is Nick's mistress, taking the place of fashion editor Sandy Tate (Audrey Totter). Sandy's a good sport about it, but Jimmy starts sniffing after Jeanne; will a romantic rectangle develop? (No, these plot points are brought up but never developed, except for the budding romance between Jimmy and Jeanne.) Hungary announces that they will hang the next person guilty of spying, but Jeanne has been involved in her own bit of espionage—while in Budapest, she tried to get her hands on a photo of Odey, the Hungarian prime minister, at a secret meeting with Tito, the head of Yugoslavia, at which plans were being made to break away from the Soviets. Meanwhile, Borvitch, a Hungarian diplomat, is trying to find the underground leader Gabor Czeki, who has escaped to Paris, and he thinks Jeanne knows where he is—she doesn't but she suspects he's close by (and he is). Meanwhile, Barker, the Tribune's Budapest editor, has a heart attack and Jimmy is sent to help him out. While there, he discovers that Anderson is dead and manages to get the information out to Nick in a coded news broadcast. He also discovers the Ordy-Tito photo; naturally, Budapest doesn't want that news to get out and when they find out what Jimmy's been up to, he is arrested as a spy and tortured in an attempt to get him to make a fake confession. Will he escape? Can Jeanne and Nick help him, or is he on his own?

This is interesting primarily for the fact its heroes aren't spies or soldiers, but journalists. However, this also means that it’s a fairly talky movie and action scenes are absent—the somewhat anti-climactic conclusion plays out like the ending of Steven Spielberg's Bridge of Spies even down to the visuals, but Spielberg was more effective at sustaining tension. The film was publicized as having been shot on location in Europe, but since most film is set in interiors (in a Hollywood studio), skimpy use is made of the real locations. Dana Andrews and Marta Toren (a Swedish actress who was being pushed as the new Ingrid Bergman—which she was not) are OK in the leads, though Andrews' obnoxiously pushy behavior toward Toren, which we are supposed to find charming, dates badly in the #metoo era. Two supporting players outshine the stars and are the reason to watch this. The wonderful noir bad girl Audrey Totter is a good girl here, playing a somewhat cynical, world-weary character who can still summon up the energy to help the heroes fight the Commies. George Sanders is also quite good as the editor who, after spending most of the movie in offices, ordering people around, gets to rescue Andrews, who is more or less incapacitated at the climax. See it for Totter and Sanders. Pictured are Totter and Toren. [DVD]