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Ring of Spies

In 1961 British spies were sentenced to long spells of forced reflection for their part in the Portland Spy Case. This film purports to give 'the inside story' of the case. Instead, it merely presents a realistic documentary of the surface events leading up to the uncovering of the spies.

In 1961 British spies were sentenced to long spells of forced reflection for their part in the Portland Spy Case. This film purports to give ‘the inside story’ of the case. Instead, it merely presents a realistic documentary of the surface events leading up to the uncovering of the spies.

Henry Houghton (Bernard Lee) is sacked from the British Embassy at Warsaw as a bad security risk. He is transferred to records at the Portland Underwater Weapons Establishment. With a chip on his shoulder and a desire for easy money he is readily blackmailed into borrowing secret documents from Portland. He inveigles a respectable spinster who is in charge of the safe keys, to help him. Gordon Lonsdale, the Russian contact, passes the info on to a middle aged couple in the suburbs who are ostensibly bookdealers. They ingeniously transmit it by short wave to Russia.

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Lee and Margaret Tyzack play the dupes with conviction, William Sylvester is a suave, formidable Lonsdale and David Kossoff and Nancy Nevinson successfully complete the quintet as the fake bookdealers.

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Ring of Spies

UK

  • Production: British Lion. Director Robert Tronson; Producer Leslie Gilliat; Screenplay Frank Launder, Peter Barnes; Camera Arthur Lavris; Editor Thelma Connell; Art Director Norman Arnold
  • Crew: (B&W) Extract of a review from 1964. Running time: 90 MIN.
  • With: Bernard Lee William Sylvester Margaret Tyzack David Kossoff Thorley Walters

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