Suspect

Peter Cushing and a host of other much-loved British talent star in this Cold War thriller from 1960, here playing researchers who unexpectedly find themselves ‘silenced’ by government officials who conclude that a newly discovered cure for both typhus and the bubonic plague could be used for biological warfare by enemy states.

At London’s Haughton Research Laboratory a hard working team of scientists, led by Professor Sewell (the always dependable Peter Cushing), come very close to developing a certain strain of ‘superbugs’ that could nip world plagues in the bud so to speak (perhaps, we could do with them now). Low and behold they come up trumps but when the good professor is anxious to publish the results he is called to the office of Minister of Defence Sir George Gatting (Raymond Huntley). This outwardly respectable but in truth far from lovable authority figure informs Sewell just how dangerous it would be to publish his scientific breakthrough discovery “as this could be used against us by a renegade foreign power and the result could be catastrophic.” Naturally Sewell disagrees but is overruled and told they will never let him publish in any case. He later has to inform his team of this saddening news - have all their efforts been in vain? To ensure Sewell remains stumm Gatting drafts in Special Agent Prince (Thorley Walters) and his man Slater (Sam Kydd). In turn Agent Prince ‘recruits’ Dr. Shole (Kenneth Griffith), a member of Sewell’s team, to act as the mole within the lab.

In an initial sub-plot which soon becomes part of the main plot, two of Sewell’s scientists – Dr. Lucy Byrne (Virginia Maskell) and Dr. Bob Marriott (Tony Britton) have established something beyond a little rapport (Sewell earlier makes a rather derogatory and sexist comment about female scientists… this IS 1960). Trouble is Lucy has/had a partner named Alan Andrews (the nervy Ian Bannen) who is still living with her. Alan was looking forward to a career as a concert pianist (a nice touch here, whenever he appears we hear some classical piano music) but had the misfortune to lose both his arms doing his military service. What made it even worse is that this was not a result of enemy action but an accident during a maneuver. Filled with self-pity and self-loathing (he has to be fed among other things by his former fiancée Lucy) he now holds a strong and blazing hatred for his country. Soon he gets wind of Lucy’s blossoming romance with her colleague Bob and devises an insidious plan whereby the papers in question WILL get into the hands of the enemy. Enter Alan’s ‘friend’ Bill Brown (Donald Pleasence) – also known as Parsons – pretending to be a publisher in the employ for the International Scientific Exchange – and soon Bob finds himself sitting in the pub with Brown and the scheming Alan to talk publishing. If only Bob would know that Brown is not who he pretends to be…

The film is tautly directed by the Boulting Brothers though we get a great deal of talking before some much needed action kicks in and this comes at the very end. Nigel Balchin supplies an intelligent script and you can see both sides of the argument. Dr. Bob Marriott you may think is just perhaps a little too wide eyed to be taken in entirely by Andrews and his cronies, with Dr. Sewell quite suddenly sounding more like the stuffy Gatting. Virginia Maskell gives her usually ultra sensitive performance while Tony Britton was very much a leading man of the time. Kenneth Griffith is quite solid as Sewell’s personal assistant Dr. Shole and an eccentric Thorley Walters is a delight to watch as the quirky Prince, speaking with a suburban accent and glasses pitched on his forehead. Walters’ crafty characterisation suggests a TV-series that never happened. What on earth comedian Spike Milligan is doing in the role of Arthur, the general dogsbody at the laboratory, is anyone’s guess: with an absurd accent and gait to match he appears to be in the wrong film. If the Boultings felt the film needed some comic relief they were wrong.

SUSPECT is released on Blu-ray as a brand-new HD re-master and in its original aspect ration. Special Feature only includes Image Gallery.