Naval officer Larry Ellis bears a striking resemblance to counterfeiter Steve Chancellor and is mistakenly arrested in his place. Chancellor is killed in a car crash and Ellis goes undercover to impersonate the dead man, to lead the police to his gang who plan to inundate the UK with huge amounts of forged bank notes.
Ellis devises a plan for smuggling the counterfeit notes into England, but his impersonation is rumbled. The plane he is travelling on with the money (which has been replaced by plain paper) is rigged to explode, but he bales out in time.
Michael Craig called his part "a sort of forerunner to the James Bond type of movie" which "in spite of all our best efforts it ended up being fairly boring." He was paid £30 a week.[3]
Critical reception
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "A somewhat juvenile spy story with attractive and well chosen Parisian backgrounds. The police, wise and mannerly, and the crooks, suave and heavily accented, give the impression of having been faithfully transcribed from the pages of The Skipper and Rover. The acting, particularly of the foreigners, is also solidly traditional; the photography and art direction, on the other hand, are often distinctly above average."[4]
In British Sound Films: The Studio Years 1928–1959David Quinlan rated the film as "average", writing: "Thick-ear Boys' Own-style thriller with limited acting but good fight scenes and photography."[5]
References
^"House of Secrets". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 6 January 2024.
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