Borserie it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Lachlan Coulson This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

Robert J. Maxwell The film opens in 1944 at an embassy affair in neutral Turkey. The German ambassador, von Papen, slips out of the ballroom where the soprano is carrying on about the ride of the Valkyries, remarking, "Wagner makes me sick," and chats with Danielle Darrieux, a wealthy French countess who has been chased from France to Poland to England by falling bombs. She pleads with von Papen for money. She'll do anything to regain her estate and its treasures. She can be very beguiling. She can be a spy. Von Papen excuses himself politely and leaves. Another guest is standing nearby, eyeballing Darrieux. She sneers a little and tells him, "Please, don't stand there staring at me as if you were worth more than your salary." Good old, literate Joseph Mankiewitz, the writer and director who gave us "Fasten your seat belts. It's going to be a bumpy ride." Most of the good lines are given to James Mason as the British Ambassador's valet in Ankara. Valets, like most servants, are given what the sociologist Erving Goffman called "non-person treatment." They're regarded as items of convenience of pieces of furniture, and they know enough to keep family secrets. Mason, as "Cicero", his code name in German Intelligence, knows enough to keep family secrets too. He also knows enough to get the combination to the embassy's safe, remove valuable documents, photograph them, and sell them to German agents, no matter how dubious those German agents might be. They continue to suspect that he's a British double agent and they fail to act on his information, even the time and place of the D-Day landings on Normandy.There are several double crosses, which I won't describe in detail. When Mason has all the money he thinks he needs to live like a gentleman in Rio de Janeiro with his former employer, Darrieux, as his mistress, she runs off to Switzerland with all the dough. And when Mason finally reaches Rio and stands on his veranda in the evening breeze, drinking high-falutin' wine, an incident takes place that I don't believe because I think it may have been ripped off from "The Lavender Hill Mob." In the end it's a tale of morality. The moral is: Make sure you pay your charwoman enough so that she doesn't take a Minox camera to the material you've stashed in the family vault.

PamelaShort This masterfully scripted espionage thriller, based on a true story, keeps you in full suspense as to who will betray who. With the superb acting of James Mason as Cicero, a spy who operates in the British embassy, stealing secret information about the war, we are treated to a series of very tense and thrilling moments. Cicero is coolly self-confident, but he makes one terrible mistake, becoming involved with the beautiful Countess Anna Staviska, ( Danielle Darrieux ) who ultimately betrays him, with an ending for the cocky spy, that is surprisingly amusing. This very intriguing story is to good for me to spoil it for the reader with a synopsis, that I highly encourage you to watch and be thoroughly entertained as I always have been with this classic James Mason film, that was nominated for many impressive awards.

ronaldseto One of the best scenes was the scene where he opens the safe for his last photo session without setting off the alarm and then the cleaning lady plugs in the missing fuse and sets off the alarm causing him to flee. One fault I could find in the film was when he opens the safe after the combination was changed. It seems that the new combination would not have been given to him. I also liked in an earlier part, he brings the countess a drink, then after he establishes "equality" with her, tells her to "bring him a drink" I don't think anyone could have guessed the ending. It came as a total surprise; counterfeit money; perfect

Spikeopath Based on real events this effort from Joseph Mankiewicz is a lesson in tautness without histrionics. It is something of an intriguing watch knowing that the lead character really was selling top secret information to the Germans. Yet they (thankfully), never acted on any of the info that they bought. The film has a wonderful paced structure and is splendidly shot, while the direction somehow manages to give added feeling to the dastardly deeds unfolding on the screen. The trump card comes by way of James Mason as the cold hearted money mad Cicero. Slickly managing to blend charm and sophistication into a character that we know is as low as a snakes belly. A special performance from a very special actor. A great spy story, with plenty of suspense, and a dandy of an ending to round it all off. 8/10