House of Secrets (1956)

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Purely Joyful Movie!

A Brilliant Conflict

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

First to clear up any misunderstandings this was Ranks attempt at an A feature.As usual it lacks originality.The substituted agent must have been used many times prior to this.Michael Craig gives a lacklustre performance with a truly awful mid Atlantic accent.The colour photogrAphy and the views of Paris are the best features of a truly forgettable film

HOUSE OF SECRETS is a French-set British thriller with much to recommend it. The clever plot sees the underrated Michael Craig going undercover as a small-time crook in order to bring down a large and ruthless criminal organisation. There's plenty of suspense and action here, the latter taking the form of some surprisingly brutal and protracted fight sequences set in hotel rooms and the like. This gives the film a modernity and realism that, for me, made it feel like an early Bond movie. Craig is a dependable hero and there's a solid cast to support him, including Geoffrey Keen and Brenda de Banzie, who was equally sinister in THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH. The plot begins slowly but draws you in to a break-neck climax and you'll enjoy every moment of it.

For me, a thoroughly enjoyable, well-paced, beautifully shot and above-par acted thriller.The locations are interesting and vibrant, the fight scenes are well choreographed, fast (for their time) and thus more realistic than most I've seen from this period and the plot twist interesting enough, even 60 years later.It is for me, slightly reminiscent of a Hitchcock thriller with elements of an early Bond film. It also reminds me of a very good 1950s 'story for boys'.I have given it a 9/10 simply to try and counterbalance the unfairly low rating it has so far received - in reality I would rate it a 7 or 7½.Recommended to anyone interested in film-noir, 1950s Paris and/or appreciative of the beauty of mid-century Technicolor.

Larry Ellis bares a striking resemblance to a dead criminal whose smuggling gang's activities threaten the economy of the western world so the CIA recruit him to take on the dead man's identity to infiltrate the gang The above is the premise for HOUSE OF SECRETS . It's maybe not a groundbreaking idea but it's a solid one similar to WHITE HEAT which I had the pleasure of seeing again a few days previously . With both movies you know where the story is going and that it's only a matter of time before the undercover agent gets found out . But where as in WHITE HEAT the audience are kept on the edge of their seats by the intelligent script HOUSE OF SECRETS is rather uninvolving and seems somewhat underdeveloped , a case in point is when Larry is asked to meet " The girl " . He doesn't know which girl the gang are talking about , so instead of the gang members physically taking him to meet the girl thereby blowing his cover due to his ignorance Larry goes to meet his CIA contact to ask what girl the gang are referring to . Things like this means the script misses the opportunity to create nail biting tension and makes the movie rather uninvolving