The_Devil's_Agent Knowpia

The Devil's Agent
The Devil's Agent
	Belgian poster
Directed by	John Paddy Carstairs
Screenplay by	Robert Westerby
Based on	the novel Im Namen des Teufels; by Hans Habe
Produced by	Emmet Dalton
Starring	Macdonald Carey; Peter van Eyck; Marianne Koch; Christopher Lee
Cinematography	Gerald Gibbs
Edited by	Tom Simpson
Music by	Philip Green (composed and conducted by)
Production; companies	Emmet Dalton Productions; CCC Filmkunst (Berlin)
Distributed by	British Lion Film Corporation (U.K.)
Release dates	September, 1962 (U.K.)
Running time	77 minutes
Country	West Germany/U.K./Ireland
Language	English

The Devil's Agent (German: Im Namen des Teufels) is a 1962 drama film directed by John Paddy Carstairs and starring Peter van Eyck, Marianne Koch, Christopher Lee and Macdonald Carey.^[1] It was a co-production between Britain, West Germany and the Republic of Ireland. It was based on a 1956 novel by Hans Habe. It is set in East Germany during the Cold War.

Plot edit

Mild-mannered Viennese wine merchant George Droste (Peter van Eyck), an intelligence expert during the Second World War, unexpectedly encounters old friend Baron Von Staub (Christopher Lee), and spends a weekend with him on his estate in the Soviet zone. The two revive a friendship interrupted by the war. However, when Von Straub's sister asks Droste to transport a small package to a friend in West Germany, the bewildered Droste is set up for a series of complicated spy games, at first becoming an unwilling dupe for the Soviet Union, and then retaliating by offering his services to a US intelligence agency.

Partial cast edit

Peter van Eyck as Droste
Marianne Koch as Nora
Christopher Lee as Baron von Staub
Macdonald Carey as Mr Smith
Albert Lieven as Inspector Huebring
Billie Whitelaw as Piroska
David Knight as Father Zambory
Marius Goring as General Greenhahn
Helen Cherry as Countess Cosimano
Colin Gordon as Count Dezsepalvy
Niall MacGinnis as Paul Vass
Eric Pohlmann as Bloch
Peter Vaughan as Chief of Hungarian Police
Michael Brennan as Horvat
Jeremy Bulloch as Johnny Droste

Critical reception edit

TV Guide gave it two out of four stars, noting an "Occasionally gripping spy drama with a very good cast."^[2] while Allmovie concluded, "Somewhat lost amidst the flashier James Bond clones of the late 1960s, The Devil's Agent holds up pretty well when seen today."^[3]