The Two-Headed Spy

An officer who rises to staff rank in the German army has been passing information to Britain for close to thirty years. The film follows how each promotion brings him more access and, in the same measure, more exposure; the tension comes not from combat but from the second identity he has to carry every day. André de Toth keeps close to the language of film noir, working in black and white and in tight frames. Jack Hawkins leads, with Gia Scala, Erik Schumann, Alexander Knox and Donald Pleasence. The story derives from a piece by J. Alvin Kugelmass and from A. P. Scotland’s autobiography The London Cage, but its relation to the actual events is thin; a good deal has been added, including a love interest that never existed. Blacklisted writers wrote the screenplay.