The Devil's Agent


The Devil's Agent is a 1962 drama film directed by John Paddy Carstairs and starring Peter van Eyck, Marianne Koch, Christopher Lee and Macdonald Carey. It was a co-production between Britain, West Germany and Ireland. It was based on a 1956 novel by Hans Habe. It is set in East Germany during the Cold War.

Plot

Mild-mannered Viennese wine merchant George Droste, an intelligence expert during the Second World War, unexpectedly encounters old friend Baron Von Staub, 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.

Cast

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "A ragged and episodic affair, which no sooner gets going on one thing than it switches to another, this in no way lives up to the promise of its cast which, for a B picture, is formidable. None of Droste's three adventures is developed in sufficient detail, and something is obviously missing from the abrupt picnic ending."
TV Guide gave it two out of four stars, noting an "Occasionally gripping spy drama with a very good cast."
Allmovie wrote, "Somewhat lost amidst the flashier James Bond clones of the late 1960s, The Devil's Agent holds up pretty well when seen today."