Heavyweights James Clavell and Edward Anhalt have here adapted the novel by Ian Stuart aka Alistair MacLean and the setting has been transposed from rainy old England to sun-baked California, with Key West standing in for East Anglia and Los Angeles for the City of London.
The result is a mixture of Doomsday sci-fi and suspense thriller with the deadly flask as a MacGuffin. For this viewer at any rate this film doesn't really excel as either but is still of interest nonetheless.
Director John Sturges has the services of ace cinematographer Robert Surtees and the effective overhead shots are courtesy of a stabilised camera mount fitted in a helicopter. The overall air of menace is maintained by Jerry Goldsmith's excellent score whilst the Palm Springs 'mid-century Modern' style of architecture is suitably characterless. The film is scuppered alas by a lack of pace and momentum and hampered by a limited budget. It also fails to fulfil its early promise.
As for the cast it is stalwarts Richard Basehart and Dana Andrews who supply the substance. The roll-call of directors with whom both these actors had worked is impressive indeed but Mr. Basehart's talents at this time were confined to television whilst Mr. Andrews' film appearances were increasingly rare for a variety of reasons. Anne Francis is required to be little more than window-dressing and although George Maharis acquits himself well in an interesting role he is one of those actors from the small screen who failed to make an impact on the large. No more than a year after her blink-or-you-miss appearance as a waitress Lee Remick would star opposite Montgomery Clift in 'Wild River' and the rest, as they say, is history.
Whether John Sturges is the right director for this material is of course down to the individual viewer and although there are certainly worse ways to spend an hour and fifty minutes, one cannot help but feel that an opportunity to make a classic has been missed.
The result is a mixture of Doomsday sci-fi and suspense thriller with the deadly flask as a MacGuffin. For this viewer at any rate this film doesn't really excel as either but is still of interest nonetheless.
Director John Sturges has the services of ace cinematographer Robert Surtees and the effective overhead shots are courtesy of a stabilised camera mount fitted in a helicopter. The overall air of menace is maintained by Jerry Goldsmith's excellent score whilst the Palm Springs 'mid-century Modern' style of architecture is suitably characterless. The film is scuppered alas by a lack of pace and momentum and hampered by a limited budget. It also fails to fulfil its early promise.
As for the cast it is stalwarts Richard Basehart and Dana Andrews who supply the substance. The roll-call of directors with whom both these actors had worked is impressive indeed but Mr. Basehart's talents at this time were confined to television whilst Mr. Andrews' film appearances were increasingly rare for a variety of reasons. Anne Francis is required to be little more than window-dressing and although George Maharis acquits himself well in an interesting role he is one of those actors from the small screen who failed to make an impact on the large. No more than a year after her blink-or-you-miss appearance as a waitress Lee Remick would star opposite Montgomery Clift in 'Wild River' and the rest, as they say, is history.
Whether John Sturges is the right director for this material is of course down to the individual viewer and although there are certainly worse ways to spend an hour and fifty minutes, one cannot help but feel that an opportunity to make a classic has been missed.