Valentina Cortese here delivers an inspired performance as a refugee from either Italy or Spain who flees to London in the late 1930s with her younger sister because their father has been assassinated by the dictator who has taken over their country, modelled on General Franco. She takes refuge with Anselmo, a family friend who runs a London café. We skip forward by several years and the sister is now played by the young and charming Audrey Hepburn, who gets to do some of her ballet dancing in the film. All should be well, but it isn't. Anselmo decides to take the two gals to Paris for a weekend, and there they meet 'Louie', Valentina's lost love from Italy. He has become a member of the terrorist underground and is trying to assassinate his country's dictator, who is about to visit London where there will be a chance at a garden party. Louie has changed, become hardened and ruthless, and he uses the sweet-natured Valentina and her love for him as the means to get to London and ends up persuading her to carry a small bomb into the garden party, where it misfires and kills a waitress. She is arrested and blurts everything out to Scotland Yard. The terrorist group will kill anyone who spills the beans, so Scotland Yard have to give her an assumed identity and she is not allowed to see her beloved sister again. Everything gets more and more harrowing, and unlike Valentina's far-fetched previous film, HOUSE ON TELEGRAPH HILL (1951, see my review), the story here is very convincing. We begin to realize how one toe in the water in such cases can easily lead to you drowning! Serge Reggiani makes a very powerful Louie, who is able to manipulate people and make them do what he wants. Irene Worth makes an early and sympathetic film appearance as a police woman. This film is very well written and directed by Thorold Dickinson and is something of a lost gem which has fortunately now been issued on DVD.
Review of Secret People
Secret People
(1952)
A Complex and Thoughtful Thriller about Events Getting out of Control
6 April 2010