Kino brings this to Blu-ray with a beautiful restored print. This Albert Zugsmith production stars Lex Barker as OSS agent Steve Anderson. He has been assigned a bizarre case.
It seems that Stalin faked his own death, has stolen half the Russian national treasury and has had plastic surgery to change his looks and is now hiding in Germany.
Anderson is approached by a beautiful woman named Lili Grisenko (Zsa Zsa Gabor) who wants his help in finding her missing sister in Russia. This leads him on a strange adventure indeed.
The opening scene is something that once you see it, you never forget it. The movie opens with Stalin (Maurice Manson) punishing a young, beautiful peasent woman by having her long beautiful hair cut off and shaving her head bald.
This is a very real scene as actress Natalie Daryll actually has her waist length hair cut off and head shaved. Boy, there isn't an actress alive today that has that kind of dedication.
The film moves along at a brisk pace and climaxes in a battle between Lili and her communist sister. This scene is well handled and is was shocking to see a bald Zsa Zsa in a quick scene. You have to see the film to understand that last comment of mine.
I liked this film and had a good time watching it. The rest of the cast includes Jeffrey Stone (who had a fantastic adventure filled life after he left the movie business), William Schallert, Michael Fox, Charles Horvath and Kurt Katch.
This is part of a 3 Blu-ray set of film noir and I really think you'd enjoy it. Thanks to Kino for finally getting this out to be seen once again.
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