The Secret Partner (1961)
- General info
- Available formats
- Synopsis:
- John Brent (Stewart Granger) may be a successful married businessman, but he's far from carefree. Blackmailed by someone who knows about his criminal past, Brent gets into even more trouble when a thief takes off with a fortune from the vault of his company. Now a key suspect in the robbery, Brent has Detective Frank Hanbury (Bernard Lee) on his tail, and is on terrible terms with his wife, Nicole (Haya Harareet). As the mystery of who robbed the vault unfolds, surprising revelations arise.
- Actors:
- Stewart Granger, Haya Harareet, Bernard Lee, Hugh Burden, Lee Montague, Melissa Stribling, Conrad Phillips, John Lee, Norman Bird, Peter Illing, Basil Dignam, William Fox, George Tovey, Sidney Vivian, Paul Stassino, Colette Wilde, Willoughby Goddard, Peter Welch, Joy Wood, Dorothy Gordon
- Directors:
- Basil Dearden
- Producers:
- Michael Relph
- Writers:
- David Pursall, Jack Seddon
- Aka:
- The Liars
- Genres:
- Classics, Drama, Romance, Thrillers
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Reviews (1) of The Secret Partner
Twisty Thriller - The Secret Partner review by Steve
Routine crime thriller boosted by a proper star in the lead role and the services of a quality director in Basil Dearden. Stewart Granger plays a shipping executive with a shady past who is blackmailed by his dentist. When his office safe is turned over (incriminating the slippery tooth extractor) the cops suspect an inside job...
Bernard Lee is the chain smoking detective on his last case before retirement and there's a decent cast of familiar character actors to share the suspicion. Haya Harareet- last in Ben-Hur- plays Granger's beautiful, estranged wife, who is sure to be more than she seems. And adds a touch of chic.
The corkscrew plot isn't probable, or even possible, but that doesn't always matter in this sort of film. The hokum keeps moving forward with momentum. There's a sudden, unexpected twist every few minutes and a big reveal at the climax, which is fun even if not much of a shock.
Dearden handles the suspense well. The location shoot around London and the mod interiors bring in some cosmopolitan sophistication. The jazz soundtrack even evokes the French new wave. This isn't a prestige production, but is clearly a cut above most of the low budget crime films abundant at the time.