THE SECRET WAYS, a Cold War adventure drama from 1961, has a lot going for it; a durable star, compelling supporting players, atmosphere redolent locations, superior black & white cinematography and a vibrant early score from John Williams, 28, then going by Johnny. The quality elements make a good movie that’s kept from being better by a script that relies too much on contrivance, with a highly unlikely drawn-out prison-escape conclusion that fizzles into a “that’s it?” finish.

Austria, not long after the Soviet-crushed Hungarian Revolt. American soldier-of-fortune ‘Mike Reynolds’ (Richard Widmark) is hired by an espionage ring to smuggle a professor and resistance leader out of Hungary. Once into Budapest, Reynold’s in-for-the-money political cynicism gets a workover when confronted with the needs and quality of the resistance, including the professor’s daughter, versus the surveillance apparatus and brutality of the Communist regime.

Widmark also produced the 112-minute thriller, and his wife Jean Hazlewood wrote the script, based on Alistair MacLean’s 253-page novel “The Last Frontier”. The star’s ideas on how to present the story (many changes from the book’s derring-do action) clashed with director Phil Karlson, and Widmark eventually took over directing. Swiss (Zurich) and Austrian (Vienna) locations doubled for no-go Red-run Budapest, and cameraman Max Greene (Night And The City) does exemplary work suggesting mood and menace, reminiscent of the more famous The Third Man. The atmosphere helps a lot, because the plot’s somewhat murky and confusing. *

Lumpy story or not, Widmark’s in good, hard-boiled form, and has top-rate support from Sonja Ziemann, Charles Regnier, Walter Rilla, Howard Vernon, Hubert von Meyerinck and Stefan Schnabel.  One highlight was in hiring 19-year-old Austrian beauty Senta Berger, scene-stealing with breath-catching ease in her first credited international part. **

Budgeted at $1,000,000, a gross of $2,000,000 placed 95th at the year’s boxoffice, joining Widmark’s other, higher profile 1961 assignments Judgement At Nuremberg (#19) and Two Rode Together (#55). With Heinz Moog, Elisabeth Neumann-Viertel, Ady Berber and Reinhardt Kolldehoff.

* Widmark: “The reason I made The Secret Ways is that I like spy thrillers. I’ve been in this business quite a long time and to survive you have to do all kinds of pictures, you can’t just specialize on just one kind.” “I was trying to make an adventure story, a sheer adventure story. But some of it (politics) just creeps in.” “It was “like fighting World War Two all over again – you have the Austrians and the Germans fighting like mad with the English and the Americans, they hated us.”

Karlson, on arguing with the star/producer: “He wanted to try to get realism in it and, would you believe it, I told him I wanted to do it like a James Bond. But he hadn’t heard of James Bond. I said, “If we do this tongue in cheek, we’ll be the first ones.” He said, “No, I don’t want to do it that way.” We had a big fight and I never finished the picture.”

** Senta Berger had been acting since 1950 (starting as a 9-year-old extra) and in 1961 appeared in nine West German movies. The Secret Ways led to The Victors, Major Dundee and international popularity. Danke, Herr Widmark!