High Treason

1951
6.7| 1h33m| en| More Info
Released: 13 November 1951 Released
Producted By: Paul Soskin Productions
Country: United Kingdom
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Synopsis

Men from Scotland Yard and military intelligence build a dossier on a sabotage ring.

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Director

Producted By

Paul Soskin Productions

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Reviews

Kailansorac Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.
Stephan Hammond It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,
Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.
Jakoba True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.
Michael Morrison Acting and writing are as close to perfect as anyone can expect from a movie.None of the actors are household names today, but each and every one is about as perfect in his role as one could expect, even from those magnificent British players.Writers created a nearly perfect script, with tension and sympathy, with drama and excitement. Villains are quite definitely villains -- but not from their viewpoint. They are working for peace and democracy. They recruit new members among those seeking "a world without war" and "a government run by the people."Surely they are communists, and in reality -- as opposed to what they tell their potential recruits and followers -- are agents of a foreign power, in this case the Soviet Union, but never are they labeled as such.So a viewer can watch and enjoy without political considerations, with, instead, concern about the intended villainy, worry for the possible innocent victims; one need not think about labels, such as "communist" or "Soviet agent," but ponder instead the fact that collectivist and statist ideologies brush off the fact that violence and initiated force always have victims, however lofty the proclaimed ideals.One of the policemen tells a leader of the saboteurs, "But surely history, and recent history also shows us ... that wherever people have known the light, they don't tolerate the darkness for very long." Ah, would that that were true.Even right here in these United States, ignorant or stupid or, yes, villainous people are praising and supporting the darkness. Witness the popularity of Che T-shirts, of riots on college campuses to prevent other opinions from being heard, of street demonstrations created for the purpose of violence -- and if the results are not darkness, and intended to bring darkness, then darkness has not ever been the goal of political violence.This movie, "High Treason," was produced before most of the people around now to see it were even born, even before I was born. Yet it is still relevant, as warning of what can happen now, and as a history lesson of what actually did happen."High Treason" is an excellent motion picture, one I had never heard of before accidentally finding a very good print at YouTube. I highly recommend it. In fact, I urge you to see it.
malcolmgsw This is a film which I can never remember seeing on TV.Unfortunately it seems as relevant today as when it was made as there have been terrorist campaigns since and sadly at this present time.However what is so ironic about this film is that people were lead ,wrongly to believe,that the security services were on top of the situation,whereas Burgess,MacLean and Ogilvy were happily giving secrets away to the Soviets.Of course they couldn't be guilty,they went to Oxbridge.The film is extremely well written and directed.
XhcnoirX After a big explosion in the London Docks, Scotland Yard and MI5 join forces to find the ones responsible. Meanwhile the bombers, a group of communists, set their eyes on a much larger target, several power stations around the country, including London's Battersea power station. The group have enlisted a weakling shop seller as one of their helpers, but he slowly starts to crumble and fall apart. Meanwhile the investigators go over each lead and are slowly able to identify members of the group. But they don't know when the next attack will be or where.A Cold War thriller that starts with a bang and ends with a big finale inside Battersea power station. By shifting the focus back and forth between the investigators and the Communist group (which is never mentioned directly, but strongly implied), including the moments where their paths cross, the movie maintains tension and suspense. The cast isn't too well-known but contains a ton of familiar British character actors, from the lead detectives, Liam Redmond ('Night of the Demon') and André Morell ('The Bridge on the River Kwai') to the leader of the group, John Bailey ('Never Let Go') to Geoffrey Keen (Sir Frederick Gray in half a dozen James Bond movies) and so on.Directed and co-written by Roy Boulting, one half of the Boulting brothers ('Brighton Rock', 'Seven Days to Noon'), and with future acclaimed cinematographer Gilbert Taylor behind the camera ('Star Wars', 'Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb'), this movie is expertly made. It's got a nice pace to it, and by mixing interior studio sets and exterior on-location shots in London, as well as inside Battersea power station, the movie also looks pretty nice. It's not a classic by any means, but hard to go wrong with this one.
Mike Leggett This movie would be worthy of further research - but it's popped up at 4 in the morning during an insomnia bout and it'll have to wait.... for instance, the term Communist is never used, though the plot is quote clear by implication. The foreign agent is Russian, the newspapers run headlines about military buildups in 'the East' and the saboteurs are a mix of 'militant' dockers, effete 'intellectuals' who smoke pipes, run contemporary art galleries and go to string trio recitals of work by Berg. There are of course the hapless naives enmeshed by ruthless political manipulators and terrorists - they use that word - who at the last moment realise their errors and raise the alarm in time to save the entire electricity generating capacity of the UK!I was surprised at how early on in the Cold War this film appeared as it would have been scripted/made in the year that Sen McCarthy came into prominence in the US - could it have been one of the factors that set him and the rest wolf pack on the hunt? It was actually made by one of the Boulting brothers, better known for their later comedies, though Roy made a reputation with propaganda/morale boosting titles in the 40s, so no surprise he sounded the alarums across the Iron Curtain in this title. Following more in the British tradition of that time of 'dramatised documentary', it has some remarkable scenes of seedy, filthy post-War London, using an Irish lead character to soften the obvious class divisions rampant throughout the plot, an irony no doubt, not lost on the co-writer, Frank Harvey, who also played one of the Scotland Yard team who had the shoot-out with the class enemies at the thriller's end. Frank was to die later in Sydney, Australia - which is where I saw the film, in the wee small hours. Maybe Frank is where Australia's 'hunt for Reds' came from in the 50s too..... or maybe I'm just being too naive, like this movie..... It's a great example of the way in which popular cinema can insinuate that socially and culturally specific groups can be a danger to an imagined national security by heightening the sense of 'the other' (and unknown), breeding distrust and suspicion, enabling those in power to remain secure.