I sought out this movie for one reason ... it has Carol Lynley in it. I first saw her when I was 14, she was a teenager in 1959's 'Blue Denim', a risqué teen pregnancy movie, but I just had the biggest crush on her. Something about her, her face, the way she moves, the way she delivers lines, to me she was the epitome of the girl you wanted to date.Anyway lots of years have passed, neither of us are young anymore, but it is fun to re-visit those memories.In this movie, set and filmed in England, Brit Richard Johnson is agent Jonas Wilde with a license to kill. And in fact he does kill a few targets. Sort of a poor man's James Bond without all the gadgets. But as the story develops he learns that he has become a target of his own organization, and he has to use his cunning to survive.His American girlfriend is Carol Lynley as Jocelyn . She doesn't have a large role, but an important one. She is pretty much the same girl as in 'Blue Denim', just about 8 years older.I enjoyed it as light entertainment, as a 'blast from the past', but it is nothing more than a 'B' movie.SPOILERS: As Jonas begins to learn of the plot against him, he is told someone very close to him is keeping an eye on him. He figures out correctly that it is Jocelyn and in their final encounter at the apartment they shared, she tries to poison him via ice he always uses for his drink, but he is wary, puts a cube in the fish tank instead, the fish die but he doesn't, and he is forced to kill her by breaking her neck.

To compare this film to 007 Bond films would to be lead readers astray.Bond films don't have tight plots - this film is far closer to the films and series based on John Le Carré's works. The film is never boring and seems to finish too soon - one would have liked more time for the denouement.And that is a sign of a good tight plot - when the viewer feels that the film has ended too soon.The film shows how without any gadgets and spectacular action a good plot can still hold the viewers' attention.There is action - fights and murders - but they are not spectacular - nor are they intended to be. They are cold, quick and quiet.It is an enjoyable secret service film from the 1960's - a predecessor for the excellent Le Carré films and series.Enjoy it!

A lacklustre British spy thriller which sets itself Here, There and Everywhere, puffing along in the hopeful wake of the success of the James Bond series. The 'plot', about Johnson becoming embroiled in murder and intrigue when called upon to bump off a defecting scientist, quickly becomes as coma-inducing as it does brain-scrambling for those paying enough attention to care. Seth Holt, along with his regular art director someone or other (check the credits), was responsible for some of Hammer's best 60s suspense films; apart from a few revelatory sequences on a train you'd be forgiven for overlooking this fact on the strength of what is presented here.

. But worth noting for its star Richard Johnson and director Seth Holt. A former Royal Shakespeare Company actor, Johnson was Bond director Terence Young's original choice to play 007 and might have proved much closer to author Ian Fleming's concept of him. Indeed, Johnson was briefly groomed by the Rank Organisation in the late Sixties as their answer to Sean Connery, hoping to ride the Bond slipstream (but the two films Deadlier Than the Male and Some Girls Do were too cynically packaged to work as either imitation or spoof).Johnson's brand of worried suavity found a better vehicle here. A minor addition to the murkier side of the genre, it remains most notable for Holt. A former editor, Holt's deft cutting room skills had made two suspense films he directed for Hammer (Taste of Fear and The Nanny) unusually seamless and subtle.Alas, in Danger Route, even his assured touch failed to enliven an intractable plot about Cross-Channel espionage. But an exceptionally strong support cast - Harry Andrews, Diana Dors and Gordon Jackson - and a certain casual ruthlessness, lift this film above the totally routine. And Carol Lynley and Barbara Bouchet are truly gorgeous.Trite cynicisms and a trashy title-song date Danger Route unsympathetically. But Holt's admirers will discern enough in its minor virtues to compensate.