With a souped up budget and foreign location this remake of the Anthony Mann noir classic T-Men should have been better. But The File Of The Golden Goose is rather disjointed plot wise and while in T-Men the documentary style narration is critical to the film, here it is used gloss over some glaring holes in the story. That's possibly due to poor editing.Yul Brynner looks like he did this one for a free trip to London where he plays a Secret Service man who is teamed with a Scotland Yard inspector played by Edward Woodward and both are trying to infiltrate a gang of counterfeiters. Brynner has a special reason to get them, they killed his girlfriend Hilary Heath with a bullet meant for him.One of the things that really got me was the very beginning we are shown three murders in different countries including Heath's told that the gang is responsible for them and then never told why these people had to be killed.Brynner slept walked through this one and that attitude won't keep the audience's attention.

The movie itself is a pedestrian crime movie that takes a tiny premise and extends it over the length of a movie. Not a good thing.So the movie basically stinks. But if you want a hoot, watch it to see Yul Brynner's horrifying attempt to sound like a New York "wiseguy" while swimming through his natural Russian accent. It's not so much the accent being silly, as the dialog being something from the "Dead End Kids".If people paid to see this in the theater, maybe it was a good escape since cable TV and the internet hadn't been invented yet. Or maybe they asked for their money back.Really dreadful.

A routine,uninspired secret agent thriller.What is not generally acknowledged is that this film is a remake of Anthony Mann's first-class 'B' Film Noir T-MEN(1947).The original had far more resonance and atmosphere(mainly because of Mann's effective direction and John Alton's moody monochrome photography).THE FILE OF THE GOLDEN GOOSE has touristy views of London,flat colour imagery,and unremarkable direction by Sam Wanamaker.Wanamaker,a fine actor,never really made it as a film director,and despite some reputable performers here,like Yul Brynner(in the old Dennis O'Keefe role),and Edward Woodward(in the doomed Alfred Ryder part),the result is a just passable time-waster.

This movie was better than I had expected. The script is not exactly Oscar-caliber, but "Golden Goose" has good actors and an interesting story. The various location shots of London were impressive. Yul Brynner plays a U.S. Secret Service agent trying to bust up a counterfeiting ring.