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| Title: ORDERS TO KILL Year: 1958 Rating: **** |
It's after forty-five minutes when first-billed American actor Eddie Albert sees second-billed Canadian actor Paul Massie off to France in this British anti-war film that really begins with Massie's Gene Summers on a central mission to kill a French Resistance double-crosser, who had sold out the last five spies to the Germans...
So after the initial training sessions where a somewhat robotic Massie (originally ordered by John Crawford with a cameo by Lilian Gish as his mother), trained by Albert to be as cold-blooded as possible (without being too glib about it), ORDERS TO KILL becomes a kind of Hitchcock style suspense flick with mousy Leslie French as the target, so downright friendly and affably neurotic, the inevitable moral dilemma finally kicks into gear...
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| Hunted and Hunter Leslie French with Paul Massie in ORDERS TO KILL |
Summers can't believe this man with a daughter, a wife, and a protective affinity for cats could possibly be a turncoat... underlined in scenes between our man with inside-source Irene Worth, feeling like a topnotch stage play about the difference between murder and war-time ambiguity...
Peaking with what's the central flashpoint involving the emotionally-torn Massie, whose performance accelerates with the moment-of-truth tension underlined neatly between director Anthony Asquith and his one true cinematic lead, who deserved top-billing since it's not only his mission, it's his movie.
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| Paul Massie in ORDERS TO KILL |
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| Paul Massie and Eddie Albert in ORDERS TO KILL |
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| Paul Massie and Eddie Albert in ORDERS TO KILL |
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| Paul Massie and Eddie Albert in ORDERS TO KILL |
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| Irene Worth in ORDERS TO KILL |
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| Sandra Dorne in ORDERS TO KILL |
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| Paul Massie in ORDERS TO KILL |
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| Paul Massie in ORDERS TO KILL |
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| Paul Massie in ORDERS TO KILL |
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| Paul Massie in ORDERS TO KILL |
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| Paul Massie in ORDERS TO KILL |
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| Paul Massie in ORDERS TO KILL |
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| Irene Worth in ORDERS TO KILL |
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| Irene Worth in ORDERS TO KILL |
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| Paul Massie in ORDERS TO KILL |
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| Paul Massie in ORDERS TO KILL |
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| John Crawford in ORDERS TO KILL |
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| John Crawford in ORDERS TO KILL |
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| John Crawford in ORDERS TO KILL |
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| Paul Massie and John Crawford in ORDERS TO KILL |
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| Miki Iveria and Lillie Bea Gifford in ORDERS TO KILL |
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Paul Massie in ORDERS TO KILL with Lilian Gish
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| Paul Massie in ORDERS TO KILL |
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