Gregory Peck does a reasonably good job as a Nobelist who is sent to China to steal an enzyme that will increase the world's food supply. The Chinese, you see, want to keep it a secret and use it themselves. (They've since given up hoping for miracles and have turned to a much more sensible one-child per family policy.) I guess -- legally speaking, the enzyme IS in fact a Chinese invention and belongs to them, doesn't it? What I mean is, is it entirely ethical for Peck to sneak into China under false pretenses, swipe something of theirs, and smuggle it out of the country? After all, when the Americans and Brits get the enzyme at the end, they too stash it away to use as a "weapon" instead of handing it over to all humankind, as Peck wants to do. It's like Clint Eastwood sneaking into the USSR and stealing the most advanced fighter airplane in the world from them ("Firefox").
Problems like this don't bother the film makers. Absconding with the MacGuffin is a good idea -- period. To show how good it is, even the Russians are on our side and only the Chinese are "enemies." And how does our side show its appreciation for Peck's life-endangering efforts? They have planted a complex transmitter in his mastoid sinus. He has willingly allowed them to do it. What they haven't told him is that there is a coil of explosive wrapped around the chip that will blow his head off if detonated by the authorities. At the last minute, the general in charge (Arthur Hill) relents and doesn't explode Peck's head. That's gratitude for you.
The director has tried to turn this into a light-hearted thriller, along the lines of "North by Northwest." Accordingly, we are introduced to Chairman Mao while he's playing ping pong. And Peck is given plenty of wisecracks under stress, on top of which his performance is sort of sing-song, more animated than usual. Somehow it doesn't jell.
It would have been no trouble at all in 1943 to change a few things around and have this turn out to be an anti-Nazi war film, all cloak and dagger, shadows and fog, and racing black sedans.
Not one of Peck's better career choices.
Problems like this don't bother the film makers. Absconding with the MacGuffin is a good idea -- period. To show how good it is, even the Russians are on our side and only the Chinese are "enemies." And how does our side show its appreciation for Peck's life-endangering efforts? They have planted a complex transmitter in his mastoid sinus. He has willingly allowed them to do it. What they haven't told him is that there is a coil of explosive wrapped around the chip that will blow his head off if detonated by the authorities. At the last minute, the general in charge (Arthur Hill) relents and doesn't explode Peck's head. That's gratitude for you.
The director has tried to turn this into a light-hearted thriller, along the lines of "North by Northwest." Accordingly, we are introduced to Chairman Mao while he's playing ping pong. And Peck is given plenty of wisecracks under stress, on top of which his performance is sort of sing-song, more animated than usual. Somehow it doesn't jell.
It would have been no trouble at all in 1943 to change a few things around and have this turn out to be an anti-Nazi war film, all cloak and dagger, shadows and fog, and racing black sedans.
Not one of Peck's better career choices.