The Secret Partner (1961) User Reviews

Very good

[blanche-2 · 7/10 · 22 July 2009]

"The Secret Partner," from 1961, is a nifty British film starring Stewart Granger, Haya Harareet, and Bernard Lee. Granger is a successful businessman, John Brent, who is being blackmailed by a dentist. The man knows that in the past, Brent went by another name and was caught embezzling. Because of all the money Brent spends on blackmail, his wife (Harareet) believes that there's another woman. When he has a party for business and tells people she's in Zurich, his wife returns and, in front of the guests, announces that she's leaving him.

When a safe at his business is robbed, suspicion falls on him because he is one of two people who have the combination. His office keys show filings from being copied. He denies ever giving anyone the combination or having the keys copied. The dentist, meanwhile, is having problems of his own - he's visited by a mysterious man who makes some demands of him.

Since it's to be the last case of a retiring detective superintendent (Lee), he's anxious to solve the robbery. It all seems a little too pat for him.

Nifty mystery with not only some twists, but an unexpected ending.

I really liked this film. Granger does a good job as the man with problems everywhere he looks. Harareet is beautiful, but doesn't have much of a role. Lee is likable as the retiring superintendent, reminding us that justice isn't always found in the courts.

Recommended.

A tragic crime well developed towards the end

[JuguAbraham · 7/10 · 14 November 2004]

Very few crime films end on a tragic note, especially if the plot does not involve deaths and maiming. This is one such example. The last shot of the film--a long shot--of the protagonist walking alone arouses the viewers pity.

The film seems to infer that the bad guys remain bad and end up losers. Today such stories would seem sociologically incorrect to film. The plot of the film is rather good and would provide the viewer with his/her money's worth.

The last half hour of the film not only entertains but is quaintly philosophical. Haya Harareet's ("Ben Hur"'s Esther) character is a fascinating study of love for her husband and what she decides to do is even more poignant and elegant. Stewart Granger and Bernard Lee (M of the early James Bond films) perform well, but the ultimate heroes are the story writers (David Pursall and Jack Seddon) and the director Basil Deardon who make the film fairly above-average entertainment.

Nothing Clandestine About The Secret Partner ***

[edwagreen · 8/10 · 23 July 2009]

Stewart Granger turns in a very good performance in this 1961 film about a heist and who committed it.

This certainly could have been a Hitchcock film with all the turns and twists as well as the ironic ending.

Haya Harareet, who was so good as Esther in "Ben-Hur" plays Granger's wife, who leaves him on purpose only to leave him for real when it looks like they've gotten away with the heist.

Bernard Lee, M from James Bond, is effective as the chain-smoking retiring policeman who knows that he can't really get his finger on the situation.

This film is really another Witness for the Prosecution without the murder as you will be fooled by the ending. Remember how Tyrone Power claimed he was innocent, ditto for Granger, but of course the latter lives, though unhappy in the end. You will not be unhappy with this film.

A very clever thriller

[joshea98 · 31 January 2004]

I first saw this film in 1961. Many years later, it turned up on Turner Classic Movies and, like a fool, I sat here watching it without making a tape of it. What a mistake that was. Although this film is well worth watching and has a clever twist ending, all indications are that it is unavailable anywhere on video or DVD. Don't miss it if it comes up on TV again.

Worth watching

[johnhclarke · 7/10 · 28 July 2007]

The plot creaks along slightly but worth seeing for the views of London docks as they were. The Bernard Lee character is also memorable for the number of cigarettes he smokes. In every scene he's in, he's either smoking, lighting up or lighting another cigarette from his previous one. Obviously a 60-a-day man. Older viewers will recall Conrad Phillips at the star of the long-running William Tell TV series in which he battled Willoughby Goddard who appears in the movie as the seedy hotel keeper. Stalwart British character actors Norman Bird, Hugh Burden and Lee Montague also shine, while Melissa Stibling was the wife of the film's director Basil Dearden

Beware of dentists

[dbdumonteil · 6/10 · 21 September 2008]

A good thriller,which loses steam halfway through ,but regains its interest in the last thirty minutes,thanks to a very good unexpected twist.Yes there was such a thing almost fifty years ago.

An aging Stewart Granger portrays a wealthy British Bourgeois with a shady past whose marriage with Nicole (the beautiful Haya Harareet,famous for her part of Esther in "Ben Hur") is on the rocks. His dentist blackmails him ,and around him ,everybody may be a potential danger.The plot involves drugs,robbery,a soon-to-be-retired cop and plenty of foggy views of London in a bleak black and white.It's not in the same as league as Hitchcock,but it's quite entertaining.

Good thriller and surprise from Granger

[moatazmohsen78 · 7/10 · 30 April 2006]

Stewart Granger was the best actor in English cinema in their history , he was famous in the kind of historical films especially in the time of 17th until 19th centuries.

In this film he made a surprise for the audience for changing his choice for the kind of thriller films which was cleverness from him to prove for all people that he was good actor and great artist in his history , he increased in this classical film beside his diamond films as:1- prisoner of Zenda. 2- The treasure of king Solemon. 3- Beau Brummel. 4- Salome.

This film made their thriller in cleverly way with professional touch which made it their success.

You let your blackmailer give you the gas???

[ArtVandelayImporterExporter · 7/10 · 17 January 2023]

I realize the Brits have famously terrible teeth. I guess it never occurred to me that it was due to a critical shortage of dentists. I mean, if my dentist blackmails me I may or not pay him off on the blackmail, but for sure I'm getting my cavities filled by a different dentist. The LAST thing I do is go to the blackmailing dentist and let him use potentially lethal gas on me. For one thing, what if, after I've threatened to kill him in the previous scene, he decides it's too risky to keep blackmailing me and devises a plot to murder me. I mean, ''patient dies in dentist's chair" wasn't exactly rare in those days. It might not even result in a coroner's inquiry.

Anyway, if you can overlook that total implausibility, this movie is a decent crime thriller. It's expertly staged, directed and acted. Well above average for its genre and for British movies in general.

Plus, any movie with Haya Harareet (there are only 9, after all) is a rare treasure. It's not an exaggeration to say she was one of the most beautiful women to ever grace the silver screen.

Stewart Granger proves he didn't have to take his shirt off or shoot any lions to dominate the screen. Yet Bernard Lee nearly steals the show as a jaded veteran detective. And if he doesn't, the slovenly slum hotel desk clerk Willoughby Godard certainly does.

To say the story wraps up with an extremely satisfying philosophical note would be understating things. What a refreshing, mature surprise.

The secret partner

[coltras35 · 6/10 · 8 February 2023]

A wealthy London-based shipping magnate (Stewart Granger) is blackmailed by an evil dentist which threatens to reveal an old case of fraud, while the dentist himself is threaten by a mysterious masked man.

Skilful characterisation and the strong performances of Stewart Granger as the executive, Norman Bird as the dentist, and Bernard Lee as the dogged, chain-smoking policeman looking forward to retirement and an arresting plot puts this above the usual fare. There's nice shot of London, foggy streets and a snazzy jazz. Stewart Granger is really good in his role, and looks suitably rattled. The finale is quite surprising and philosophical.

MY KIND OF MYSTERY!

[ussdixonjones · 10/10 · 8 January 2019]

Loved it! This was more than a worthwhile view, but of course I'm partial to mysteries so my rating of 10 may be too high for some. But the movie had me guessing throughout, and the ending was absolutely superb, as I was thrown for a loop. The movie was very clever and darn right sneaky how it ended! I Loved it!

twisty thriller

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 29 October 2022]

John Brent is an executive working for Charles Standish in a shipping company. John is having trouble with his wife Nikki, but he has to host a party for their client. He invites Charles and his wife Helen over to persuade Nikki. Instead, Nikki has left him claiming that he's cheating on her. In reality, he's being blackmailed by a dentist named Ralph Beldon. A mystery man with inside information visits Ralph to partner up with him. Ralph reluctantly accepts. The mystery man drives off with Nikki.

It's a lot of double dealing and hidden agendas. It's a convoluted twisted thriller. It's fun for a while. There are some unlikely turns. I never got to the point where I'm rooting for John. The acting is excellent. It's a mystery thriller of whodunwhat.

A nice thriller with several great twists.

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 9 May 2020]

Stewart Granger plays John Brent, a man you feel really sorry for throughout much of the movie. It seems he's a successful businessman and yet his life is an apparent mess. His wife has left him and he's being blackmailed by a spineless drunk dentist. Could things get worse? Absolutely. But how and how he tries to extricate himself....you'll just have to see that when you watch this British thriller.

The film manages to work well for quite a few reasons. The acting is really very good, the writing clever and imaginative and the director managed to infuse the film with a nice brooding mood. Overall, a film that should be higher rated than it currently is...and well worth your time.

Thriller? Hardly.

[brogmiller · 3/10 · 17 February 2020]

The films of Basil Dearden are indeed a mixed bag. This one is pretty awful by any director's standards. A 'thriller' that totally fails to thrill and utterly devoid of momentum and suspense. The only redeeming features are Stewart Granger whose 'star quality' is undeniable and the wonderful Bernard Lee. One never catches Lee 'acting' and he effortlessly steals all of his scenes. The lovely Haya Harareet was splendidly directed by the great William Wyler in 'Ben Hur' but here she looks like a fish out of water.

The rest of the cast is uniformly adequate, the script by Pursell and Seddon weak and the music of Philip Green atrocious.

One of Dearden's duds.

A detective story that keeps up the suspense.

[denscul · 9/10 · 26 November 2005]

This movie may not be up to the technical standards of today, but this is the kind of movie that gives you entertainment without trying to pander to some cause, or make me feel guilty about driving an SUV. There isn't any raw sex, exposed skin, car crashes, vulgar language or hidden messages. The only gun fire is target shooting, and nobody throws a punch as I recall. Yet, this is the sort of entertainment that my generation expected when we went to the movies. The plot is well conceived and keeps you guessing until the very end. The actors at the time this movie was made were very popular at the box office, and all gave an excellent performance. The female lead is an Israli actress who played opposite Charleton Heston in Ben Hur. Stewart Granger made movies for both American and English film companies, and could have made an excellent James Bond. The back drop of 1961 London has the feel of an American B & W detective movie of the "film noire" genre. Unlike some English movies made at the time, the dialog is not filled with English idioms. This is a little gem that you can watch with your relatives during the Hollidays.

Gas at the Dentist

[D-crocker · 8/10 · 21 January 2010]

The Secret Partner is one of the few films to show at length what it was like to go to the dentist and have treatment under gas, something that everyone in the 40s and 50s would have experienced but is now unknown to present generations. It is a very authentic reconstruction, although when Stewart Granger comes round before being given "the truth drug" it is very unlikely he would have had enough of his wits about him that quickly to follow his plan to fool the dentist. I certainly could not on the times I had gas. But for a low budget film it is an excellent story and has a good ending. I am not a great fan of Stewart granger but enjoy this film, pity it is not out on DVD

Fails in its attempts at film noir,but a first class mystery suspense film nonetheless.

[jamesraeburn2003 · 30 August 2017]

An alcoholic, blackmailing dentist called Feldon (Norman Bird) is visited by a sinister hooded stranger who forces him to rob his own victim, the businessman John Brent (Stewart Grainger). When he visits Feldon for a dental appointment which, in fact, acts as a cover for the pay offs, the dentist injects him with a truth serum in order to extract the combination to the safe at the shipping company where he works and makes impressions of the keys to his house and the vault so they can be duplicated without him being any the wiser. Feldon hands them over to his confederate and we learn that Brent's estranged wife, Nicole (Hara Harareet), is the mystery man's accomplice: her 'Secret Partner'. They have hatched a fool proof plan to steal £130,000 from the shipping company and frame Brent for the lot. The police led by Superintendent Hanbury (Bernard Lee) arrest him on his boat in France where he is holidaying, but he escapes and sets out to clear his name. But who is Nicole's mysterious secret partner? The interior designer, Clive Lang (John Lee), her new boyfriend, or Dr Rickford (Conrad Philips), who is clearly attracted to her? Or Brent's business associate Charles Standish (Hugh Burden) who is jealous because he has been passed over for promotion in the favour of him? Hanbury discovers that Brent has form for embezzlement and has since changed his name. However, he is not convinced that he has an open and shut case like his colleagues do and wants to retire from the force with the satisfaction of having solved it correctly...

From the formidable producer-director team of Michael Relph and Basil Dearden, The Secret Partner was their attempt at a suspenser in the Hitchcock mould with a dash of film noir thrown in for good measure. It isn't entirely successful in the latter because Harareet's character isn't allowed enough scope in her involvement with the three men; all of whom the audience are invited to suspect may have been manipulated by her into doing the crime. In that respect it adds to the intrigue, but due to insufficient development the passions and emotional element are all but lost. Furthermore, Nicole is a femme fatale of a kind, but she repents her ways later on and, sadly, Harareet seems rather wooden in the part.

However, The Secret Partner most certainly works as a satisfying thriller thanks to an excellent script by the reliable writing duo of David Pursall and Jack Seddon who throw in red herrings and plot twists aplenty to keep us guessing and guessing wrongly right up until the end when we finally learn the identity of Nicole's secret partner. I must confess it wasn't who I expected it to be. Basil Dearden's taut direction and Raymond Poulton's sharp editing combine to do justice to the appealing plot and sustain the tension throughout. Harry Waxman's b/w camera-work neatly captures the authentic London locations that add to the sense of place and mystery. Aside from Stewart Grainger as the hero who adds a touch of Hollywood glamour in a part straight out of Hitchcock, there is a wonderful supporting cast of first rate British actors to enjoy who all go through their paces with vigour.

Average B Crime Story.

[rmax304823 · 5/10 · 21 July 2009]

There's nothing particularly offensive about this later effort in Stewart Granger's career. Basil Dearden directs with mature competence, Bernard Miles provides his usual solid support, and the plot carries a viewer along without having to drag him by the heels. If Haya Harareet is no more than a blandly attractive figure as Granger's wife, well, so what? Granger is a well-off businessman who has one of those shameful secrets in his past that make blackmail profitable. The extortionist is Granger's dentist. I never did like dentists anyway. They're always smiling and saying things like, "Turn this way a little," and then they hurt you even though you've never done them any harm. To top it off, you have to pay them.

Anyway, this weedy little surgeon is visited one night by a mysterious masked man who instructs him at gun point to knock Granger out with gas, inject him with a fast-acting barbiturate, and squeeze out of him the combination to the office safe, meanwhile making impressions of the office keys. The whining little creep complies with a combination of fear and greed.

Evidently the masked man has set up a frame because as the Superintendent, Bernard Miles, investigates the crime the evidence begins to pile up against Granger himself. Granger escapes the grasp of the police and most of the film is taken up with his pursuit of the mysterious man in the mask.

There's a twist at the end. The prognosis is problematic but it seems that just desserts will be served, followed, one hopes, by a postprandial snort of nitrous oxide.

Granger had a long career beginning in Britain in a few classy productions before moving to MGM around 1950 to become a kind of latter-day Errol Flynn. He was handsome enough. His voice was a resonant baritone. And he looked good in period wardrobe. But he was more than dismissive of his own career, downright bitter at times. The curious thing is that, as he aged, he STILL looked good in a stereotypical way. He went gray at the temples and seemed never less than vigorous, sometimes distinguished, but the trajectory of his fame followed a familiar downward arc. But if he'd never made a movie other than, say, "Scaramouche" or one or two others, he'd be worth at least a footnote.

I can't say too much for this particular movie. It's strictly routine. It's the sort of thing that Hollywood was grinding out as B features during the 1930s -- mysterious masked man prompts scared dentist into crime and frames hero. Should someone throw open a door and find a ransacked apartment, the musical score goes, "Ta-DAHHH!" All familiar stuff. But, as I say, it's in no way offensive. It's just that there's nothing very original about any of its properties. With a little tweaking it could have been an inexpensive Charlie Chan mystery.

Stewart Granger magnificent, as always

[wildbyzon · 9/10 · 15 July 2021]

Stewart Granger, one of the best British actors ever, is an actor who can play anything with his unique style. He will always be one of my favorites.

The movie is very good, with very smart plot twists.

A near classic!

[tph0229 · 9/10 · 14 May 2020]

Just watched it for the third time and it gets better with each viewing. Super stylish credits, with a great moody jazz score from Philip Green. I am bored with the modern tendency to fill a movie with various styles of music, usually sung, for commercial reasons, while not having a cohesive theme, if you'll pardon the pun. A shipping executive, played by Stewart Granger, is accused of raiding the company safe for 100,00. Pounds that is. 1961 that is. When the going rate was 2.40 dollars to the pound. He is having marital problems with his wife Haya Harrareet, who played the love interest in Ben Hur ,and is heavily in debt due to an extravagant lifestyle, including a boat which he is conveniently on as the robbery is being committed. Bernard Lee plays the detective inspector assigned to solve the case on the eve of retirement ( although how long he expects to survive in retirement with the chain smoking he does in this movie is anybody's guess ) and as always is reliably excellent. The too seldom seen Hugh Burden ( who was great as Protopopov in Fall of Eagles ) plays Granger's supervisor, and the beautiful Melissa Stribling plays Burden's wife, both of whom may have reason to frame our poor protagonist, among a few others. I'll say no more. Suffice it to say, this twisty thriller is well woth the hour and a half. I was, however, slightly disappointed with the denouement. That prevented me form giving the movie ten stars. And another one from the great director Basil Dearden must be seen. League of Gentlemen

Money can't buy love or anything else it seems.

[mamalv · 9/10 · 29 January 2015]

THE SECRET PARTNER, is a quite good suspense thriller. We are taken down a path of intrigue, and a man's search for the truth. Or maybe not. Stewart Granger is very good, in a quiet performance that runs him from pillar to post. We see him being blackmailed by a dentist of all people, who knows that Granger was an s thief before this job. . The dentist is approached by a man in a mask and told there might be a way to drug Granger to get the combination to the safe. He goes through with the plot, and the money goes into the hands of the masked man. Granger runs all over the place to find that man and clear his name. But then something just does not seem right. The plot is off somewhat, and when it is finally revealed we see that Granger is the masked man, and had planned the whole thing to rob his business. The wife was in on the whole thing. He does it all for her love, but is mistaken that she never wanted money, just his love. And he could have kept her if only he had not used her over and over in his plots. So as we see here, money can't buy love, as she leaves him for another man, and he returns the money, because now it has no value without her. The end is similar to the end of the LIGHT TOUCH, where the art thief returns the stolen religious painting to the church so he can have the love of the girl. Granger is much better here, than in that film. A very good thriller.