House of Secrets (1956 film)

1956 British film by Guy Green

23 October 1956 (1956-10-23) (UK)

Running time

85 minutesCountryUnited KingdomLanguageEnglish

House of Secrets, also known as Triple Deception, is a 1956 British crime thriller film directed by Guy Green and starring Michael Craig, Anton Diffring and Gérard Oury.^[1] It is based on the 1955 novel Storm Over Paris by Sterling Noel.

Plot

Naval officer Larry Ellis bears a striking resemblance to counterfeiter Steve Chancellor and is mistakenly arrested in his place. Chancellor is killed in a car crash and Ellis goes undercover to impersonate the dead man, to lead the police to his gang who plan to inundate the UK with huge amounts of forged bank notes.

Ellis devises a plan for smuggling the counterfeit notes into England, but his impersonation is rumbled. The plane he is travelling on with the money (which has been replaced by plain paper) is rigged to explode, but he bales out in time.

Cast

Michael Craig as Larry Ellis / Steve Chancellor
Anton Diffring as Anton Lauderbach
Gérard Oury as Julius Pindar
Brenda De Banzie as Madame Isabella Ballu
Geoffrey Keen as Colonel Burleigh, CIA
David Kossoff as Henryk van de Heide, CIA
Barbara Bates as Judy Anderson
Alan Tilvern as Brandelli
Julia Arnall as Diane Gilbert
Gordon Tanner as Curtice
Eugene Deckers as Vidal
Eric Pohlmann as Gratz
Jean Driant as Gratz's assistant (uncredited)
Carl Jaffe as Walter Dorffman

Production

It was shot in Technicolor and VistaVision at Pinewood Studios near London and on location in Paris and Marseille^[2] The film's sets were designed by the art director Alex Vetchinsky, and the costumes by Julie Harris.

Michael Craig called his part "a sort of forerunner to the James Bond type of movie" which "in spite of all our best efforts it ended up being fairly boring." He was paid £30 a week.^[3]

Critical reception

The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "A somewhat juvenile spy story with attractive and well chosen Parisian backgrounds. The police, wise and mannerly, and the crooks, suave and heavily accented, give the impression of having been faithfully transcribed from the pages of The Skipper and Rover. The acting, particularly of the foreigners, is also solidly traditional; the photography and art direction, on the other hand, are often distinctly above average."^[4]

References

^ "House of Secrets". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 6 January 2024.
^ Schwartzman, Arnold (19 November 1991). "Interview with Guy Green side 3". British Entertainment History Project.
^ Craig, Michael (2005). The Smallest Giant: An Actor's Life. Allen and Unwin. p. 74.
^ "House of Secrets". The Monthly Film Bulletin. 23 (264): 155. 1 January 1956 – via ProQuest.