The 27th of this month marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of the legendary Christopher Lee. During my time writing this blog I've done plenty of posts on Lee's films--there's plenty to choose from.
One of Lee's more obscure movie appearances is a 1961 German-Irish-British production called THE DEVIL'S AGENT. One would assume that this is a German Krimi story, since the leading role was played by Peter van Eyck, and the executive producer was Artur Brauner (both men were veterans of the genre). It is, however, a mediocre spy drama, set in 1950 Europe.
George Droste (van Eyck) is a Austrian wine merchant who lives in Vienna. Droste is coerced into spying for the Americans after he is informed that an old friend who is a German aristocrat (Christopher Lee) is an agent for the Soviets. Droste travels to Hungary, Hamburg, and back to Vienna, attempting to use both the West and the East in an effort to enrich himself and provide a better life for his son. Droste's schemes catch up with him in the end.
THE DEVIL'S AGENT isn't a badly made film, but it's a very lackluster Cold War thriller. Droste isn't a James Bond type--he doesn't really want to be a spy, and he's not very enthusiastic about what he does. Peter van Eyck is much better as a villain than a leading man, and even the twist ending doesn't make the viewer care much about Droste's fate.
The movie has a very notable supporting cast, with such performers as Macdonald Carey, Billie Whitelaw, and Niall McGinnis. The problem is that those three have very little screen time, and very little chance to make an impression. Christopher Lee only shows up at the very beginning and the very end, and his role could have been played by just about any actor. A very young Jeremy Bulloch (the original Boba Fett) is Droste's teenage son.
Marianne Koch (who played Marisol in A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS) plays a woman who escapes from Hungary with Droste, and becomes his love interest. She brings some much needed charisma to the story, but it isn't enough.
One other famous name attached to this film is Peter Cushing. The question is whether he actually worked on it, or whether the scenes he did work on were cut out. Numerous sources have mentioned how press reports of the time stated that Cushing was signed for the production, but no one seems to know what he did on it, if anything (even Cushing himself apparently didn't remember it). If Cushing did shoot some scenes for it, it made no sense at all to cut him out of the picture, as his name could have been added to the roster of all the other notable actors involved. And...if Cushing had been in this movie, it would have made THE DEVIL'S AGENT an official Cushing-Lee film, and it probably would have gotten a special edition home video release by now.
THE DEVIL'S AGENT was directed by John Paddy Carstairs (brother of Anthony Nelson Keys) and the crisp black & white cinematography was by Gerald Gibbs. The British technical proficiency by these men is welcome, but what this movie could have used was the weird wildness of the German krimis. Christopher Lee fans will not be impressed by his tiny part.
I would posit that Peter Cushing is the drunk passed out in the bar next to the woman. The drunk's hairline looks a lot like Peter Cushing's hair lines. See the screenshots.
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