I had to double-check the date of this film when confronted by a McGoohan at least twenty years older than I had expected! Thankfully it was just the make-up department! He plays a kindly old professor who turns out to be too good to be true. Once again McGoohan has been lumbered with a dodgy accent. He really ought to stick with his own voice, it is so unique it could be from any place anyhow! He offers succour and help to the distraught Lee Remick whose stunningly perfect looks are perfectly cast as one of the Nazi 'Lebensbaum'.
Remick plays an American beauty with a perfect life, heading up a model agency. Then one day her perfect life is shattered by the mysterious death in Germany of her son. She discovers she has a grandson. In her travels she unearths some bizarre information about herself. Back home she confronts her mother, who has hidden Remick's true origins from her. The emotional fragmentation of the mother is juxtaposed against the haughty disdain of the wronged daughter that reveals the 'Kruppstahl' in her genetic inheritance. Later, however, Remick has her own disintegration as she recognises that ruthlessness in her personality, finding herself choosing "perfect children" at the modelling agency she heads.
McGoohan turns out to be the brother of Remick's father and has hero-worshipped that soldier all his life. He has also been part of the conspiracy all along. He is revealed as a eugenicist and racialist but more intriguingly, in the final scene, he suggests the pathology in his mind that has allowed him to rationalise those views, unlike the one-dimensional evil Nazi that is the pursuing doctor.
McGoohan reveals a true love of his niece that overrides his loyalty to the programme. He wins the freedom of Remick and her grandson. McGoohan delivers an arresting performance in this final scene as the mundane professor is revealed to be a tangle of contradictions.
The film is generally well put together with some excellent cinematic techniques mentioned by the previous reviewer. The tentative introduction of a potential love interest for Remick seems to jar with the overall more subtle tone of the film. He first appears on a German train in a scene including, weirdly, some Union Jack be-decked London skinheads?! The whole thing smacks of a clumsy addition. That apart the film moves along gracefully and it is moving to watch Remick in the knowledge she was to die so tragically early in 1991.
McGoohan also adds yet another beautiful woman to his list of co-players, memorable ones include Belinda Lee, Melina Mercouri, Virginia McKenna, and Sylvia Sims. How lucky can one man be?
Remick plays an American beauty with a perfect life, heading up a model agency. Then one day her perfect life is shattered by the mysterious death in Germany of her son. She discovers she has a grandson. In her travels she unearths some bizarre information about herself. Back home she confronts her mother, who has hidden Remick's true origins from her. The emotional fragmentation of the mother is juxtaposed against the haughty disdain of the wronged daughter that reveals the 'Kruppstahl' in her genetic inheritance. Later, however, Remick has her own disintegration as she recognises that ruthlessness in her personality, finding herself choosing "perfect children" at the modelling agency she heads.
McGoohan turns out to be the brother of Remick's father and has hero-worshipped that soldier all his life. He has also been part of the conspiracy all along. He is revealed as a eugenicist and racialist but more intriguingly, in the final scene, he suggests the pathology in his mind that has allowed him to rationalise those views, unlike the one-dimensional evil Nazi that is the pursuing doctor.
McGoohan reveals a true love of his niece that overrides his loyalty to the programme. He wins the freedom of Remick and her grandson. McGoohan delivers an arresting performance in this final scene as the mundane professor is revealed to be a tangle of contradictions.
The film is generally well put together with some excellent cinematic techniques mentioned by the previous reviewer. The tentative introduction of a potential love interest for Remick seems to jar with the overall more subtle tone of the film. He first appears on a German train in a scene including, weirdly, some Union Jack be-decked London skinheads?! The whole thing smacks of a clumsy addition. That apart the film moves along gracefully and it is moving to watch Remick in the knowledge she was to die so tragically early in 1991.
McGoohan also adds yet another beautiful woman to his list of co-players, memorable ones include Belinda Lee, Melina Mercouri, Virginia McKenna, and Sylvia Sims. How lucky can one man be?