Review of Adventure for Two

What a shame that the Russian engineer should turn out to be so handsome and charming and,frankly,British in all but name and accent. He doesn't talk,he speechifies,whether it's taking afternoon tea or launching a ship. Actors are never happier than when hiding behind accents. Sir Laurence particularly favoured them - a bit like Meryl Streep. The difference was he couldn't quite pull them off as often as not. His Russian is all on one note. "Demi Paradise" is of course wartime propaganda when Russia was supposed to be our chum despite the Nazi - Soviet non- aggression pact which is conveniently forgotten . When one barking mad dictator double - crossed another barking mad dictator we were forced to make Hobson's Choice and cosy up to dear old Uncle Joe who subsequently turned out to have been Summa Cum Laude in the pantheon of murdering psychopaths. To ease our path through this moral maze "Demi - paradise" is somehow on a par with Fred Kite's "All them cornfields and singing in the evening". A selection of stereotyped Brits all fall for Larry's easy charm including the very posh heroine who joins the Wrens rather like lovelorn chaps once joined the Foreign Legion. 75 years on all this doesn't hold up too well,then again I doubt the makers ever expected to make a timeless masterpiece;just a journeyman quickie with a better cast than most. As Russian troops raped and looted their way round Berlin and Eastern Europe I would like to think Anatol de Grunwald might have been given food for thought.