Popular reviews

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  Review by Hattie ★★½

  An inconsequential Cold War film - I admit my only interest in Beyond the Curtain was that it starred Marius Goring and Richard Greene.

  *spoiler ahead*

  I was surprised by the ending, in that, I can't help feeling that they missed the obvious for the final scene.
  Surely, with this scene mirroring the opening - but this time with the knowledge that Peter and, we assume, Linda have made it to West Berlin - the obvious conclusion was for Peter and Linda to be dancing next to Jim and Karin...?

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  Review by Paul D ★★

  An air hostess who had previously fled East Germany is sent back home after her plane strays into Russian air space on a trip out of Berlin. Her English fiance is determined pursues her in an attempt to bring her back.

  You may be expecting a game of cat and mouse and a series of characters who are not what they seem to be. But that would be expecting too much, there are no double agents, no double crosses, the good guys and the bad guys are all very clearly defined, which actually means that watching it blind you spend your time trying to figure out who is going to betray whom which, while it's happening, has the same effect.…

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  Review by Weirdlingwolf ★★★½

  Able journeyman director Compton Bennett reveals some considerable cinematic flair by nimbly orchestrating a goodly number of pulse-poundingly exciting scenes in his intense, competently made, consistently gripping 1960s thriller 'Beyond The Curtain'. Fortuitously working from an effectively lean, unfussy text by Bennett, Charles B. Blair and John Cresswell the pacey, frequently dark thriller finds beautiful, latterly emancipated East German-born Karin (Eva Bartok) in a fraught, emotionally complex dilemma, being recaptured by the conspicuously ominous East German police, as due to turbulence her flight was forced to fatefully cross Russian airspace.

  Working for an American airline offers poor Karin no immunity, so her handsome fiancé pilot Richard Greene, desperate to be reunited with his beloved bride-to-be must heroically contrive a daring,…

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  Review by DylanDoorsFan ★★★

  Behind the curtain.

  6/10

  
  Talking to my dad about the charming Comedy film Don’t Take it to Heart (1944-also reviewed), he mentioned about recently getting on DVD, another title starring Richard Greene, leading to us raising the curtain on a viewing.

  View on the film:

  Filmed in the rubble of post-war Britain standing in for Berlin under Soviet control, co-writer (with John Harlow and John Cresswell) director Compton Bennett & The Flemish Farm (1943-also reviewed) cinematographer Eric Cross heat up the Cold War Thriller atmosphere with excellent panning shots,and rough close-ups under stylish high contrast lighting in real locations, tracking Kyle and Karin attempting to slip from behind the Iron Curtain.

  Finding herself trapped in East German, Eva Bartok gives a…

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  Review by Reza Said ★★★

  Beyond the Curtain (Compton Bennett, 1960) 6/10

  Old fashioned but exciting Cold War thriller set during the time when there was a dangerous side of Berlin. A commercial airliner goes off course and is forced to land in the Russian zone. The stewardess (Eva Bartok), a refugee from East Germany, is detained and sent back to East Berlin. She is used as a decoy to flush out her brother who is working for the underground movement. Her fiancé (Richard Greene), a British pilot, goes to Berlin in search of her and has to play a cat-and-mouse game with her former friend (Marius Goring) who turned traitor and is working for the secret police. Interesting shots of a ravaged Berlin which…