csteidler Newspaper reporter George Sanders hurries through the airport--he's heading home from an assignment but is keeping his eyes open. In the first moments of his stay in Damascus, he encounters a number of questionable characters: Lenore Aubert, inscrutable and beautiful in an exotic outfit complete with tall head wrap. Virginia Bruce, who hangs around the hotel looking nervous and appears to have some connection with Gene Lockhart, a gambler with dubious morals. Robert Armstrong gets to the point as an American foreign service agent sent to keep Sanders from stirring up local mischief:"You're a troublemaker," Armstrong tells Sanders bluntly. Sanders replies: "That's what Herr Goebbels said about me once. I was deeply flattered."The plot is fairly straightforward. One of Sanders' colleagues is found murdered; Sanders sticks around to investigate. Soon Sanders realizes he is working to identify and thwart Nazi operatives. Determining who's who among the other players is neither simple nor safe.Sanders is excellent--suave, clever and tough, this character is more serious-minded than the Saint or Falcon. Some good aerial photography over the desert adds excitement as the action builds. Mystery, thriller, patriotic WWII picture....Overall, a solid and efficient production.

MartinHafer Reporter Michael Gordon (George Sanders) is passing through Damascus, Syria from an assignment. Another American reporter arrived along with Gordon...and soon this other reporter is discovered dead! Michael is determined to get to the bottom of whoever is responsible for his murder...and the trail soon heads to a pretty lady, some Nazis and even the chieftain of the Bedouin tribes! And, again and again, Michael slips in and out of one dangerous situation after another but you know he'll be okay, as he's the hero!This is a decent film--mildly interesting but made even better by the lovely performance by George Sanders, who is, as usual, very smooth and engaging. Well worth seeing and a bit better than the typical wartime propaganda film.

sol **SPOILERS** Dull as dishwater WWII action film with the suave debonair as well as witty George Sanders as American reporter Michael Gordon in the just liberated, from the Vichy French, Syrian capital Damascus.Gordon comes across an underground Nazi spy ring in the city after his friend and fellow American reporter William Chalmers, Robert Anderson, was found murdered with a knife stuck in his back. With the help of the woman of mystery and intrigue in the film Yvonne Danesco, Virginia Bruce, Gordon tracks the spy ring right to the steps to the swanky hotel he's staying at run by Nazi Aagent Eric Latimer, Alan Napler. Smelling that there's something rotten in Latimer's hotel, besides the food, Gordon goes into action despite being told by the US Ambassador Matthew Reed, Robert Armstrong, to take he first plane out of Damascus the very next day before he creates an nasty international incident.***SPOILERS*** It's when Gordon gets wind from Yvonne, who's actually a Free French spy, that the Nazis are trying to incite a Muslim revolt against British and Free French rule in the Middle-East that he finally convinces Reed to get off his duff and get the US, who at the time was neutral in the war, to put the squeeze on the Nazis and their Arab supporters! Not waiting for the calvary-the US &UK-to come to his rescue Gordon single handedly puts an end to this clear and present danger to the allied war effort by getting the word out, through his exotically beautiful daughter Mounirash (Leone Aubert), to the top Arab Desert Chief Adbul El-Rashid, H.B Warner, that something is stinking up his camp and it's not the left behinds from his camels and horses. The deal or word is that old man El-Rashid is being suckered by one of his top lieutenants the sneaky and Nazi loving Eben Kareem, Jamiel Hasson, to join in with the Nazis in their war against the regions, The Middle-East, top colonialist powers the hated British and French! It's then that old man Rashid blew a fuse and ordered his men to put an end to this traitor in their mist, Eben Kareen, who soon ended up together with his Nazi friends dead in a fiery car crash!P.S Among all the amazing feats preformed by George Sanders in the movie the by far most amazing was how he kept his sparkling white and immaculately pressed dinner jacker from as much as getting a speck of dirt on it all throughout the film! Sanders or Michael Gordon also was able to fly a plane as skillfully as any top air ace in the RAF USAAF or Luftwaffe. All that with having just under a dozen flying lessons under his belt! As for the fierce and revolting Arabs warriors in the movie the only thing that they seemed to be able to do was run around in circles, on their camels, in the Syrian Desert with no idea to where they were going! That's until the wise old desert chieftain Abdul El Rashid finally gave them some directions where to go!

ADAM-53 Basically, this is a Casablanca rip-off by RKO about passion and hidden Nazi sympathies in World War II Damascus. Ex-Simon Templer ("The Saint!") star George Sanders is on impeccable form as a New York reporter (with a British accent) on the trail of Nazi sympathisers in the desert. When his fellow reporter is murdered, Sanders (in a white dinner-jacket that predates Sean Connery's wearing of it in Goldfinger by some 20 years) sets off coolly to track down the killers, uncovering a plot in which the Nazis aim to unite the Arab tribes against the Allied forces. The story is pure hokum, but never mind. Some of the action and the audacity of the plot are breath-taking and anyone who enjoys The Saint or The Falcon films, or Casablanca, will probably enjoy it. It's only a pity Sanders didn't make more films as the hero -- this was his last. After this, he would only play the sneering villain and, eventually, become a real-life parody of his own screen persona. A pity, as he really could have been more hero than cad when the fit took him. If you like this movie, check out the novel by George Sanders (actually ghosted by Falcon screenwriter Craig Rice) called "Crime on My Hands" in which Sanders has to solve a muder on a film set. It's light, amusing and reminiscent of the Saint/Falcon films that made Sanders a star in the first place.