A US secret agent is sent to Berlin to pretend to be a spy for the USSR.A US secret agent is sent to Berlin to pretend to be a spy for the USSR.A US secret agent is sent to Berlin to pretend to be a spy for the USSR.
Clete Roberts
- Narrator
- (voice)
Jimmy Bates
- Russian Student Spy
- (uncredited)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaFilm debut of Ted Knight.
- GoofsThe K-9s look straight at the cameras and even move towards them, instead of walking with the actors who are meant to be their handlers.
- ConnectionsReferenced in Going Attractions: The Definitive Story of the Movie Palace (2019)
Featured review
Ernie Doublecrosses The Reds
Based on the real life story of Boris Morros who was a musician instead of a film producer, Man on a String comes at the tale end of the Cold War espionage thrillers where there was absolutely no doubt as to who the good guys and bad guys were on the screen.
I can understand the reason for renaming the lead character that Ernest Borgnine plays Boris Mitrov and changing his occupation even, for dramatic purposes to give the character more scope. But for the life of me was anyone fooled when the agency he worked for was renamed the Central Bureau of Intelligence?
Borris Morros has his own page on IMDb and you can see the rather astonishing list of film credits he had, working on the scoring of a whole lot of films, some of them classics like Stagecoach. His own life gives a lie to the notion that there were no Communists in Hollywood. The blunderbuss approach taken by the House Un-American Activities Committee is another issue altogether.
The Mitrov character we see here isn't exactly stealing the atomic secrets, in fact he's not really doing any spying at all so to speak. As the Russian agent says, all they're doing with him is buying his good name to gain entrée into other places.
Our own CIA knows that and turns him into a double agent where he does perform useful work in identifying Soviet agents here. In real life it wasn't quite as dramatic as shown in Man on a String.
One thing that is of interest is that Man on a String, made as it was in 1960 in the wake of Nikita Khruschev's boast about how he would bury America. That is their attitude, that victory for them was inevitable because Marx said that's how history was flowing. It's interesting to watch this film now in the light of the fall of the Soviet Union. And it fell because it's economy couldn't keep spending militarily and provide its citizens with basic necessities.
Man on a String is a Cold War relic, but interesting viewing nonetheless.
I can understand the reason for renaming the lead character that Ernest Borgnine plays Boris Mitrov and changing his occupation even, for dramatic purposes to give the character more scope. But for the life of me was anyone fooled when the agency he worked for was renamed the Central Bureau of Intelligence?
Borris Morros has his own page on IMDb and you can see the rather astonishing list of film credits he had, working on the scoring of a whole lot of films, some of them classics like Stagecoach. His own life gives a lie to the notion that there were no Communists in Hollywood. The blunderbuss approach taken by the House Un-American Activities Committee is another issue altogether.
The Mitrov character we see here isn't exactly stealing the atomic secrets, in fact he's not really doing any spying at all so to speak. As the Russian agent says, all they're doing with him is buying his good name to gain entrée into other places.
Our own CIA knows that and turns him into a double agent where he does perform useful work in identifying Soviet agents here. In real life it wasn't quite as dramatic as shown in Man on a String.
One thing that is of interest is that Man on a String, made as it was in 1960 in the wake of Nikita Khruschev's boast about how he would bury America. That is their attitude, that victory for them was inevitable because Marx said that's how history was flowing. It's interesting to watch this film now in the light of the fall of the Soviet Union. And it fell because it's economy couldn't keep spending militarily and provide its citizens with basic necessities.
Man on a String is a Cold War relic, but interesting viewing nonetheless.
helpful•234
- bkoganbing
- May 19, 2007
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Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Language
- Also known as
- Ten Years a Counterspy
- Filming locations
- West Berlin, Berlin, Germany(city streets)
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
- Runtime1 hour 32 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1
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