User Reviews

At the time, the cold war, this would have some topicality going for it that it now has lost. Without this the situation is pretty dull, how exciting is it if a bunch of boxes end up in the wrong place?

Matthau is kind of fun whether playing drunk or indignant or covering nicely for a few slip ups, like losing his hat on a low hanging doorway or flubbing a line.

The story lacks much excitement, though it does have several completely different locations, which had to make shooting it live a challenge.

It's just all not very interesting.

(Note: FOB stands for "Free On Board". Indicating "FOB" means that the seller pays for transportation of the goods to the port of shipment, plus loading costs. The buyer pays freight, insurance, unloading costs and transportation from the arrival port to the final destination. The passing of risks occurs when the goods pass the ship's rail at the port of shipment. Internationally the term specifies the port of loading, e.g., "FOB New York" or "FOB Vancouver." –per Wikipedia)

This a half-hour live, (kinoscoped), suspense drama that looks a lot like the first couple seasons of the Avengers. It all is shot in a TV studio and everything seems to be taking place at night. Each scene ends with a close-up of an actor's face as he reacts to something. It gives you the feeling of being next to the actors, rather than watching them through a telescope. In this case you are next to a very young Walter Matthau as a manufacturing executive who accompanies a shipment of lathes to Vienna where is he selling them to a supposedly reputable firm that is in fact selling materials to the Communist block. The lathes are on their way to Warsaw, as Walter finds out. He finds he can't trust anyone as he encounters fake cops and diplomats in his efforts to retrieve the shipment, which he winds up destroying so the Commies can't get them. The one person it turns out he can trust is a reporter played by Jane Meadows. And even younger looking Mike Kellin and Robert Webber are the chief bad guys.