Crack-Up

Basically B movie espionage hokum, but with ideas behind both script (Charles Kenyon and Sam Mintz) and direction as Donlevy, an arrogant test pilot disgruntled because he feels (justifiably) he has been cheated over a new patent, decides to recoup his losses by selling the plans to a foreign power. When things seem on the verge of falling into routine, Lorre emerges from his disguise as an amiable half-wit, tolerated around the airport as a harmless mascot, to reveal himself - inimitably - as the ruthless spymaster. The final sequence, in which their escape plane crash-lands in the sea and the prospect of imminent death prompts both Lorre and Donlevy to a wry re-examination of the masks they have assumed, is contrived but bizarrely effective.