Crisis

Screenwriter Richard Brooks kicked off a largely distinguished directorial career with this highly charged political melodrama. Grant plays an American doctor forced to perform a brain tumour operation on South American dictator Ferrer (based, it seems, on Peron). The success of the endeavour places the medic and his wife Raymond in even greater danger themselves. Although the storyline bears a strong resemblance to the British thriller State Secret, also made in 1950, Brooks is adept at maintaining the tension. Grant looks as though he'd rather be holding a dry martini than a scalpel.