Masquerade

An early script collaboration from William Goldman produces a nicely understated satire on the spy movie boom, in which the Foreign Office despatch Hawkins and Robertson (old wartime buddies, not very up on the espionage thing) to kidnap a young Arab prince for his own protection prior to his coronation. The plot convolutions of Victor Canning's novel Castle Minerva are given a wryly cynical edge, and Dearden copes surprisingly well with the spectacle.