Assignment: Paris

1952

Action / Drama / Thriller

5
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Rotten 50% · 2 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Spilled 50%
IMDb Rating 6.2/10 10 834 834

budapest, hungary paris, france newspaper editor

Plot summary

Paris-based New York Herald Tribune reporter Jimmy Race is sent by his boss behind the Iron Curtain in Budapest to investigate a meeting involving the Hungarian ambassador.

Director

Robert Parrish Photo
Robert Parrish

Top cast

Leon Askin Photo
Leon Askin as Franz
Paul Birch Photo
Paul Birch as Colonel Mannix
Dana Andrews Photo
Dana Andrews as Jimmy Race
Paul Frees Photo
Paul Frees as Radio Budapest Announcer
720p.BluRay 1080p.BluRay
775.44 MB
956*720
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 25 min
Seeds ...
1.41 GB
1424*1072
English 2.0
NR
Subtitles us  
23.976 fps
1 hr 25 min
Seeds 5

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by ksf-2 6 / 10

post WW II cold war Thrilla

Assignment Paris is directed by Oscar-awarded Robert Parrish, who had worked with Charlie Chaplin, Hal Roach, and John Ford in the 1920s and 1930s. Looking at his resume, he certainly worked his way up the ladder the old fashioned way. George Sanders plays Nicholas Strang, the wise editor of the paper, for which Jimmy Race (Dana Andrews) works as a digging, scheming reporter. Viewers will recognize Sanders from All About Eve, again playing the older, wiser, mentor. A lot of time is spent with the viewer (but not the characters in the film) watching and hearing what is going on inside the foreign embassies and administration offices, so it's very much a cold war us- against- them story, with Race trying to get to the truth. Caught up in all this is fellow reporter Marta Toren as Jeanne Moray, and no-one is really sure what her story is.... We are led to think she is more involved than we know, but that part of the story seems to have been dropped, or deleted. Also keep an eye out for Leon Askin, who would play General Bulkhalter in Hogan's Heroes ten years later. Quite entertaining, but it almost feels like an episode of Dragnet -- more documentary than story, which could have been the director's intent. Thrilling, if not surprising, conclusion to the movie.
Reviewed by mark.waltz 4 / 10

Result -Boredom.

I have tried to get through this on two different occasions, and I have to come to the conclusion that in spite of a lot of great location photography, sensational editing and intense dramatic music that this is a missed opportunity failing to be engaging cold war melodrama. The plot falls through so many grates that you'd think you were in Switzerland falling through swiss cheese holes rather than Paris and later Budapest. Dana Andrews is a smug foreign coorespondent (far more jaded than his previous foreign correspondents in Hitchcock's classic of the same name and the later "Berlin Correspondent") who gets into all sorts of trouble trying to find a missing correspondent and leading his boss George Sanders and the humorless Marta Toren who willingly risk their lives for him.I found myself wondering once again on my third viewing of this what the point is and where they got the idea. Audrey Totter in a small role as a wisecracking correspondent steals every brief moment she's on, making her and the always watchable Sanders (delicious even in a nice guy part) the best parts of the film. "Hogan's Heroes" recurring player Leon Askin is recognizable as one of the heavies. So many minor characters pop in and out of the film's 80 minute running time that you'd need a map of all of Europe to log them all. After three strikes, this isn't just out. It's deported
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