Action of the Tiger (1957)

Director:  Terence Young

Writers:  Robert Carson, James Wellard, Peter Myers

Composer:  Humphrey Searle

Starring:  Van Johnson, Martine Carol, Herbert Lom, Gustavo Rojo, Jose Nieto, Helen Haye, Anna Gerber, Anthony Dawson, Sean Connery, Yvonne Romain, Norman MacOwan, Brian Sunners, Helen Goss

More info:  IMDb

Tagline:  How a beautiful blonde and a tough smuggler escape the net of Continental conspiracy!

Plot:  Carson is an American contraband runner approached by Tracy, a French woman who wants him to help rescue her brother from Albania where he is being held as a political prisoner.

My rating:  5.5/10

Will I watch it again?   No.

With the exception of maybe BATTLEGROUND (1949), I don't think I've seen any Van Johnson movie where he was the lead.  Even if I had, judging by his performance in this film, I don't think I would've remembered.  Here, he's bland and his voice is often monotone or close to it.  I mostly watched this for an early Sean Connery performance and for Herbert Lom.  Lom has a pivotal role and has about fifteen minutes of screen time while Connery has about a minute each in the beginning and at the very end so if you blink, you'll miss him.  Connery has a lot to do in those couple of minutes but it's nothing much to speak of.  The film itself suffers from a lackluster male lead and a screenplay with some poor dialogue for Carson (Johnson).  The movie has some action but it's also got that family kind of action drama as Carson has to travel several miles on foot with Tracy (Carol), her blind brother and several children.  Carson is supposed to be a hardened and impossible man but he puts up with this lot as if it were an eye-rolling family film.  And partly because of that, you just know that Carson and Tracy are going to end up together at the end.  Ugh.