Little Red Monkey (1955)

Russian intrigue has a famous Russian scientist in hiding in London, protected by secret agents as Russian agents scheme to find him and kill him. A red monkey is seen escaping from the scene of a murder, and if that doesn't give foreign agents an alibi, nothing else can. American agent Richard Conte comes to London to get involved in the solving of the case and gets himself more than he bargained for with the presence of the lovely Rona Anderson. It's pretty dry, with the organ and piano score making it seem like a TV drama rather than big screen. This is a rather slow cold war melodrama that takes some patience to get into, although the monkey fingerprints are very cute. While the new wave style of filmmaking worked for novice directors like Kubrick and Aldrich, some experimental works seemed just odd. Moments of comedy add to a frantic finale that shows this to be a film with multiple personalities.

Around 60 years ago I remember the title number being played on the radio.Lyrics were added and it was sung by Jimmy Edwards.The film is rather less memorable being a fairly routine spy thriller starring an ageing Richard Conte as the parachuted in fading American star for the benefit of the American distributors.The DVD has some interesting trailers and an alternative beginning.This is far longer and much less puncture than the actual beginning.There is an intrepid reporter trying to ferret out a story,ignoring the fact that the government would quash any story with a D notice.Still this film was very topical at the time with the defection of Burgess and MacLean.

This is a mid-fifties British B picture (aka LITTLE RED MONKEY, the original title, which is on the DVD) for which they brought in the American Richard Conte as a visiting FBI agent, to fetch a Russian scientist defector to America. The script was co-written by Ken Hughes (1922-2001), who also directed it, and whom I knew rather well. Ken was never a highbrow when it came to literature, though his taste in art was good because of his obsession with the paintings of Delvaux, of which he had a gigantic example on his wall above his sofa. (It is now in a national museum somewhere.) I must say, Richard Conte makes just about the least sentimental lover in the history of the cinema. The way he treats the girl who falls in love with him is so rude and inconsiderate that one wonders about his orientation. Never mind. The British police and secret service bungle spectacularly throughout this tale, making mistake after mistake, taking no basic safety or security precautions, and the attempt to look after a major defector is portrayed as an utter farce. A bit too close to real life. It reminds me of the dealings between MI6 and Gaddafi. What is there about the word 'incompetence' that the British security experts do not understand? They presumably have their noses buried too deep in dodgy dossiers, of which there has been a spectacular example recently, something to do with the number 70,000. Hahaha. Well here they go again in this film, letting everybody get killed, with the almost equally hapless Yank finally saving them, more or less by chance. The monkey of the title really exists and climbs up buildings and opens windows for entry by humans to commit dastardly deeds. There are other elements revealed at the end which I shall duly keep top secret, something which no one in the film seems to know the meaning of.

This very British film was a "B" picture given headlines because of the title song which was a massive hit in both the Uk and in the States.Only read below if you want to know about The little red monkey.The little red monkey was in fact a very very small/tiny adult russian spy who because of his size could enter small areas thought safe agains five foot plus size humans.He was only called "The Midget" in the film and he was played by Leonard franks.This was the basis of the movie.If you ever get to watch this film, do not expect too much and you will not be disappionted.The music is freely on line to download from various sites in the UK. Just type in "the little red monkey" into a search engine and up will pop lots of links.