Agent Steve Mitchell (Brian Donlevy) is sent to Cairo to track down the secret killer society of
"The Order of the Sacred Dove", and of course, as soon as he
arrives there, he learns he is on his own, & his contact Linacos
(Henry Corden), a small fry spy, proves less than trustworthy,
ultimately bushwacking him to get his credentials for a getaway. But
since Linacos did try to blackmail the order, he soon ends up dead
anyway, while Mitchell finds a bloodstained feather - the order's
death-verdict - in his pocket. But when he is attacked by a member of
the Order, Mitchell manages to overthrow him, &, dressed in his
Kaftan, enter the Order's secret lair. Once there, he fights his way
through the Order's ranks, ultimately getting to their leader (Bruce
Lester), an American writer no less. In the end, the leader is killed by
a trap he actually set for Mitchell, while Mitchell manages to inform
the police just in time to arrest the rest of the order before they can
get to him.
The series Dangerous Assignment as such was just standard 50's
secret agent-television fare, trying to give the audience exotic
ambiente every week without ever leaving the studio, as is the case with
this episode: Some
Arab-style studio-interiors are doubling for (indoors) Egypt, while all
the exteriors are just stock footage - makes you think why the story had
to take place in Egypt in the first place. Egypt as such seems to be
inhabitated by some crazed Arabs as opposed to many eccentric Americans
(& of course the Paul Bowles-style author is among them) anyways,
which is more the tourist's rendition of Egypt than the actual country,
but hey, this is just a TV-show.
Brian Donlevy was not the youngest anymore - him being born in 1901
and a World War I-veteran - when he brought agent Steve Mitchell to the
TV-screen, but he - famous for mainly playing heavies & tough guys -
brings a certain convincing toughness & self-assuredness to the character that makes up for
his age. Actually he had already played the role of hard-boiled agent
Steve Mitchell in a long-running radio-series (1949 - 1953) before
- along with Herb Butterfield, who, in radio as on TV, played the
supporting role of the commissioner. Later, Hammer's version of
Nigel Kneale/BBC's Professor Quatermass would benefit greatly
from Donlevy's tough guy image.
By the way, Brian Donlevy also played a character by the name of
Steve Mitchell in the 1938 feature The Sharpshooters, which has
nothing to do with this series.
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