Good story, Not enough for a whole film

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Perhaps Borgnine is not the very first name that would come to mind when casting a film about a Russian spy who is coerced into working as a double agent, yet here he is, enjoying his brief tenure as a leading man in the wake of his Oscar win for "Marty". He plays a Russian-born Hollywood film producer (inspired somewhat by a real life man who was in the music end of the film business) who has been goaded into passing on secrets to the Communists in order to save the lives of his father and brothers who remain in the USSR. He is discovered by young agent Corbett (here referred to as working for the CBI, but clearly meant to be the FBI) and is convinced to work both sides in order to avoid being executed for his crimes. This involves his flying to West Berlin and commuting between the free world and the Iron Curtain in an effort to uncover the latest Communist plot against the US. Meanwhile, his American cohort Matthews tries to ensure his safety and fellow red spies Prentiss and Dewhurst work on exposing him in order to save their own necks. The sometimes-pedestrian plot is amped up near the end by a tense arrest and escape attempt filmed amid the ruins of the Berlin border. Borgnine tries hard to convey his character's torment and untenable situation, but the fact remains that he is miscast. Matthews is nice-looking and gives a decent performance, but is fairly colorless. It's quite a shock to see slim, youngish Dewhurst, who is very different from the woman most people recognize from her later TV, stage and film work. She does well here, yet hadn't completely accumulated the throaty tones in her voice, which would later make her voice so distinctive. Joloff, who plays a Soviet leader, has his voice very obviously dubbed by Paul Frees. There's also a very annoying narrator who feels the need to dryly state the obvious. He is relieved occasionally by Borgnine, who should have been permitted to provide whatever narration was deemed necessary by the producers. The ridiculous spy training academy pictured in the film almost takes this into parody with obviously American people playing Russians trained to behave like Americans. (This idea was ripped off by "Mission: Impossible" in its first season.) Check out the VERY abbreviated swimwear on the German men in some of the stock footage used. Some dancing girls also appear in a nightclub and they seem to have on bottoms about a size or two too big and aren't exactly the most coordinated Terpsichoreans ever seen. There are a few decent sets and a couple of well-handled location shots, but the budget does appear to be low for this one. It winds up being a capable, but unremarkable, programmer with precious little to distinguish it.

Had no idea if I was going to enjoy this film from 1960, but I had a good idea that Ernest Borgniine, ( Boris Mitrov) would put his heart and soul into his role and he did just that through out the entire film. This was a true story concerning a man who was called Borris Morras, and in this picture was called Boris Mitrov a double agent between the United States and Russia during the Cold War Era. Boris Mitrov is a successful Hollywood producer who was born in Russia and got himself involved with Russian Spys who were willing to bring his father and brothers back from Russia to his home in Los Angeles. However, Boris Mitrov is being watched by our Government Agents and they decided to enlist Boris to become a double agent for the United States in order to be cleared of the charges for espionage against the U.S. There is plenty of suspense and this story takes many twists and turns.

These sort of espionage stories are not favorites of mine unless done with a storyline that is not too convoluted, as is sometimes the case in these kind of spy thrillers. But if they're taut and suspenseful throughout, I can forgive too many complications. Fortunately, the cat-and-mouse game played here is understandable enough and crackles with suspense and tension.MAN ON A STRING is a spy thriller based on the true-life adventures of a real counter-spy Boris Morros (dubbed Boris Mitrov here), played by ERNEST BORGNINE. While the plotting is far from simple, it's easy enough to enjoy the air of menace and danger that permeates the entire story without getting bogged down into the details of entrapment that always accompany these spy stories.It moves at a brisk pace under the direction of Andre deToth (for awhile, he was a husband of Veronica Lake in the '40s), and all of it is filmed on locations in East and West Germany. KERWIN MATTHEWS is Borgnine's fellow spy assigned to guide him through the various activities, COLLEEN DEWHURST does well in her second film after a couple of TV roles, and GLENN CORBETT is excellent as a government agent.It's rather talky for the first hour and then builds to a tense climax among the deserted buildings of East Germany when Mitrov's activities become known to the Russians, which leads to a shootout scene that caps the ending in a satisfying and suspenseful way.Borgnine gives a solid performance and the film itself is well worth watching.There's a narration that gives it an almost documentary approach, somewhat like another film produced by Louis De Rochemont, THE HOUSE ON 92nd STREET.Summing up: Crisp, exciting spy thriller.

Ernest Borgnine, now almost 90 years of age and still acting for Hollywood, went in 1960 to Berlin to play the main character called Boris Mitrov in an east - west drama of director André de Thoth called Man On The String. He is the man on the (black and white) run for cover through east Berlin before the great Wall was built and Kennedy named himself a Berliner. Borgnine has learned in Moscow the names of American spies in the states; he memorizes them and is picked up by a friendly helper next to the American sector and is taken in a nice Mercedes sedan car back to Uncle Sams sector where he spills the beans. Not much later Billy Wilder went to Berlin as well an made a great comedy about Coca Cola and the rest of the world. De Thoth picture isn't funny at all and actually the time before and after the making of the big Wall was not to laugh at. So director de Thoth decided to play the semi documentary card and one must say he succeeded in giving an impression of the area around the Brandenburg Gate and the nowhere land that is today called again Pariser Platz. So the artwork he took straight from the streets and ruins of cause of the western sectors. 15 years after the war quite some parts of West Berlin still looked pretty far from nowadays and were well to use as action areas suggesting the Hollywood staff had permission to film beyond the American sector right in the middle of East Berlin.Borgnine is an unusual type of spy and he decorates the scenes in the Moscow offices of the soviet secret service fairly well. Of cause he is not Paul Newman who is also a spy memorizing a secret formula in the Torn Curtain of Mr. Hitchcock a little later but not a bad alternative.The area next to the reborn American embassy and also not far from the Russian embassy was in the meantime nicely swept and one would need skilled optical and digital works to bring back an image of the invisible iron curtain of 1960. Spy games of the old fashion type are presently not fashionable, spy games star no more Borgnine but Redford and Pitt and are placed in the near east in colour and scope. I am beginning to like Borgnine in his black suit tumbling over the ruins of Berlin and showing his life long gap between teeth.