In Vienna, 1956, after Soviet tanks crush the Hungarian uprising, American adventurer Michael Reynolds is hired by an international espionage ring to smuggle a noted scholar and resistance leader, Professor Jansci, out of Communist-ruled Hungary during the Hungarian Revolution. Reynolds goes to Vienna to see the professor's daughter, Julia, and he persuades her to accompany him to Budapest. Once there, Reynolds is kidnapped by freedom fighters who take him to the professor's secret headquarters. Meanwhile, one of Jansci's trusted aides is captured by the Hungarian Secret Police and forced to reveal the professor's hiding place. Reynolds, Julia, and Jansci are quickly rounded up and taken to Szarhaza Prison, where they are tortured by the sadistic Colonel Hidas. They are rescued by a resistance fighter known as The Count, who tricks the Communists into placing the prisoners in his custody. At the last moment the ruse is discovered. The Count is killed as the other three race to the airport where a chartered plane is waiting. Hidas pursues them but is killed in an accident on the runway. Safe at last, Reynolds, Julia, and the professor leave Hungary.
The film was based on Alistair MacLean's novel The Last Frontier which was published in the US as The Secret Ways. Actor Richard Widmark movied into production in the 1950s making Time Limit. His production company, Heath Films, bought the screen rights in March 1959. Widmark called it "an anti-Communist thing" which "had nothing to do with my politics." In August 1959 Heath Films signed a two picture deal with Universal, the first of which was to be The Secret Ways. Widmark visited Austria with his wife Jean Hazlewood, who would write the script. They did considerable research and made a significant number of changes to the novel. In May 1960 Phil Karlson signed to direct. Karlson went to Vienna on June 1, and filming began in August. Many local Austrian actors were cast in support roles.
Shooting
According to an interview in Cinema Retro, associate producerEuan Lloyd stated that producer and star Richard Widmark did not like director Phil Karlson's proposed tongue-in-cheek direction of the screenplay written by Widmark's wife Jean Hazlewood. Widmark took over the direction of the film in September without credit. Karlson says Widmark hired him on the basis of The Phenix City Story because "he wanted to try to get realism in it" and the director told him "I wanted to do it as a James Bond. But he hadn't heard of James Bond. I said, "If we do this tongue in cheek, we'll be the first ones." He said, "No, I don't want to do it that way"." Karlson says he left for the last week of filming. Years later, after Karlson made The Silencers, a Bond-style spoof, he says Widmark tried to get him to do three more pictures. The director said, "He realized we'd have had, maybe, the first picture that would have taken him out of the role of the guy who kicks the old lady down the steps." Widmark had a series of movies in development as a proposed follow up.
