Though credentials come no higher than those on this film - director John Sturges, writers Edward Anhalt and James Clavell from a novel by Alistair MacLean (writing as Ian Stuart) - it doesn't quite hit the target as a top-flight espionage thriller. The opening gives us a vividly-designed sequence of controlled menace, leading to murder, but what follows rarely escapes the routine. And can these distinguished novelists between them have penned scientist Richard Basehart's dialogue? 'Nothing can stop the Satan Bug,' he mutters grimly. 'California could be a tomb in a few hours.' Not with intrepid agent George Maharis on the case it couldn't. In the acting stakes, however, Maharis runs second-best to Basehart, and to Anne Francis, who brings an acid Lauren Bacall touch to the heroine.

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