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Colonel Ross (Guy Doleman): (informing Palmer about his upcoming transfer to Major Dalby’s department): “You won’t have much time for cooking. Dalby ‘works’ his men, and he doesn’t have my sense of humor.”
Palmer (Michael Caine): (responding with a straight face) “Yes, sir. I will miss that, sir.”

An air of mystery and menace to the very balance of scientific power pervades the pressing problem Civil Intelligence has to solve, namely the curious kidnapping and brain-draining of a slew of distinguished scientists. The protagonists involved seem eminently qualified.

There’s Dalby, chief of Civil Intelligence, a bristly-mustached, guardsman type, quivering with efficiency and sarcasm, as played by Nigel Green. There’s Ross, chief of Military Intelligence, who has curiously passed the buck, and, in Guy Doleman’s slippery portrayal, seems not quite worthy of trust.

During the 1940s and ’50s, Doleman was one of the busiest actors in Australia, appearing in the majority of films made there at the time, and first coming to the attention of a wider cinematic audience when he starred in the post- apocalyptic thriller “On the Beach” (1959) opposite Gregory Peck. In the 60’s, his film and television appearances in such productions as “The Ipcress File,” “Funeral in Berlin,” “Thunderball,” and “The Prisoner,” would ensure he remained both a familiar face, yet a largely unknown name for decades to come.