Following on from last week’s Friday Night Movie ‘Iron Curtain’, tonight’s offering also is on the theme of Communist subversion of the West during the Cold War. ‘High Treason’ is a fast paced spy drama made in 1951 by the Boulting brothers film makers. The plot concerns a scheme by Communist agents to try to disrupt Britain’s industry by cutting off power to factories, offices, shops and homes. They hope that by carrying out a huge act of terrorism at power stations they can precipitate a Communist and Left wing revolt in Britain.

To effect the plan the Communist agitators have infiltrated businesses and industry in the suburbs of London in order to get them close to the targets of their terrorism. The Communist activity and from then on the terror plot comes to the attention of Scotland Yard’s Special Branch and there is a race against time by police to stop the Communists cutting the power and causing chaos.

This is a brilliant and fast paced espionage thriller which I was delighted to watch and hope you wil be too. The only downside to this film is the copy quality. This is the only version I can find of this movie out there and it does have an intrusive logo on the top left of the image. However it’s worth trying to ignore this as this is an excellent and highly watchable film made at the hight of the Cold War.