Diplomatic Passport

American diplomat Ray Anderson and his wife June arrive in London after a long, exhausting plane flight. In the middle of the night, Ray is called away to Paris by a mysterious phone call. June awakes to read in the morning papers that her husband has been in a car crash. What follows is a nightmare, with June trying to find Ray in a city where she doesn't know a soul. She eventually learns that he has been kidnapped by a criminal consortium who want to use his car's diplomatic plates to smuggle diamonds out of the country. It's up to June to save the man she loves - but how can an innocent housewife foil a gang of cutthroat killers?

Diplomatic Passport is one of several low-budget "intrigue" movies shot in Europe in 1954 by producer Burt Balaban (son of Paramount Pictures President Barney Balaban and cousin of actor Bob Balaban) for distribution on television by Flamingo Telefilm in the United States. (The others include The Sergeant and the Spy, Doorway to Suspicion, and Eight Witnesses.) Owing to its low-budget nature, it stars Marsha Hunt, an actress who was recently hard up for work after being blacklisted by Hollywood for being named as a Communist in the infamous Red Channels pamphlet. Previously she had appeared in such prestigious pictures as Pride and Prejudice (1940), Cry 'Havoc' (1943) and Smash-Up, the Story of a Woman (1947). Diplomatic Passport also features a young Honor Blackman, the crush of British spy fans everywhere for playing Bond girl Pussy Galore in Goldfinger (1964) and Cathy Gale, John Steed's original female partner on The Avengers (1962-1964).