[2] John Craig (Baker) is an aging British secret agent who is tasked with returning a defector, the Russian scientist Kaplan who has foregone science for a modest life as a goatherd in Turkey.

Craig faces opposition from his boss, his younger replacements, an American secret agent, a Turkish hotel keeper, and an organization of Russian Jews hostile to Kaplan.

However, Greenspun expressed that Chaplin's performance was "so reticent and so appealing as to constitute a small personal triumph.

She fills these moments with delicate intimacy that contrasts with everything else in the film that really does suggest a reservoir of feeling to oppose the lives around her that are wasted in mere action.

"[3] Time magazine noted the standout performances of Donald Pleasence as the Head of British Intelligence and Vladek Sheybal as a minor agent.