Ivor Goldsmid Samuel Montagu (23 April 1904, in Kensington, London – 5 November 1984, in Watford) was an English filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, film critic, writer, table tennis player, and Communist activist and spy in the 1930s.

He helped to develop a lively intellectual film culture in Britain during the interwar years, and was also the founder of the International Table Tennis Federation.

[1] The story was by H. G. Wells, and the stars of the film were Charles Laughton and Elsa Lanchester, while the remaining cast were his friends including Norman Haire (also Montagu's doctor), Sergei Nolbandov and Joe Beckett.

In 1930, he accompanied his friend Sergei Eisenstein to New York and Hollywood; later in the decade Montagu made compilation films, including Defence of Madrid (1936) and Peace and Plenty (1939)[2] about the Spanish Civil War.

[6] His older brother Ewen Montagu, a barrister in civilian life, became a naval intelligence officer during World War II, privy to the secrets of top-secret Ultra and the mastermind of the successful deception that launched the invasion of Sicily, Operation Mincemeat.

A 25 July 1940 cable from Simon Davidovitch Kremer, Secretary to the Soviet Military Attaché in London, identified him as the somewhat reluctant new recruit who was supposed to create an "X Group" of like-minded friends.

They even tapped his phone and opened his mail, creating three volumes on him by early 1942, but found nothing specific, much to Ewen's relief, since he was always worried that his own career in Naval Intelligence would be adversely affected by the activities of his younger brother.

[9] Only after the decryption in the 1960s of Venona telegraphs from March 1940 through April 1942 was he purportedly identified as "Ivor Montagu, the well known local communist, journalist and lecturer," code name "Intelligentsia", in communications from the Soviet GRU.

Montagu was awarded the prestigious Lenin Peace Prize in 1959, given by the Soviet government to recipients whose work furthers the cause of socialism, primarily outside of the USSR.