Nicole Kidman was following an honourable tradition when she played a gorgeous neuro-surgeon in Days of Thunder for Highly Dangerous casts beautiful Margaret Lockwood as an entomologist. On this evidence the main job qualification seems to be that you don't find insects repulsive. What next, JayLo as a nuclear physicist?
Despite being written by the estimable Eric Ambler, the screenplay for Highly Dangerous seems to me to be somewhat misjudged. The `humorous' elements, while never being remotely funny, serve to drain the excitement away from the dramatic sequences. I think the film would have worked much better as a straight thriller without all the nonsense of Margaret imagining she is a character in a radio serial after she's been given a `truth drug'
Highly Dangerous has many elements typical of a Cold War drama of its time, the implacable police chief (a typecast Marius Goring), the brutal armed forces, the dissident priest who shelters the fugitives etc. Interesting that the war in this case is biological.
Apart from the interest this film will have for the fans of Margaret Lockwood, a big British star of the years around World War II, Highly Dangerous is at best a fair time-passer.