Workhorse director Kurt Neumann was so accustomed to surpassing the expectations of the studios, filmmakers, and independent producers who hired him that even after his death, which fell suddenly between the premiere and general release of The Fly (1958), he still had two more pictures in the can. His last, Counterplot (1959), was made for Eros Films and J. Harold Odell, who had production facilities and all the proper permits for shooting in and around scenic San Juan, Puerto Rico. Odell and Neumann had already made Machete on location there with Albert Dekker and Lee Van Cleef, and Odell would later partner with actor-cum-director Bruce Bennett for The Fiend of Dope Island (1961). Employing an old script by Richard Blake (who died in 1954, shortly after working on the science fiction classic Invaders from Mars), Counterplot stars Forrest Tucker (then making more pictures abroad than at home in Hollywood) as a fugitive from justice loved by both a cabaret chanteuse (Allison Hayes) and a local youth (child actor Jack Salvatore, billed as Jackie Wayne) who idolizes the surly Yank and attempts without success to shield him from the authorities. The nearly thirty-year collaboration of Neumann and cinematographer Karl Struss ended here; the four-time Academy Award nominated director of photography (who won an Oscar in 1929 for shooting F. W. Murnau's Sunrise) would retire after making Counterplot and devote the remainder of his often brilliant career to shooting TV commercials.

By Richard Harland Smith