In the late 1920s, George Raft was said to be the best Charleston dancer in New York. Already a celebrated exhibition dancer in clubs and on stage, the handsome Raft was encouraged by a gangster associate to try acting in Hollywood. He soon gravitated to gangster roles and became a star in the controversial Scarface (1932). While Raft helped Mae West get started in films, continued to associate with underworld figures, especially the notorious Bugsy Siegel. He remained a lifelong investor in gambling clubs in Las Vegas, London and Havana.

Raft's career momentum stalled partly because he didn't want to play disreputable characters, that he referred to as 'heels.' He was less famous for the movies he made than the ones he turned down, such as The Sea Wolf, High Sierra and The Maltese Falcon, all in 1941. He chose to buy out his Warners contract, but as an independent, he scored few hit pictures. Yet, newspaper coverage of his rumored underworld connections kept him in the public eye. In 1951, Raft signed a multi-picture deal for work in England, joining a steady flow of free-agent Hollywood stars that found employment on foreign shores.

English film companies sought Hollywood stars so they could compete in the American market, where all-British casts were generally a tough sell. London's Banner Films produced three George Raft thrillers in a row, Loan Shark (1952), I'll Get You (1952), and The Man from Cairo (1953). In each Raft played an adventurer or undercover agent, initially mistaken for a criminal but soon proven to be on the side of law and order.

John Baines was one of the writers on the omnibus horror classic Dead of Night (1945), and is credited with that film's two best episodes, about a haunted mirror and a ventriloquist's dummy. His featherweight script for I'll Get You (original title: Escape Route) claims that Western scientists and technicians are being lured behind the Iron Curtain by underhanded means, including kidnapping. After the American aircraft designer Dr. Halas is snatched by Soviet agents, his assistant Steve Rossi (George Raft) comes to London, offering to hire himself to the same people. Steve dodges immigration; with Scotland Yard on his trail he tries to locate the mysterious foreign agent Michael Grand (Clifford Evans).

Steve Rossi first encounters a seductive, shady woman (June Ashley) who buys him a change of clothes. Then he meets Joan Miller (Sally Gray), who identifies herself as Michael Grand's secretary. She's really with 'British Private Intelligence,' which has been monitoring Rossi all the while. The enemy agent Michael Grand proves to be a lone wolf with a secret radio transmitter hidden behind a beauty shop. He sacrifices his actual secretary (Patricia Laffan) in an attempt to avoid capture and retreats to the shadows until Steve Rossi corners him on a wharf.

The film proved to be significant for being Sally Gray's final film. Though she was offered a contract by RKO, Gray retired from the industry after marrying British peer and legislator Dominick Browne.

By Glenn Erickson