The movie needed to have Howard be one of the hawks

In the 1950s, it wasn't uncommon for movies to be made in the UK with one American star (usually past their studio contract days) in the cast to make it easier to get a distribution deal in America. An example of this is The House of the Seven Hawks.

Robert Taylor, who had been at MGM for a good two decdaes, plays John Nordley, an American who lives on his British-flagged boat and makes money by taking people on charter trips. Apparently he does more, like going into international waters for people who want that, which he's not licensed to do. He promises the harbor master that he's not going to do this again, oh no, scout's honor.

Yeah right. A certain Mr. Sluiter (Gerard Heinz) is looking to charter the boat, ostensibly for a seven-day cruise along the coast, but once they get out of port he offers Nordly £500 to take him to Maasluis in the Netherlands, showing Nordley wads of cash in his briefcase. (There is a real Maassluis just down the river from Rotterdam, but the British port, Baymouth, is a fictional place as far as I can tell.) Along the way, Sluiter claims to be feeling not so well, so he goes and lies down, especially since it's apparently going to be an overnight trip anyway.

Sure enough, Nordley goes to check on Sluiter, and finds him quite dead. Nordley gets his money and takes a few other things off Sluiter's body, notably what looks like some sort of map. Before getting into harbor in Maasluis, Sluiter's daughter Elsa (Linda Christian) shows up, not realizing that Dad is dead.

Things get complicated here. Nordley had reported Sluiter's death, but it turns out he didn't die of a heart attack, but of insulin shock. (Nordley is innocent and the cops know it because they know Sluiter took his insulin capsule before meeting Nordley.) Sluiter was a police inspector in the UK on a special assignment, which Inspector Van Der Stoor (Donald Wolfit) won't reveal the nature of. But Nordley is in some trouble because his story doesn't fit. When he talks about seeing Sluiter's daughter, Van Der Stoor brings in the daughter, who is a woman named Constanta (Nicole Maurey) who has never met Nordley! Obviously Elsa is an impostor.

Nordley is let out on bail, which was paid by a mysterious Rohner (Eric Pohlmann) who also puts Nordley up at a local hotel. Rohner also has a main Peter tailing Nordley. But Nordley gets away in order to go see his old friend and partner in crime Charlie, whose help Nordley wants in getting out of his predicament.

Eventually it's revealed that the map that Nordley took off of Sluiter is some sort of key to finding a bunch of buried Nazi loot, and everybody wants it, and who knows who's double-crossing whom. The only thing we can guess is that since Nordley is the one played by a star, he's probably going to figure out a way to wind up on the up-and-up so that the movie could still adhere to the Production Code and get distributed in the US.

The House of the Seven Hawks is the sort of thing that by the late 1950s when it was made would probably have worked better as episodic TV. Everybody tries, but there's nothing new here and nothing particularly exciting. The movie plods along in mediocre fashion until all is revealed, not quite satisfyingly since you'd think there are some serious plot holes. Still, for Taylor, it must have been nice to get away to the Netherlands to do a movie on location, especially since his wife at the time, Ursula Thiess, was from Germany.

The House of the Seven Hawks is available on DVD courtesy of the Warner Archive.