The List of Adrian Messenger

The List of Adrian Messenger (1963) is John Huston's British mystery thriller, and you can watch it online on iFILM. A sly, playful whodunit whose puzzle runs through the cast as much as the plot.

Writer Adrian Messenger spots a pattern: a handful of men have died alone, in accidents that seem completely unrelated. He suspects a single chain of murders and asks his old friend Anthony Gethryn, a former British intelligence officer, to quietly look into a list of names. Soon Messenger's plane is blown apart in midair. Dying, he passes a scrap of a clue to the one surviving passenger, leaving Gethryn to face a killer who can change his face at will.

George C. Scott handles the investigation with tight, understated control, but the film's real party trick is its makeup gag: Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis, Burt Lancaster, Robert Mitchum and Frank Sinatra all turn up in heavy disguise, and spotting the star under the latex becomes a game of its own. A treat for fans of classic British detective stories and old Hollywood alike. Stream The List of Adrian Messenger (1963) online on iFILM.