Paper Tiger

Niven does an ageing Billy Liar with a wavering upper lip, spinning tall stories to the crushingly winsome little brat, son of a Japanese diplomat, whom he tutors in some unspecified Far Eastern country plagued with cretinous revolutionaries. In so far as the film has any serious themes, they are entirely retrospective, with their roots in WWII: Kruger (the German), Mifune (the Jap) and Niven (the Englishman) all conform to desperate type. Niven, of course, despite all his blustering, still proves capable (it's that Dunkirk spirit) of acquitting himself when the chips are down (in the form of a listless kidnapping plot).