British private detective Richard Todd is sent to Venice, there to locate and a reward a wartime partisan. Once he arrives, the detective finds himself the quarry of every Venetian cop in sight. Todd soon learns that he's been fingered as a murderer--and that it's just possible he's been framed by the partisan, who has become a desperate criminal. Heavily influenced by The Third Man (49), Assassin is a routine action melodrama spiced by genuine Austrian settings. The film was initially released in Great Britain as Venetian Bird (hmmm...sounds a lot like Maltese Falcon). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi