The Man Between is a 1953 British thriller film directed by Carol Reed and starring James Mason, Claire Bloom, Hildegard KnefGeoffrey Toone.   A British woman on a visit to post-war Berlin is caught up in an espionage ring smuggling secrets into and out of the Eastern Bloc.

Ivo Kern (James Mason) is a former attorney who had once participated in Nazi atrocities, and is now selling his expertise to German communists to kidnap and transport certain West Germans to the eastern bloc.  Although Kern desires to relocate to the West he is hampered by West German suspicions and his criminal past.  Nevertheless, he agrees to a final kidnapping venture that fails, forcing his employer to take over and abduct Briton Susanne Mallison (Claire Bloom) by mistake.  Kern had earlier feigned a romance with Mallison as a means to seize his kidnapping target. The abduction of Mallison presents Kern with an opportunity to both return the unfortunate victim to the West and impress western authorities of his atonement.  Despite Kern's selfish and darkened facade, Mallison still falls in love with the defector. She tells him that she can see humanity deep inside the former attorney who had once studied to defend the innocent and the 'rights of man.'