There are espionage writers who use the genre to explore the complexities of geopolitics, but Robert Ludlum, on whose novel this competent, enjoyable picture is based, was not one of them.
"The Lady Gambles" (1949), directed by the soon to be blacklisted Michael Gordon, is a smoothly competent problem picture about a reporter's wife who discovers her addiction to games of chance during a visit to an embryonic Las Vegas.
Citron likes to hire "technically competent 'big picture' scientists who are comfortable working on multiple projects at the same time.
The room sent it flying to £4.18 million, a gigantic price for a competent but stereotyped picture by an unknown artist working in the Bruges manner.
His pictures are competent but not artful or studied, unlike the work of more commercial photographers of Alaska's Native population, like William Case and Horace Draper.
We could, however, be persuaded to look at pictures if a competent photographer compiled them in book form.
"Out of this," he said Thursday, "will come a clear picture of a competent, strong, capable woman who shares the same judicial philosophy that I share".
It has probably never been easier to take good pictures - not merely competent ones - than it is today: we're living in a sort of golden age and of course it won't last.
He was characteristically modest: "Any competent photographer can take good animal pictures; there is no particular technical knowledge required … I have the greatest respect for the nature photographer and for those who take pictures of animals for scientific records".
Imagine the person talking to you and picture yourself as a competent colleague in control.
