16.The Best of Spy Movies

The following lists are from Nigel West (http://nigelwest.com/).

Nigel West developed lists of the best spy movies. They are listed below, along with synopses of those I have seen. I’ve made some corrections to Nigel’s list for dates and accuracy of titles. Any errors are totally my responsibility. I will add blog pages for some of them that have a great deal about espionage in them.

THE BEST SPY MOVIES

Pascali’s Island(1988) James Dearden, Director [Not available from Netflex]

The year is 1908; after centuries of unchecked power, the Ottoman empire is rapidly crumbling. As a result, Turkey's secret agents--those that haven't already been eliminated by downsizing or death--operate in a vacuum, their superiors knowing little and caring less about their activities. One such spy is Ben Kingsley, a minor bureaucrat of no ambition. When ordered to help disreputable English citizens Charles Dance and Helen Mirren in the theft of a precious Greek artifact, Kingsley goes along without question. He is even prepared to follow orders and double-cross Dance the moment the robbery is pulled off. But as the film progresses, Kingsley becomes less and less of a by-the-book government functionary and more and more of an enigma--to Dance, to Mirren, to his country, to himself. More than your usual "caper" film, Pascali's Island has more layers than an artichoke.

Three Days of the Condor (1975)

Among the films expressing cynicism post Watergate, 1975's Three Days of the Condor illustrates the theme of loneliness—that we should never trust the government and must be very cautious about individuals. The film holds up surprisingly well, specifically dated as a 1970s period piece by fashion style and through numerous shots of the World Trade Center.

Robert Redford plays Joe Turner (code name Condor), a bookish researcher for the C.I.A. who reads spy novels and feeds creative scenarios into the computer database at a New York City sub office. One rainy day, Turner heads for lunch, returning to find that his six officemates have all been coldly gunned down by hit men, led by Joubert (Max von Sydow, in a casting coup). Without a back-story, Turner must be from another city because the only people he knows in NYC are associated with the C.I.A. and the ones with actual faces are mostly dead now. So who can he trust?

What if the scenario he proposed about an internal rogue C.I.A. element actually turns out to be true, and he's now being pursued from real professionals within the organization. And all he's ever done is read books. That's the basic setup, based on James Grady's Six Days of the Condor.

The film remains suspenseful enough to retain interest. Director Sydney Pollack sets the story in motion with a quiet, routine day at the office. But he allows glimpses from mysterious men from the shadows, who are recording the comings and goings into the Literary Society. Who are these guys anyway? Coolly efficient, it's not long before it's revealed that the whole affair is C.I.A. related. From the post-Nixon and Vietnam protest period, many of us no longer trusted the government and many felt that they had to be on the enemies list. If the government was involved, many felt that evil plots were involved as well. Three Days of the Condor confirms the paranoia. For a more believable story of political intrigue during this period, see Costa-Gavras' Z or All the President's Men.

Redford's fictional quandary works for the most part, given the paranoia of the times although his chance selection and kidnapping of Kathy Hale (Faye Dunaway) stretches believability. Most women would be freaked out if a stranger took them at gunpoint to their apartment. Dunaway attempts to act like she's frightened and talks haltingly, but she warms up to Redford far too quickly and beds him the first night of her capture.

Kathy is on screen for a relatively short time and doesn't want to talk about her life, her black and white photographs of lonely November park benches and leafless trees reveal a great deal about her character, and this is fully exploited with her exchanges with Redford's character. Redford is much less revealing beyond being another Robert Redford type character—smart, playful, and clever, and he's got those "good eyes that don't lie, don't look away much, and don't miss anything." But he is cast as the star vehicle and delivers all the role calls for. He also gets to shout out great lines like, "Fuck the Wall Street Journal!" and later foreshadow the Iraq fiasco.

Max von Sydow provides the acting joys without having much to say, although he clearly reveals the cynicism of the period when explaining how he could move from being a regular C.I.A. agent to hit man: "I don't interest myself in why, I think more in terms of when. Sometimes where? Always how much?" The wise old man, who has previously faced Mr. Death in chess in Bergman's classic The Seventh Seal, understands others far more deeply than they do themselves—when Turner's Asian love interest calmly tells the hit man that she won't scream, he smiles wryly, replying simply, "I know." The most suspenseful scenes all involve the veteran von Sydow, most notably a largely wordless scene in the same elevator as Redford.

Pollack's flawed film remains entertaining and continues to hold up over the years, representing the days when the enemy lay within—the days when flag waving patriotism was looked upon as naive because many knew that the government really was out to get you. A more complex time, perhaps, unlike the first half of the twentieth century nostalgically longed for by John Houseman in a nice cameo: "I miss that kind of clarity." Now that many Americans have returned to simpler days with clear-cut enemy terrorists and clamor for simple minded politicians (Sarah Palin anyone?), it's worth returning to a film like Three Days of the Condor for murkier times where everyone is suspect.

In The Company of Spies (1999) Tim Matheson, director[Not available from Netflex]

In The Company of Spies begins with a deep cover CIA agent in North Korea being kidnapped by the Korean Internal Service (KIS). Jack Marko (Karl Pruner) has discovered some crucial secret, but the KIS isn’t sure how much he knows. Worse, Marko was taken was before he could transmit the information to the CIA.
CIA Director Tom Lenahan (Ron Silver) needs the expertise of former East Asian division chief, Kevin Jefferson (Tom Berenger), to recover Marko and the information. Jefferson set up Marko’s infiltration but quit five years ago in disgust over political compromises forced on and within the CIA. Jefferson is reluctant but loyalty forces him to return, albeit on his terms: a free rein to run the operation, pick his team and answer only to Lenahan so internal bureaucracy can't endanger the mission.

Dr. Sarah Gold (Alice Krige), a psychologist with whom Jefferson might have had a relationship if their work hadn’t gotten in the way, is Jefferson’s second in command. The rest of the team includes Todd (Arye Gross), a flashy , by CIA standards, computer and communications expert; Paul (David McIlwraith) and Joanne Gertz (Elizabeth Arlen), a bickering married couple who specialize in satellite surveillance and photography; and Dale Beckham (Clancy Brown), an old-time CIA agent whose drinking has relegated him to training new recruits.

The dynamics and interactions of the characters flesh out what could have been a by-the-books spy drama. They bicker, get on each other’s nerves, pat each other on the back and pull each other through marathon work sessions as they struggle to recover not only Marko, but whatever secret he obtained. Berenger, Silver and Krige in particular have great chemistry in their scenes together, but the entire cast is believable and incredibly watchable.

The plot itself is good, with nice twists and turns. It neither spoon feeds information nor creates a puzzle so complicated it can’t be figured out. Director Tim Matheson does a good job of pacing and balancing the political maneuvering with the field work. Spies has some absolutely nail-biting scenes but except for one sequence with the Navy SEALs, the suspense comes from Marko’s interrogation and Dale’s investigation rather than predictable car chases and boring explosions. A gripping espionage drama doesn’t have to be cookie cutter.

Spies takes a decidedly pro-CIA approach, which isn’t surprising since it’s the first film shot with the agency’s cooperation. It doesn’t whitewash the agency’s failures, though it places more blame on the whims of politicians than the agency itself. Spies presents CIA agents as hard-working people with good intentions who sometimes make mistakes, not James Bond imitators.

The end of the film practically screams for it to become a TV series, and you probably will, too. How can you not with characters this engaging and a plot this smart? The only trick is the series should stay on Showtime out of the insanity of network television scheduling. Showtime won’t make any sort of decision, of course, until it sees how In the Company of Spies does, so if you like it, click here to send them a note. If you don’t request it, it won’t come.

The Lives of Others (2007)

This German film (Das Leben der Anderen) is set in 1980s East Berlin. It is director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's debut feature (which earned an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film). The film provides an exquisitely nuanced portrait of life under the watchful eye of the Stasi as a high profile couple is bugged. When a successful playwright and his actress companion become subjects of the Stasi's secret surveillance program, their friends, family, and even those doing the watching, find their lives forever changed.

The Fourth Protocol (1987) [Not available via DVD from Netflex]

An Englishman Abroad (1983) [Not available from Netflex]

Question of Attribution (1992) [Not available from Netflex]

Our Man in Havana (1959)
Our Man in Havana, the third and final collaboration between director Carol Reed and writer Graham Greene, makes a sardonic post-script to their great success, The Third Man. Like that film, it deals in espionage in an exotic hotspot (in this case, Havana, just as revolution was brewing in Cuba's jungles) where numerous world powers had interests, and features an innocent who manages to get in the middle of international scuffles. The difference is in the tone. Our Man in Havana is a dryly witty satire of the spy game.

Alec Guinness is Jim Wormold, a British vacuum cleaner salesman in Havana and the doting and devoted single father of a beautiful, spoiled teenage daughter (Jo Morrow). British Secret Service agent Hawthorne (a perfectly droll Noel Coward) picks, for reasons beyond the viewer, Wormold as the perfect choice to be his man in Havana. He appeals to Wormold's patriotism and duty but it's the income that sells Wormold; he wants to send his daughter to a fashionable finishing school in Switzerland, far away from the Havana hothouse and the attentions of the corrupt Capt. Segura (Ernie Kovacs, perfectly oily as the soft-spoken terror).
Wormold turns out to be a lousy agent and a failure as a recruiter, but a terrific author. Failing to deliver the expected reports, he makes up a doozy of a secret agent yarn, complete with a cast of supporting agents (all in need of generous expense accounts) and a secret installation right out of a science fiction thriller. His fantastical reports are eagerly devoured by officers back home in London (Hawthorne is dubious but too concerned for his own reputation to point out the fabrications of his own agent) and the head of British Intelligence (Ralph Richardson, dryly officious) sends a staff to Havana to help Wormold oversee these exciting developments. Not exactly the response Wormold had hoped for. Maureen O'Hara plays the neophyte secretary who becomes quite attached to Wormold even as she learns the truth of his reports.
There's a deft wit to Greene script, which Guinness and the cast play perfectly, and plenty of humor at the expense of gullible intelligence officers. But the film takes a darker turn when the fantasies spun by Wormold take root in the spy community. His phony agents are based on real people, and one of them turns up dead. His apolitical best friend and drinking buddy, the world-weary German expatriate Dr. Hasselbacher (Burl Ives), gets caught in the middle of the intelligence turf war. And Wormold himself becomes a target of enemy agents and, out of necessity, becomes the real life espionage player he'd been posing on paper all this time. He's almost too good and confident in the transition, belying his amateur status and everyman vulnerability. But like Wormold himself, the film gives in to the fantasy to let him be a hero.
The inspiration for Graham Greene's original novel Our Man in Havana was his own adventures and observations when he worked for British Intelligence during World War II. He paints a decidedly unflattering portrait of the intelligence bureaucracy and the gullible leadership that eagerly accepts the most fantastic reports without a trace of skepticism. Amidst all that hubris and shameless self-promotion of the intelligence service leaders, Wormold's deceptions seem downright naïve and harmless in contrast. Technically it could be called treason, but Reed and Greene treat it mostly as simple creative license. For all the satire, this cynical look at the spy game in many ways anticipates the very serious work of John le Carrè. – in fact, the basic plot and premise were reworked and updated by John le Carrè for The Tailor of Panama – and Alec Guinness' Jim Wormold, the working class British spy, can be seen as a comic sketch of a man who will become Le Carre's decidedly mundane but thoroughly competent George Smiley, a character Guinness (under)played to perfection in the British TV mini-series Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Smiley's People.
"This film is set in Cuba before the recent revolution," reads the text that opens the film. The script was indeed written during General Fulgencio Batista's reign and Reed and Greene scouted locations in Havana while Batista fought Fidel Castro's guerillas, but by the time they were ready to shoot, Batista had fled and Castro had won. It had little effect on the production, as it turned out. Greene had spent a lot of time vacationing in Cuba and reporting on the revolution and had met and befriended Castro. Castro supported the film and its unflattering portrait of Batista's regime and his poeple asked for very few changes, and even those were minor.
Ernie Kovacs had grown a beard for the role of the corrupt police chief; when Fidel Castro came to power, the beard had become a symbol of revolutionary heroism and Kovacs was forced to shave it off. In return, Reed had the freedom to shoot all over Havana and contrast the bustling streets and bars of Havana's working class neighborhoods with the country clubs and exclusive retreats of the very wealthy. And while the film doesn't directly comment on the politics of Batista's Cuba, the corruption and totalitarian power of the government and its police are suggested in comments tossed off in the course of banter.
Carol Reed deftly directs Greene's dryly witty dialogue and brings a snap to the repartee, and he brings a very real sense of danger to the climax, where Wormold has to face the dangers he's brought down on himself. Its the transition between the two that is not so effective and Reed seems on wobbly ground when he tries to mix the tones. Yet the cast is uniformly excellent (with the exception of Morrow, who makes Milly a vacuous figure) and the black and white CinemaScope photography by the talented Oswald Morris is superb. (Morris went on to shoot the Le Carre adaptation The Spy Who Came In From the Cold and Reed's own Oliver! and won the Academy Award for Fiddler on the Rood.) He crisply captures the buzzing atmosphere of Havana, which he plunges into shadow for the nighttime climax. After Wormold plays a cunning game of checkers with Segura, using miniature bottles of liquor for pieces, Morris and Reed send the camera off-kilter, like a boat rolling through swelling seas, suggesting both the drunken instability of Wormold and the unsettled state of affairs caused by his fabricated intelligence reports.
Sony releases the film under its vaguely defined "Martini Movies" banner, a collection of otherwise unrelated films that the studio frames with a mix of camp and nostalgia. Our Man in Havana doesn't really fit either of these definitions, but no matter, it's a good enough excuse to pull the rarely seen film out of the vaults and on to home video. The transfer is well done but there are no supplements to speak of, only the original trailer and a goofy "Martini Minutes" featurette, which is nothing more than a tongue-in-cheek promotion for the DVD series.

Best World War II Spy Movies Based on Fact

The Man Who Never Was. (1955).

A successful attempt at disinformation, codenamed MINCEMEAT, by the British to mislead the Germans on the site of the Allied invasion of Europe. Using the body of a young man who died from pneumonia. The British created a legend for the “Major” and gave him documents and artifacts to make a convincing case he was a flyer shot down. The Germans bought the legend and moved assets from Sicily to Greece expecting the invasion there.

Operation Crossbow (1965)

An Allied espionage effort to determine what the Germans we doing about V-1 rockets. The film illustrates many aspects of an espionage operation. The kinds of people needed and skill-sets are determined. Prospective agents screened. Conventional wisdom denies that there is any program to observe, and if there were, it would be no real threat. Meanwhile the Germans do have a viable program beset with technical problems. Before sending in agents the British use photo-reconnaissance, requiring thousands of pictures and hundreds of photo interpreters to look at each picture particularly for something new that might fit the needs of the German program.

A program is located at Peenemünde, Germany, but it is believed to be far underground. Agents are dispatched to infiltrate the factory. One of the potential agents interviewed in Britain is a double agent, actually working for the Germans. He is able to tease out and eliminate at least one of the infiltrators. However two agents survive long enough to signal the exact location of Peenemünde so it can be destroyed by virtually the entire RAF bombing force. Many lessons about black ops are taught in this film including how an agent must stick to his legend when captured. Some will be killed, but others will survive to complete the mission. Further, not only were the Germans building the V-1, but the V-2 and the V-10 which would theoretically reach New York. None of this could have been confirmed without agents in place putting their lives at grave risk.

I Was Monty’s Double (1958) [Not available from Netflex]

Operation Amsterdam (1959).

A high-adventure film about a British agent and two Dutch resistance fighters who struggle to keep the supply of industrial diamonds in Amsterdam away from the Germans who are invading Holland. The movie is based on true-life events that occurred in Amsterdam in 1940 just before the German invasion. Several terms used in the film are unfamiliar in our times and include fifth columnist, magnetic mines, and collaborator. These terms will be defined in another blog. Lessons taught in the film are that everyone is suspect and no one can be trusted in times of war and invasion. Further, objectives become very harsh. The British agent says at one point, “I am not concerned with feelings, only results.”

The film shows the chaos of the times under invasion, with refugees filling roads making exfiltration so difficult. It raises the issue of just what is loyalty? To suspect everyone being a traitor? To lend full support to the resistance? It also shows that the best plans of a covert operation will go astray, and there is no accounting for the benefit of serendipity to find a way to complete the mission.

The Heroes of Telemark (1965) [Not available from Netflex]

Five Fingers (1952) [Not available from Netflex.]

The movie is based on a true story. In neutral Turkey during WWII, the ambitious and extremely efficient valet for the British ambassador tires of being a servant and forms a plan to promote himself to rich gentleman of leisure. His employer has many secret documents; he will photograph them, and with the help of a refugee Countess, sell them to the Nazis. When he makes a certain amount of money, he will retire to South America with the Countess as his wife.

Carve Her Name with Pride (1958)

Carve Her Name With Pride is the inspiring story of the half-French Violette Szabo who was born in Paris in 1921 to an English motor-car dealer, and a French Mother. She met and married Etienne Szabo, a Captain in the French Foreign Legion in 1940. Shortly after the birth of her daughter, Tania, her husband died at El Alamein. She became a FANY (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry) and was recruited into the SOE and underwent secret agent training.

Her first trip to France was completed successfully even though she was arrested and then released by the French Police. On June 7th, 1944, Szabo was parachuted into Limoges. Her task was to co-ordinate the work of the French Resistance in the area in the first days after D-Day. She was captured by the SS 'Das Reich' Panzer Division and handed over to the Gestapo in Paris for interrogation. From Paris, Violette Szabo was sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp where she was executed in January 1945. She was only 23 and for her courage was posthumously awarded The George Cross and the Croix de Guerre.

The movie is based on the true story of Violette Szabo, from the biography book by R. J. Minney: Carve Her Name with Pride: The Story of Violette Szabo. London: Newnes. ISBN: 9781844154418. Minney also wrote Notes of a Russian Sniper: Vassily Zaitsev which was also made into a recent movie.

Triple Cross (1967) [Not available from Netflex]

THE BEST SPY MOVIES WRITTEN BY INTELLIGENCE PROFESSIONALS

Thirty-Six Hours (1964), by Alec Waugh [Not available from Netflex]

The 39 Steps (1935), by John Buchan

At least three versions of this film have been made, the first by Alfred Hitchcock in 1935. Richard Hannay (Robert Donat) is vacationing in England when he gets caught in a web of mystery in this Hitchcock thriller. Shots ring out at a show, and a terrified woman (Lucie Mannheim) begs Hannay to help her. He's certain she's crazy - until she appears at his flat with a map in hand and a knife in her back, muttering something about 39 steps.

Eluding the police, Hannay travels through Scotland to unearth the truth. The mysterious 39 steps turns out to be an organization of spies stealing the secrets of Britain’s Air Ministry for a new airplane. This Hitchcock movie has been rated as the 21st best all-time British movies. The 1978 movie is American, starring Robert Powell as Richard Hannay. In 2008 it was reissued with Rupert Penry-Jones as Richard Hannay. Hannay has his holiday interrupted when secret agent Scudder (Eddie Marsan) bursts into his apartment, staying alive just long enough to deposit a notebook. Pegged with murder, Hannay must decode the book and nab the culprits -- before they find him first. In this nimble BBC update of John Buchan's novel, German spies and British police give chase as Hannay races to deliver the coveted code and avert a world war.

Lawrence of Arabia (1962), by David Lean
One of the cinema’s grandest spectacles, Lawrence of Arabia is at turns exhilarating, devastating, and puzzling as it ponders the mystery of a man who was a mystery to himself.
Based on the autobiography of eccentric, flamboyant WWI-era British officer T. E. Lawrence, who aided the Arab Bedouin against the German-allied Turks, David Lean’s nearly four-hour epic is most often praised, justly so, for its magnificent desert cinematography, sweeping score, and career-defining performance from Peter O’Toole.
But attention should also be given to the screenplay, adapted by first-time screenwriter Robert Bolt, who later wrote A Man for All Seasonsand The Mission. A case can be made for viewing Bolt’s Lawrence as a counterpoint to the Thomas More of his A Man for All Seasons. On the one hand, Lawrence seems to have, as Bolt wrote of More in the prologue to A Man for All Seasons, "an adamantine sense of his own self." On the other hand, More has something that Lawrence finally lacks — a place to stand, an unshakeable foundation on which his sense of self is founded. When the flood waters come, More’s house stands fast, while Lawrence is left adrift and lost.
The film is fundamentally concerned with the question: Who is Lawrence? The question is first raised in the opening scenes, as reporters question those who knew him are asked about him at his funeral. Was he an extraordinary warrior? A shameless self-promoter? Something else? Some combination of the above?
A second, unstated question, implicit in the first, is: Why ask who Lawrence is? Who is Lawrence to be the subject of such an inquiry? Why make a study of this particular man’s identity? Certainly Lawrence accomplished remarkable things in Arabia. But there are plenty of men whose achievements bear more attention than their personalities — and vice versa.
With Lawrence, though, the film suggests that there is an intractable link between who Lawrence is, or whom he or others think he is, and what he accomplishes. It also works the other way: What he does and doesn’t accomplish, and still more what happens to him, have a devastating impact on whom he perceives himself to be.
When we first meet Lawrence, though only a minor functionary in a British outpost in Cairo, he seems insouciantly persuaded of his own potential for greatness, and delights in demonstrating the strength of his will by snuffing a burning match with his fingers. Then, offered an opportunity to distinguish himself, he unhesitatingly seizes it — and succeeds beyond all reasonable expectations.
So unshakeable is his self-confidence is he that he grandly pits himself against, if not God, at least the pious religious acceptance or fatalism of the Muslim Bedouin. Setting out against all odds to avert an event that a Muslim companion (Omar Sharif) declares "is written," he punctuates his achievement by emphatically declaring, "Nothing is written." He even goes so far as to proclaim of his own audacious plans, "That is written — in here" (tapping his head). Indeed, for a time it seems, as even Sharif is forced to admit, "Truly, for some men, nothing is written, unless they write it."
Such language is of course disquieting not only for Muslims; Christians will inevitably think of St. James’s warnings concerning presumptuous declarations about what we will do tomorrow. Though we seldom feel the need to explicitly add a disclaimer such as "if God wills," we still find it jarring to hear someone seemingly repudiate even an implicit disclaimer of this sort.
Then, though, comes a nasty shock that brings back those implacable words "It was written," and this time Lawrence has no reply. Even so, subsequent triumphs enable him to recover from this incident, and at the height of his messianic complex he believes himself invisible and untouchable, even playing at walking on water.
And then comes the blow from which Lawrence doesn’t recover. Ironically, this event could almost have been the ultimate confirmation of his mystique, for though he is captured, interrogated, and abused, his identity goes undetected and he is soon released. If that’s not invisibility, what is? The first time I saw the film, I half expected him to get up and move on as if nothing had happened, just as he did earlier with the match and the bullet. It is evident the abuse is homosexual, an almost totally taboo subject for movies when this film was made. We do not know whether Lawrence’s change of character is more from humiliation of giving in to torture, being raped by another man, or his invisibility.
But no. Somehow his self-illusions have finally been shattered. In a way, it seems almost a letdown, for lesser men have suffered worse things and not broken. Yet only now does he fully appreciate that he is mere flesh and blood, and he begins grasping toward something that apparently he has previously scorned and now realizes may slip away from him entirely: common humanity. The story doesn’t end there, but it’s a decisive turning point.
In the end, what most stands out about Lawrence’s character may be something like caprice. He seems at first to have a personal, passionate interest in the fate of Arabia for its own sake — but this interest doesn’t just get mixed up in his messianism, it seems entirely subverted by it, as if Arabia is merely the stage for Lawrence’s self-revelation. The moment Lawrence suspects that he’s not a figure of mythic grandeur after all, he loses all will to try to contribute to the Arab cause, even on a mortal level, which would not be the case if he cared about Arabia for its own sake.
In the end, his dalliance with messianism ends and he goes back to Great Britain with a promotion, to write and drive motorcycles. At one point he says he loves the desert because "it’s clean"; later he prays never to see it again, but is told "For you there is only the desert."
Who is Lawrence, in the end? Can one not know oneself, and still be anyone? God help us all.

Five Fingers (1965), by Ludwig Moyszich [Not available from Netflex]

Dr. No (1962), by Ian Flemming
This film was Sean Connery’s first as 007. It is the franchise finding its feet. In 1962, there was no other movie quite like it. Certainly there were glossy action pictures and violent detective pictures, but the makers of Dr. No were inventing something wholly different the Bond picture. With nothing to go by (aside from Ian Fleming’s novel, which gave them the plot but not its eventual tone), it’s no surprise that it takes half the movie to get into what we now recognize as prime 007 territory.

The behind-the-scenes lead-up to Dr. No is a tale well known to Bond fans, who might as well skip the next two paragraphs. Ian Fleming had been hunting for a movie deal for nearly a decade; after the author’s plan to concoct an all-new story to launch a Bond franchise fell through (a mess that led to Thunderball, both the novel and the film), the rights were finally bought by producers Harry Saltzman and Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli. With Thunderball unavailable, Dr. No was chosen to be Bond’s screen debut.

Cary Grant was first offered the role of 007 but a series was not for him, and he insisted he would only do one film. James Mason was also considered, but he said he’d bow out after two. Fleming himself asked his friend Noel Coward (with actual agent experience during World War II) to play the titular villain (replying via telegram, “no no no”). Eventually the producers and director Terence Young picked Sean Connery as Bond (who signed on for a five picture deal) and Joseph Wiseman as No.

Dr. No the film sticks rather closely to Fleming’s novel, as do the next two films. Changes are minimal and mostly cosmetic. Most notable is the filmmakers’ decision to make No an agent, not of the USSR, but of the fictional terrorist organization SPECTRE, thus distancing the film from the Cold War elements of the books. Curiously, it would be the Roger Moore films - the ones completely unrelated to Fleming’s work - that would make the Soviet Union a key player.

The basics remain. James Bond is sent to Jamaica to investigate the death of fellow agent Strangways . We know he has been executed by a trio of blind men. H is trail leads him to the mysterious island of Crab Key, then to Dr. No, who finally reveals a plot to disrupt NASA’s space program.

Not counting his obligatory visit to M’s office, it’s not until Bond makes his way to Crab Key that Dr. No really feels like a James Bond Movie. Before this, it’s a fairly simple (albeit highly involving) detective/spy yarn, notable mainly for its rather chilling nature. The film’s first half includes several cold-blooded murders, including a most notorious one by the hero himself. Few leading men from late-50s film noir would be so brutal as to repeatedly shoot someone in the back - after taunting him first. “That’s a Smith & Wesson, and you’ve had your six,” he wryly informs his would-be assassin.

As originally shot, Bond fires five extra shots into his already-fallen enemy’s back. Censorship cut it down to one. The Bond of Dr. No is flippant, cocky, and seductive, but the main trait that separates him from other screen heroes and antiheroes is his viciousness. He’ll even rough up a lady or two, strong-arming a dragon lady photographer (Marguerite LeWars) with the same gusto he uses to take on No’s henchmen. Granted, she does earn it, what with the creepy flashbulb licking and sinister sneering

Other factors help this movie stand out from other action offerings of the day. Most obvious is the wit, which takes the film furthest from Fleming’s work and is exactly what we’ve come to expect about the Bond franchise. The cynical, detached one-liners begin here, and not just with the string of obvious jokes but with the very introduction of Bond himself. Director Young, cribbing an introduction from the 1939 film Juarez, slowly reveals our hero at the baccarat table - a hand here, a shoulder there - and when the camera finally tilts up to reveal his face, he lets loose with the now-famous “Bond. James Bond.” This line, present in every 007 movie, was not an intentional gesture for an arrogant introduction. Bond is smugly mocking the pretensions of the woman (Eunice Gayson) who just introduced herself as “Trench. Sylvia Trench.” 007’s greatest catchphrase began as a verbal middle finger to some rich twit.

Trench became a recurring character on the level of M or Miss Moneypenny. Although the idea eventually got scrapped, there she was in From Russia With Love, playing the role of Bond’s girlfriend back home.

Movie heroes just didn’t behave this way in 1962. We’re so used to it now - especially those of us who went to the cinema in the age of Schwarzenegger - but back then, Bond’s quips were something of a revolution, a sarcasm ahead of its time. By the time Bond works his way into No’s lair, the jokes are in full force. He’s snide right to his captor’s face; who else would dare? Connery delivers the lines with perfect Scottish sarcasm. His best line: “Tell me, does the toppling of American missiles really compensate for having no hands?” But he’s not the only jokester - the filmmakers themselves drop some visual gags, like the villain’s possession of a recently-stolen Goya painting. Not a timeless gag, but most certainly a clever one.

When Bond arrives on Crab Key and meets the lovely Honey Ryder (Ursula Andress), her introduction remains one of the greatest shots in the history of cinema. We’re still watching a relatively ordinary thriller, filled with exotic locales and bold action, but nothing you’d call overly bizarre. Yet by the time Bond is defeating No’s henchmen and blowing up the whole damn island, we’ve stepped into an insane comic book.

Yes, in the last act of the film, we’re finally in familiar Bond territory - 007 invited into the villain’s headquarters, where the baddie talks a little too much about his ultimate plans, etc., etc. In retrospect, it seems the only logical place for Dr. No to go, but at the time, it must’ve been sheer madness.

Dr. No is a film that keeps aiming over the top until, by the end, you can’t even see the top from that height. For all this wildness, Dr. No is still hailed by fans as one of the series’ best. We can still admire its absurdities(which are relatively few compared to later films). The plot, while ridiculous, is relatively straightforward; that it delivers a tone is fairly true to Fleming. Then, Fleming delivered his share of lunacy, too.

Breach (2005), by Bob Hanssen [date of 2007 (re: Hanssen) in queue from Netflex]

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965), by John le Carrè
The movie, based on John le Carrè’ book is, I think, better than the book itself. I was talking with a noted author of books and novels on spying. He said, “John le Carrè” is a master of the spy business, but his writing is ponderous. It takes him three pages just to cross the street.” Richard Burton turns in a wonderful performance as a very tired spy (presumably for MI-6) who loses a source when he is killed trying to cross from East Berlin into the West. He is recalled to London, and faces a desk job or retirement. However there is one more assignment for him to take, keeping him still in the cold.
“C” the Control of MI 6 gives Leamus a new legend. It is to play the role of a burned –out spy who leaves the service, and sinks into bitterness, alcohol, and despair. Leamus gets a number of jobs through the national job service, and loses them because of excessive drinking. Finally he gets one where he meets a girl, an unassuming and idealistic communist, Nan Perry. Nan believes that people working together can make a better world.
Continuing his apparent downward slide, he roughs up a grocer who will not give him credit, spends some time in jail, and loses the one job he was working at. This does the trick, and agents of the East smell blood in the water. He is recruited, and then held virtually captive in the East.
He winds up again in prison, charged with conspiracy against the state. There he is grilled about British agents. His job is to give up bits and pieces and eventually to turn suspicion away from himself to the number one man in East Berlin, agent Mundt. He does this by playing on the hatred the number two man, Fiedler, has for Mundt already, and his own ambitions. In the end he is successful, when Mundt is arrested. The trial proceeds with Fiedler as prosecutor. Fiedler is convinced Leamas is not a plant, but that Mundt was turned while in London, and became a British agent (or at least a double agent.) Leamas' credibility is further undermined when his English girlfriend, Nan Perry, is brought into the hearings to confirm Leamas' character. As Leamas' charade unravels and he is forced to admit he is still working as a British agent, Fiedler is escorted from the room as a complicit dupe and Mundt's reputation is untarnished.
We discover that Nan was used by MI 6. All along it was Fiedler, the Jew, that MI 6 really wanted to get. Mundt was actually turned in London as Fiedler contended at the trial. Mundt was evil, but their evil friend. Mundt arranges for Leamus and Perry to leave East Germany and get over the wall back into West Berlin. However, they cannot let Nan live. She is too dangerous, and it was arranged for her to be shot crossing the wall. Leamus cannot leave her, and the movie ends with him begged to leave. Then he too is shot while he is going to the girl.
A minor character in the movie, but one that will appear again and again in Le Carré’s books and the movies made from them. He is George Smiley, an intelligence officer working for MI6.
The movie has memorable quotes, and I’ve cited some of them below.
Alec Leamas: “Before, he (Mundt) was evil and my enemy; now, he is evil and my friend.”
Alec Leamas:” I reserve the right to be ignorant. That's the Western way of life.”
Alec Leamas: (to Nan)/. “What the hell do you think spies are? Moral philosophers measuring everything they do against the word of God or Karl Marx? They're not! They're just a bunch of seedy, squalid bastards like me: little men, drunkards, queers, hen-pecked husbands, civil servants playing cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten little lives. Do you think they sit like monks in a cell, balancing right against wrong?”