Spies and Spying
The Night Manager – two equally good versions
The end of the Cold War in 1991 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union supposedly gave a “peace dividend”. The enormous budgets of the Armed Forces on both sides of the US-USSR divide could now be used for “peaceful purposes”. Or so they thought. John le Carre’s The Night Manager was published…
Read MoreSmiley’s People (1982) – Riveting
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1974) was the first book of The Karla Trilogy. John le Carre’s follow-up to this story was The Honourable Schoolboy (1977), which involved extensive travel to Southeast Asia, including Hong Kong, Thailand and Cambodia, where he witnessed and made notes about the final assault of the Khmer Rouge on…
Read MoreTinker Tailor Soldier Spy – Great TV Series, Average film
David Cornwell, who went by the pseudonym John le Carre, wrote incredibly detailed books about spies, spying, morality, The Cold War and everything else. Many of his “Classic spy fiction” stories have been filmed or made into TV Serials. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was published in 1974 to universal critical and widespread acclaim. Le…
Read MoreThe Angel – The UNBELIEVABLE Spy
Ever since its birth, on May 14, 1948, Israel has led a precarious existence and has never known peace with its neighbours. Nowhere was this desperation more apparent than in the 1973 October war, known as the Yom Kippur War, when Israel was attacked simultaneously by Egypt from the South and Syria from the North.…
Read MoreEli Cohen – The (Impossible) Spy – two films
Mossad is the Israeli Civilian Intelligence Agency , collecting information on Israel’s foreign enemies. (Aman, is a purely military intelligence agency responsible to the Defence Ministry). Over the years, Mossad has executed daring operations worldwide and not necessarily in the immediate neighbouring countries that have sworn to destroy Israel and continue to threaten Israel’s existence.…
Read MoreKleo (2022) – ROCKING GOOD!
It’s 1987, and the Cold War is in full swing. Kleo Straub, an unofficial “wet work” specialist – meaning assassin – is infiltrated through The Wall into West Berlin to assassinate a target. She reaches the nightclub and entices the target, but not before an off-duty West Berlin cop Sven Petzold (Dimitri Schaad), tries…
Read MoreFUBAR (2023) – TV Series (8 Parts) – For Fans Only
Cast : Arnold Schwarzenegger. Monica Barbaro. Milan Carter. Gabriel Luna A secret agent is in a foreign country doing some caper. His guide keeps talking to him through a tiny two-way radio. The hijinks continue, and the secret agent just about escapes with his life after a spectacular ‘action’ scene where the bad…
Read MoreThe Fourth Protocol (1987) – excellent Cold War thriller
Director: John Mackenzie Cast: Michael Caine. Pierce Brosnan. Ian Richardson. Julian Glover. After the relative period of détente of the late 1970s, the Reagan administration’s talks of the “Evil Empire”, raised the tension in Europe to a new high. In the mid-1980s, “tactical” nuclear missiles were based in Germany and the UK. This was…
Read MoreNight Agent (2023) and The Recruit (2022) – two modern spy series
At times I get asked – very politely, of course – whether I have something against “new stuff”, as most of my blogs are about “old” movies or serials. I have nothing for or against new stuff except that, at times, they seem to recycle “old stuff”. I also have a “problem” with TV…
Read MoreThe Billion Dollar Brain(1967) – Palmer meets the Bond Universe.
Director: Ken Russell Cast: Michael Caine. Karl Malden. Francoise Dorleac. Ed Bagley. Oscar Homolka. Harry Saltzman knew he was on to a good thing. Worldwide spy film mania was going through the roof. Even the Europeans had got on the “Bond wagon”, starting an entirely new sub-genre known as “Euro Spy” films. Their most infamous…
Read MoreFuneral in Berlin (1966) – Divided Berlin and Palmer, the anti-Bond
Director: Guy Hamilton. Cast: Michael Caine. Oscar Homolka. Eva Renzi. Paul Hubschmid. Gunter Meisner. By 1966, Len Deighton had published his fourth spy thriller, The Billion Dollar Brain, with the same nameless hero. However, his second book, Horse Under Water, involving sunken U Boats, exotic locations and heroin trafficking, somehow wasn’t developed for the…
Read MoreThe Ipcress File (1965) – the first coolest Anti Bond
Director: Sidney .J.Furie Cast: Michael Caine. Guy Doleman. Nigel Green. Sue Lloyd. In 1962 the first James Bond film Dr No was released. In 1962 Len Deighton wrote his first book, The Ipcress File. Perhaps it was a coincidence. By 1965 when Thunderball was released, the Bond mania had spread worldwide. Everyone thought…
Read MoreThe Odessa File (1974) – Lost in adaptation
Director: Ronald Neame . Script: George Markstein (also an excellent spy fiction writer) Cast: Jon Voight, Maximilian Schell, Mary Tamm Israel has always considered itself to be facing existential threats from everywhere. Historically the state of Israel seemed at its most fragile from its declaration of independence in 1948 till the 1967 Seven-Day War.…
Read MoreThe Day of the Jackal – 1974 – RIVETING (even now)
Fact: The OAS – The Organisation Armee Secrete (the Secret Armed Organisation), was composed of ex-French Army soldiers who opposed French President Charles de Gaulle’s policy of granting independence to Algeria as they considered it and its French population as French. The organization aimed to kill de Gaulle and bring Algeria back under French rule.…
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