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Category Archives: Espionage
Top 20 TV Spies
Not everyone agrees, but for me the spy story is definitely a subset of the crime and mystery genre. However, tales of espionage do come in all shapes and sizes: from contemporary to historical, deadly serious like Tinker Tailor Soldier … Continue reading
The Mind Benders (1963) – Tuesday’s Overlooked Film
Dirk Bogarde is the troubled scientist at the centre of this suspense drama combining espionage, brainwashing, sensory deprivation chambers and domestic navel gazing that often feels like a rich inverted pudding, light on the bottom and heavy on top. This … Continue reading
Top 20 Spy movies
The release of Ben Affleck’s smart historical satire Argo, based loosely on the true extraction by the CIA and Canadian officials of six American Embassy staff members out of Tehran in 1980, made me reflect on the spy genre as … Continue reading
Posted in 'Best of' lists, Adam Hall, Alfred Hitchcock, Amnesia, Billy Wilder, Brian de Palma, Cold War, Elleston Trevor, Eric Ambler, Espionage, Film Noir, George Smiley, Ian Fleming, James Bond, John Frankenheimer, John le Carre, Len Deighton, London, Michael Powell, New York, Paris, Quiller, San Francisco, Scene of the crime, Spy movies
69 Comments
Telefon (1977)
This adaptation of the 1975 spy novel by Walter Wager has a great central gimmick and features the unlikely pairing of granite-faced action hero Charles Bronson and high-class beauty Lee Remick under the take-no-prisoners direction of Don Siegel. It often … Continue reading
Posted in Amnesia, Cold War, Espionage, Los Angeles, Moscow, Scene of the crime, Spy movies, Tuesday's Forgotten Film
Tagged Charles Bronson
34 Comments
The Blake Edwards mysteries
In a career spanning six decades, writer-director Blake Edwards (1922-2010) really mixed it up, making almost every conceivable type of film. There were westerns (Panhandle and Wild Rovers), musicals (Darling Lili and Victor Victoria), dark drama (Days of Wine and … Continue reading
Skyfall – five star movie review
Yes, the title of this post does rather give things away – I loved the new Bond movie. Have you been to see Skyfall yet? You really should. In the UK the new 007 adventure, the first in 4 years, came … Continue reading
Posted in Espionage, Five Star review, James Bond, London, Scene of the crime, Spy movies
Tagged James Bond
36 Comments
Spaceways (1953)
An engaging if curious genre hybrid, this is a patchwork movie combining Cold War espionage, a murder mystery and two love triangles in a science fiction setting – and all on the tightest of budgets. Unpretentious and fun, this British … Continue reading
I Spy (1965-68)
In 1965 President Lyndon B. Johnson bravely intoned, “We shall overcome” and enacted legislation finally enfranchising black American voters, knowing full-well that he was handing the South to the Republicans for decades to come. Within a month the Watts riots … Continue reading
Posted in Espionage, Greece, Hong Kong, Japan, Los Angeles, Mexico, Robert Culp, Rome, Scene of the crime
31 Comments
No Way Out (1987)
This movie was hit in its day but 25 years after its initial release I’m still not convinced it has received the critical respect it deserves. A smart Cold War thriller – with 80s heartthrobs Kevin Costner and Sean Young … Continue reading
James Bond teases in SKYFALL
Well, the Leveson inquiry continues and the appalling Murdochs and their apparatchiks have yet to fold, but at least we now have a couple of proper teasers for the new Bond movie. First there is the poster, which displays very … Continue reading
Posted in Espionage, James Bond, London, Scene of the crime, Spy movies
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A is for … Amnesia
Kerrie’s Alphabet of Crime community meme over at the Mysteries in Paradise blog has returned for 2012. Each week those participating will post a review, author biog or a thematic item in which either the first letter of the title … Continue reading
CALL FOR THE DEAD (1961) by John le Carré
The recent film adaptation of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré, with its impressive rogues gallery of character actors and a mesmerising central turn by Gary Oldman as George Smiley, has re-ignited interest in the series of Cold … Continue reading
Posted in Columbo, Espionage, George Smiley, John le Carre, London, Scene of the crime, Spy movies
8 Comments
John le Carré at 80
David Cornwell, aka John le Carré, turned 80 yesterday and celebrations are definitely in order. Not only is the feature film adaptation of his 1974 novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy a roaring critical and box office success but he is still publishing new work that is attracting praise from all quarters. A master of the espionage story, he has branched well beyond the constraints of genre fiction to produce work that in its topicality, lucid prose style and in its charting of the decay of the late and unlamented British Empire can certainly bear comparison with that of his great literary mentor and inspiration, Graham Greene. Of his most recent work, The Constant Gardener (2001), a trenchant conspiracy thriller and exposé of the ethics big pharma, he may well have produced his finest work to date, though there is a real bounty to choose from. Continue reading
Posted in 'In praise of ...', Espionage, George Smiley, John le Carre
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WHO ? (1958) by Algis Budrys
This is a Cold War espionage tale like no other. It begins in no man’s land on the border between East and West as one side prepares to return an enemy agent back to the other side. But things are … Continue reading
Posted in Espionage
2 Comments
DVD Review: HARRY’S GAME
Ex-ITN correspondent Gerald Seymour first came to prominence with his IRA novel Harry’s Game and its success was for once enhanced rather than tarnished by its TV adaptation. This dynamic manhunt thriller, faithfully adapted by Semour himself and adroitly directed by … Continue reading
Posted in DVD Review, Espionage, Gerald Seymour, The Sandbaggers
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Z is for … Michael Bar-Zohar’s THE THIRD TRUTH (1972)
The 2011 Alphabet of Crime community meme over at the Mysteries in Paradise blog has reached the end of the line with the letter Z – and both my nominations this week, I am proud to say, are from author … Continue reading
Posted in Crime Fiction Alphabet, Espionage, New York, Paris
8 Comments
