Spy thriller – James Bond Connections

The Ipcress File (1965): hypnotic working-class Bond

1 JANUARY 2024

JBC rating: *****

James Bond Connections (6):

Producer Harry Saltzman (Bond Producer, 1962 – 1975).
Featuring actor Guy Doleman (Count Lippe in Thunderball) as Colonel Ross.
Production designer Ken Adam (Bond production designer, various, 1962 – 1979).
Composer John Barry (Bond composer, various, 1962 – 1987).
Editor Peter Hunt (Bond Editor / Director, 1962 – 1969).
Sound design Norman Wanstall (Sound designer, Goldfinger).

In October 1962, the same month Dr No was released in cinemas, English artist-turned author Len Deighton saw the publication of his debut thriller The IPCRESS File, an instant bestseller leading to a series following the adventures of a working-class English spy. Ironically, given Deighton’s creation provided a gritty tonic to the increasingly fantastical James Bond series, this and two further Deighton’s novels were brought to the screen from 1965 onwards by Bond co-producer Harry Saltzman (with IPCRESS losing its capitalisation along the way). Indeed, one of the reasons The Ipcress File remains such a terrific spy thriller is the presence of so many EON regulars involved in the production, including John Barry who provides one of his greatest-ever soundtracks. Additional interest for any James Bond fan is that despite being ostensibly an anti-Bond film with a focus on spy procedure, The Ipcress File includes themes found in Bond and other spy fantasy films of the 1960s such as brainwashing and mind control.

The High Bright Sun (1965): colonial spy thriller with Dirk Bogarde

21 AUGUST 2023

JBC rating: ****

James Bond Connections (4):

Featuring Joseph Furst (Professor Doctor Metz in Diamonds Are Forever) as Dr Andros.
Featuring George Pastell (Train conductor in From Russia with Love) as Prinos.
Featuring Paul Stassino (Palazzi in Thunderball) as Alkis.
Production Designer Syd Cain (From Russia with Love, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service & Live and Let Die).

Set in British ruled Cyprus in 1957, the UK produced colonial spy thriller The High Bright Sun follows Dirk Bogarde as Major McGuire, an English intelligence official wooing Susan Strasbourg’s American heroine Juno Kozani in the hope she will aid him in his fight against Greek rebels. Aside from numerous James Bond connections in the cast and crew credits, the film remains highly relevant for 007 fans due to its end of empire setting. Ian Fleming’s anxieties regarding the loss of the British empire feature strongly in his novels, reaching a crescendo with You Only Live Twice (1964). Indeed, the very creation of his famous secret agent can be viewed as a reaction to the UK’s loss of status in the real world, with espionage depicted as a way to reassert influence. Whilst Dr No (1962) shows the British operating in a relatively peaceful colony (ironically in the same year Jamaica gained independence), The High Bright Sun provides Bond fans with the chance to see British intelligence operating during a far more complicated end to British colonial rule.

The Tamarind Seed (1974): the spy who loved Julie Andrews

19 JUNE 2023

JBC rating: ***

James Bond Connections (5):

Soundtrack composed by John Barry (Bond composer, various, 1962 – 1987).
Song lyrics by Don Black (Bond lyricist, various 1964 – 1989).
Director of Photography Freddie Young (Cinematographer, You Only Live Twice)
Title sequence designed by Maurice Binder (Bond titles, various, 1962 – 1989)
Featuring actor Bryan Marshall (Commander Talbot in The Spy Who Loved Me) as security officer George MacLeod

The 1974 UK produced spy drama The Tamarind Seed features English star Julie Andrews as British Home Office official Judith Farrow, who unwittingly becomes involved in international intrigue after a holiday romance with Omar Sharif’s Soviet attache Major Feodor Sverdlov. In writer-director Blake Edwards’ intelligent adaptation of Evelyn Anthony’s 1971 novel, Sverdlov hopes Judith will help facilitate his defection to the West and in return he will expose the identity of ‘Blue’, a Soviet mole working at the highest levels of the British state. The east meets west plotline anticipates themes in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and both films provide a snapshot of contemporary thinking regarding the Soviet Union in the age of détente. The film can also be seen as a companion piece to Alfred Hitchcock’s underrated Torn Curtain (1966), another spy thriller featuring Julie Andrews unwittingly involved in a defection plot. However, in contrast to these two films, the quietly satisfying spy drama The Tamarind Seed largely eschews large-scale action or suspense sequences in favour of characterisation and acting fireworks.

Danger Route (1967): nearly-Bond Richard Johnson as a blunt instrument of the state

4 JUNE 2023

JBC rating: ***

James Bond Connections (2):

Featuring actor David Bauer (Morton Slumber in Diamonds Are Forever) as US official Bennett.
Theme song composed by Lionel Bart (composer of the song From Russia with Love).

The British B-movie Danger Route is by far the grittiest of three late 1960s spy films starring Shakespearean actor Richard Johnson, the darkly handsome English leading man who famously turned down the chance to star as the first James Bond in Dr No (1962). Johnson’s brutal turn as a jaded, cold-blooded government assassin adds an edge of danger largely absent from his portrayals of Bulldog Drummond in the campy and fantastical Deadlier than the Male (1967) and Some Girls Do (1969). Indeed, Danger Route suggests his portrayal of 007 could have been both exciting and faithful to Ian Fleming’s conception of his hero as a “blunt instrument of the state” and the film is well worth watching for any James Bond fan.

The Double Man (1967): Goodnight skiing

30 MAY 2023

JBC rating: ***

James Bond Connections (4):

Featuring Britt Ekland (Bond girl Mary Goodnight in The Man with the Golden Gun) as the heroine Gina Ericson.
Featuring small roles for David Bauer (uncredited as an American diplomat in You Only Live Twice and as Morton Slumber in Diamonds Are Forever) and David Healy (uncredited as the Vandenburg Launch Director in Diamonds Are Forever).
Second unit director William P. Cartledge (2^nd unit on You Only Live Twice, Producer on The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker).

With its Alpine setting, spectacular ski sequences and a storyline involving a spy with a personal agenda, The Double Man anticipates the Bond classic On Her Majesty’s Secret Service by two whole years (ironically, it was released between the spoof Casino Royale [1967] and the tonally opposite Bond extravaganza You Only Live Twice). This British-produced straight thriller follows tough guy CIA agent Dan Slater (played by Hollywood star Yul Brynner, pictured above) as he visits Austria to investigate the suspicious death of his teenage son. This is all part of an incredible Soviet plot – his son was murdered by Russian spies in order to lure Slater out of the USA and replace him with a Communist-trained double – alluded to in the film’s title. However, future Oscar winning American director Franklin J. Schaffer manages to ground a fantastical story by adopting a low-key, realistic directorial style and maintaining naturalistic performances from the cast. The result is an effective and quietly gripping Cold War-era spy thriller.

The Fourth Protocol (1987): Pierce Brosnan plays 007, Soviet-style

25 MAY 2023

JBC rating: ****

James Bond Connections (4):

Starring Pierce Brosnan (James Bond, 1995 – 2002) as Soviet spy Major Valery Petroski.
Featuring Julian Glover (Aris Kristatos in For Your Eyes Only) as British intelligence official Brian Harcourt-Smith.
Director of Photography Phil Meyheux (DOP, GoldenEye and Casino Royale [2006]).
Production designer Allan Cameron (Production Designer, Tomorrow Never Dies).

In the late 1980s Irish-born leading man Pierce Brosnan famously became a near-Bond when contract issues with his Remington Steele producers led to him being unable to succeed Roger Moore as 007 in The Living Daylights (1987). However, in the same year Brosnan starred in another spy thriller, The Fourth Protocol, an adaptation by blockbuster author Frederick Forsyth of his own best-selling 1984 novel. Brosnan stars as a Soviet villain plotting to weaken NATO by detonating a nuclear device near an American airbase in England. Ironically, The Fourth Protocol helped Brosnan keep his EON ambitions afloat as, even while playing the villain, the young and impossibly handsome actor clearly remains a potential future James Bond.

Permission to Kill (1975): the Timothy Dalton spy movie you need to see

23 MAY 2023

JBC rating: ****

James Bond Connections (2):

Featuring Timothy Dalton (James Bond, 1987 – 1989) as Foreign Office official Charles Lord.
Director of Photography Freddie Young (DOP, You Only Live Twice).

A decade before his casting as 007, rising Welsh leading man Timothy Dalton appeared in Permission to Kill, an ensemble spy drama with some similarities to Munich (2006), another espionage thriller featuring a future Bond (Daniel Craig). Opposite in tone to the comedic and increasingly fantastical Bond films of the 1970s, this dark and gritty spy movie contains themes reflecting a morally uncertain world dominated by increasing cynicism about Western governments following Vietnam and the leaked Pentagon Papers. The presence of Dalton, playing a British Foreign Office official with the same depth, coolness and world-weary nature he would later bring to 007, anticipates the more grounded films of the 1980s. The film also points toward the moral complexities of the Daniel Craig era.