The Quiller Memorandum (1966)

The 1960s produced the Bond movies which of course spawned countless imitators. The 1960s also produced the phenomenon of the anti-Bond movies - movies that were a deliberate reaction against the Bond films, movies that tried to be dark and edgy and cynical and non-glamorous and that generally took themselves pretty seriously. They were aiming at being Serious Cinema, as distinct from mere entertainment. A few of them, such as The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, succeeded. Others did not. One spy movie of this period that definitely falls into the anti-Bond camp is the Anglo-American co-production The Quiller Memorandum, made in 1966. 

Quiller (George Segal) works for the British Secret Service. Two top British agents have been killed in West Berlin and Quiller has now been assigned to take their place. They were investigating a neo-Nazi organisation.

Quiller meets a pretty young German school teacher, Inge Lindt (Senta Berger). One of the other teachers at her school has recently been arrested for being a Nazi so Quiller assumes the school must be a hot-bed of neo-Nazi activity (although why he would assume that is difficult to comprehend). Sure enough Inge knows all about the neo-Nazis and tells Quiller she can introduce him to someone who can tell him where their secret base is. Quiller quickly manages to get himself captured without finding out anything and is drugged in an attempt to get him to tell the neo-Nazis where the British have their secret base. At this point you might be thinking that this sounds like a pretty lame plot, but it gets worse.

Quiller and Inge fall in love. Quiller manages to get himself captured once again. This time he thinks he’s found the secret base but now he has to find a way to get the information to his controller.

That’s about all there is to the plot. Many spy movies of this era fall into the trap of over-complicating things with so many plot twists that it becomes difficult for even the most alert viewer to keep track of what is going on. The Quiller Memorandum has the opposite problem. It has no plot twists at all. Well OK, it has one, which is supposed to be a big shock but it’s unfortunately rather obvious and not much of a shock at all.

The screenplay was written by Harold Pinter. Pinter was a much-admired playwright who wrote a lot of screenplays. Unfortunately being a playwright does not necessarily make one a good screenwriter and Pinter’s films can be rather talky. The Quiller Memorandum suffers from this defect. It is also abundantly clear that Pinter had very little understanding of the spy genre. One can’t help suspecting that he despised the genre and was deliberately trying to make this not just an anti-Bond movie but an anti-spy movie. The result is a dull and uninteresting screenplay.

Director Michael Anderson also seemed keen to avoid falling into the trap of making an entertaining action movie. There are a few token action scenes, most of them very low-key. The intention was presumably to rely on suspense and on an atmosphere of paranoia but it doesn’t really come off. The street scenes late in the film with Quiller being shadowed by hordes of bad guys is the one scene where the paranoia does start to work.

One of the movie’s faults is that these dreaded neo-Nazis don’t seem very menacing. We’re never given any hint of what their master plan is. They don’t appear to have any master plan. They don’t seem to be very important people. They don’t appear to be holding vital posts in government or the armed forces or big business. Maybe they just get together once a week to drink beer and sing the Horst Wessel song. They seem rather futile and silly. They’re not even efficient thugs. Quiller is the most incompetent movie spy in history but they are even less competent. Since we have no idea of who they really are or what they are really up to it’s hard to feel any particular paranoia about them. And without any effective paranoia the movie is left with a thin uninteresting plot and virtually no action.

George Segal was a bizarre choice to play Quiller. His constant wise-cracking is at odds with the otherwise serious tone of the film. There’s no psychological interest in the character. He’s just mildly irritating. Senta Berger is a dull leading lady although her part is so underwritten there was very little she could have done.

There’s a star-studded supporting cast, all of them wasted on two-dimensional characters. Alec Guinness does provide at least some interest as Quiller’s cynical controller. Max von Sydow is the chief bad guy, a cardboard cut-out Nazi villain who doesn’t do anything villainous enough to be really interesting. George Sanders and Robert Helpmann play minor characters who play no actual part in the story. 

The characters are, without exception, lacking in depth or complexity or ambiguity and it is impossible to care what happens to any of them. Pinter may have thought he was being deep (or perhaps he thought he was being wry and offbeat) but he has only succeeded in being pretentiousness and tedious.

The movie goes for a film noir-influenced look with lots of night scenes and a very subdued and rather grungy colour palette. This works extremely well and does convey an effectively sordid and seedy feel. The scenes in the deserted indoor swimming pool complex and the neo-Nazis’ secret headquarters look genuinely menacing. The location shooting is great and the sets are great. The visuals almost succeed in achieving the paranoia that the screenplay fails to deliver.

Fox’s Region 1 DVD release offers a decent anamorphic transfer plus an audio commentary.

The Quiller Memorandum looks quite impressively atmospheric but it fails to generate any real interest. Pinter’s screenplay doesn’t work and the characters are flat and lifeless. Anderson’s directing has its moments. Possibly worth a rental if you’re an Alec Guinness completist but I can’t really recommend this one. 

Black Dragons (1942)

Black Dragons, released in 1942, was the third of Bela Lugosi’s Monogram pictures produced by Sam Katzman and it’s a slightly unusual spy thriller with (of course) some sinister overtones. And it gives Lugosi the chance to play dual roles.

The story deals with a ring of Japanese Fifth Columnists in the US just after the outbreak of war. They’re not actually Japanese - they’re American traitors working for Japan. In 1942 this was just the sort of thing audiences would have gone for, Fifth Columnists being a popular subject in low-budget potboilers at the time.

Lugosi plays Dr Colomb, a mysterious figure who seems to be taking an interest in this subversive organisation, although it’s not a sympathetic interest. The members of the espionage ring start getting bumped off one by one with a Japanese dagger left at the scene of each murder.

Dr Colomb has moved himself into the home of a Dr Saunders. The doctor’s niece Alice (Joan Barclay)  isn’t quite sure what to make of him. She’s a bit frightened of him but not as frightened as you might expect.

All the murder victims were guests at a dinner party held at Dr Saunders’ home, the purpose dinner party being to advance the plans of the Fifth Columnists to wreck the US war effort. Many of their plans focus on fomenting strikes to disrupt war production although out-and-sabotage is also on the agenda.

Dick Martin (Clayton Moore) is a handsome young US counter-espionage agent assigned to investigate the case, his method being to romance Alice Saunders in order to find out exactly what is happening at the home of Dr Saunders.

Lugosi had made a big impact in White Zombie in 1932 with extreme close-ups of his eyes being used to emphasise his hypnotic powers. A similar (although slightly less effective) technique is used here. Sinister hypnotic powers were something that Lugosi was supremely good at suggesting. He also manages to convey a somewhat ambiguous tone. We assume that (being Lugosi) he’s the villain but he appears to be extreme hostility to the other villains. He’s in fine form, which is just as well since he has to carry the movie pretty much single-handedly.

The other cast members range from adequate to embarrassingly wooden although Joan Barclay isn’t too bad.

Director William Nigh was an incredibly prolific B-movie director, uninspired but competent enough and he at least keeps the pacing pleasingly taut. Writer Harvey Gates had a career that followed much the same pattern - prolific but without notable distinction. His screenplay does at least have quite a few interesting touches.

The plot takes a definite turn towards the outrageous in the latter part of the film as the unexpected truth is revealed about the spy ring, and about Dr Colomb.

The movie tries hard to convey an atmosphere of breathless excitement and succeeds reasonably well, within its B-movie limitations.

This movie is in the public domain. The Elstree Hill DVD offers a transfer that is unimpressive but watchable (and marginally better than Alpha Video standards). The sound is the big problem - it’s uneven and muffled. Alpha Video have also released this one. Black Dragons might not be a great film but it’s interesting enough to deserve better treatment on DVD.

Black Dragons is an enjoyable espionage-themed potboiler with a few definite touches of horror. If you’re a fan of sinister hypnotist movies or a Lugosi fan, or even just a fan of slightly offbeat 1940s spy B-movies, it’s worth a look. Highly recommended. 

Where the Spies Are (1966)

Where the Spies Are is a lighthearted British spy film that doesn’t seem quite sure just how seriously it wants to be taken. With David Niven as the star you’re likely to be expect this one to be a bit more of a spoof than it actually is.

A British spy named Rosser has disappeared in Beirut. Fearing the worst the chief of MI6, MacGillivray (John le Mesurier), knows he has to send out someone to find out what has happened to his vanished agent. The problem is that with budget cut-backs he simply doesn’t have a real agent available. He is going to have to send someone from the B List - non-professionals who have from time to time done small jobs for British intelligence agencies. Since there’s a malaria conference about to take place in Beirut a doctor would be ideal (he’d have a fairly convincing cover story) and there just happens to be a doctor on that B List. He’s Dr Jason Love (David Niven), a country GP with a passion for 1930s American Cord automobiles (he already owns a supercharged 1937 Cord 812). Dr Love had helped MacGillivray on a case way back in 1943 but these days he has no interest in playing spy games. 

There is only one thing that might tempt him - he has a burning desire to own a Cord LeBaron. And MacGillivray offers to find one for him, if he will just do this very simple task for MI6.

Dr Love manages to find his contact in Rome, a fashion model named Vikki (Françoise Dorléac), and Dr Love starts to think this espionage business might be quite fun after all. That is, until he realises someone is trying to kill him.

Rosser had obviously stumbled upon a sinister conspiracy and now Dr Jason Love is caught in the middle of it. Due to the budget cut-backs at MI6 alluded to earlier he has only one agent to assist him. Parkington (Nigel Davenport) is willing enough to help but he’s tired and in poor health and to tell the truth he’s not exactly what you might call a secret agent of the top grade. Dr Love does however have one other ally - Farouk (Eric Pohlmann), who happens to be a fellow member of the Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg Car Club, in fact he’s the Lebanon’s only member of the club. Farouk is certainly willing to take a few risks to help a man who owns a 1937 Cord 812.

At 56 David Niven was perhaps a little too old for this type of movie but his charm and his inimitable sense of style carries him through without too much trouble. Françoise Dorléac makes a suitably glamorous lady spy. The very strong supporting cast of veteran British character actors helps a good deal.

There is a bit of a problem though with the romance angle, with the 24-year-old Françoise Dorléac being a somewhat incongruous romantic partner for the 56-year-old Niven.

Exotic locations were obligatory for 1960s spy movies and location shooting was done in Beirut (at that time considered to be one of the more cosmopolitan and glamorous parts of the Middle East). The budget didn’t run to the sorts of spectacular stunts that you get in a Bond movie so it has to rely more on wit and charm.

The problem is that this is not quite a full-blown spoof. At times it seems to be heading into fairly serious dark spy movie territory while at other times the tone is much lighter. The biggest problem is that while the plot is perfectly decent it just isn’t outrageous enough.

This film has little in common with spy spoofs like the Matt Helm and Derek Flint movies or the British mid-60s Bulldog Drummond films. The tone is closer to the more subtle and gentle mildly tongue-in-cheek humour of a movie like North by Northwest (although unfortunately it isn’t anywhere near in the same league as Hitchcock’s movie).

Director and co-writer Val Guest proved himself to be pretty competent in most genres but this film possibly could have worked better with a more extravagant approach.

Where the Spies Are was based on the first of James Leasor’s Dr Jason Love spy thrillers, Passport to Oblivion. Leasor was also the author of The Boarding Party which provided the basis for the wonderful 1980 action adventure movie The Sea Wolves (which coincidentally also starred David Niven).

The Warner Archive made-on-demand DVD offers a good anamorphic transfer (the film was shot in the Cinemascope aspect ratio). The colours look reasonably impressive.

Where the Spies Are is modestly entertaining although it’s certainly one of the lesser 1960s spy movies. If you’re a keen David Niven fan or a 60s spy film completist it’s worth a rental.

Telefon (1977)

Telefon, released in 1977, is a slightly unusual Cold War spy flick. A rogue agent is triggering a series of attacks against US military installations. There’s only one man who can stop this rogue agent and thus prevent World War III and that’s Major Grigori Borzov of the KGB. The odds are against him but the KGB are determined that somehow war must be avoided. That’s right, this is an American Cold War spy film in which the Soviets are the good guys. The CIA doesn’t really know what’s going on but they’re also determined to stop these attacks. They’re also the good guys. This is very much a Détente spy film, with both the KGB and the CIA working towards the same goal, although completely independently and with the CIA having no idea that the KGB is on their side.

To make this even more fun Major Borzov is played by legendary tough guy Charles Bronson.

The situation comes about because of a top-secret Soviet plan code-named Telefon dating back to the days when Cold War tensions were at their height. Fifty-two Soviet agents were sent to the US under deep cover, sleepers to be activated only in a dire emergency. These sleeper agents were subjected to drug-assisted hypnosis - they’re under such deep cover that they don’t even know they’re agents until they’re activated.

The plan has long since been forgotten, the paperwork buried away in the KBG archives. Tensions have now eased dramatically, Détente is working successfully, nuclear war now seems a remote possibility and the last thing the KGB wants is anything that might threaten the peace. There’s just one problem. One man has not forgotten that the Telefon plan exists. And he intends to put it into operation.

The man is Nicolai Dalchimsky (Donald Pleasence). He’s not only a hardline Stalinist opposed to Détente, he’s also quite quite mad. He has the list of those fifty-two sleepers with the means of activating them and he’s set off for the US to do just that, having left Moscow mere hours before the KGB could arrest him. KGB General Strelsky (Patrick Magee) assigns Major Grigori Borzov to follow Dalchimsky to the US and to liquidate him.

Borzov’s mission is of course ultra top secret since the whole idea is to liquidate Dalchimsky before the Americans figure out what’s happening - it would be very embarrassing for the Soviets to have to admit that Telefon ever existed. It would be even more embarrassing for the KGB since they never bothered to inform the current Soviet premier of its existence. They failed to inform him not because of any sinister motives but simply because they’d forgotten about the plan themselves.

Borzov will have only one person to help him in his mission, a top Soviet spy in the US code-named Barbara (played by Lee Remick). Borzov intends to tell her no more than the absolute minimum she needs to know to assist him. What he doesn’t know is that Barbara  knows things that he doesn’t know.

Bronson is in his usual fine form, tight-lipped but charismatic. It’s the sort of thing he did so well, playing an ice-cold character but with an unexpected warmth just occasionally breaking through when he flashes his characteristic smile with a twinkle in his eyes. Lee Remick’s performance is bright and breezy, almost as if she’s playing in a romantic comedy. That approach could have backfired but in fact it works, not only providing a nice contrast to Bronson but also adding an oddly chilling touch - Barbara is a happy-go-lucky soul always making lighthearted jokes but she’s also a cold-blooded killer when necessary.

Donald Pleasence plays an evil madman so it goes without saying that he does so superbly. Patrick Magee gets one of his best roles as the cheerful but ruthless KGB General Strelsky. Alan Badel plays Strelsky’s right-hand man, Colonel Malchenko, and plays him as a softly spoken good natured guy who really wishes this whole unpleasant business would go away. Tyne Daly is amusing as CIA intelligence analyst and computer whizz-kid Dorothy Putterman.

Don Siegel directed this movie and he gives us an effective mix of action scenes combined with slow-burning suspense. Action fans will be pleased by the generous ration of explosions.

This is a spy thriller that also falls into the category of 1970s paranoia movies, but it’s a paranoia movie with a difference. It’s not the US government who are the bad guys. It’s not the Soviets. It’s not evil right-wingers. The paranoia originates from the kind of bureaucratic screw-up that happens everywhere, but the general Cold War atmosphere of secrecy inflames the paranoia. It’s a nice twist that even the mania for secrecy engendered by the Cold War isn’t really sinister in this case - it’s just the common instinct of every government agency to be as secretive as they can get away with.

There’s also considerable reason for Major Borzov to be paranoid - he’s operating on a top secret mission in a foreign country and there’s nobody he can trust. He can’t even trust his colleague Barbara. He’s effectively alone.

Of course a spy movie must have double-crosses and this film has plenty of those although they don’t always play out as you might expect. The ending is a bit of a surprise but it worked for me.

Telefon was released by Warner Home Video on DVD in Region 1 paired with another Bronson flick, St Ives, on a single double-sided disc. The transfer is anamorphic but it’s somewhat disappointing - the picture is very very soft in some scenes. On the other hand it’s a ridiculously cheap DVD release and it does offer two Charles Bronson movies that are otherwise unavailable so it’s still worth buying at the price.

Telefon is unusual enough to be a must-see for spy fans and Charles Bronson fans will be equally enthused. Overall it’s a fairly stylish and rather entertaining spy thriller enlivened by some wonderful acting. It has enough going for it to be highly recommended.

Callan (1974)

The television series Callan was a sensation when it first started screening in Britain in 1967. The public loved it and the critics loved it just as much. It is still widely regarded as the finest television spy drama series ever made. Callan ran until the early 70s and in 1974 a feature film followed.

Despite its popularity this was a series that was going to be tricky to do as a movie. Much of the success of the series was due to its brooding claustrophobic atmosphere. Obviously it had to be opened up a bit for a movie release and it was going to need a bit more action. In fact the movie works quite well. Even though it has a car chase (something quite unthinkable in the TV version) it still retains much of the necessary stifling atmosphere.

The other big problem was casting. Fortunately Edward Woodward and Russell Hunter were available and they were the two actors who would have utterly irreplaceable. On the other hand the key roles of Hunter and Meres had to be recast, with mixed success.

The movie is an expanded version of the original pilot episode, A Magnum for Schneider,  screened as part of Thames TV’s Armchair Theatre in 1967.

David Callan (Edward Woodward) was the top agent for a branch of the British security services known only as The Section. He has been more or less pensioned off. This is partly due to his drinking but mostly because as a counter-spy he has one very serious flaw - he has a conscience. That’s a problem because of the specialised nature of The Section’s activities. Their job is to get rid of people who are considered to be so dangerous that extreme measures are justified. These measures can include blackmail or intimidation but they can also involve assassination. Callan was The Section’s top assassin. An assassin with a conscience is however more a liability than an asset.

Now the head of The Section, Hunter (Eric Porter), has decided he wants Callan back. He needs him for a particularly tricky assignment. But can Callan be trusted? And can Callan trust Hunter?

Adding to the tenseness of the situation is that Callan again finds himself working with The Section’s number two agent, Toby Meres (Peter Egan). There are a whole series of reasons why Callan and Meres should dislike working together. Callan has a conscience, something that Meres conspicuously lacks. Meres is ambitious and wants Callan’s job as the top agent. Callan is working class, Meres is distinctly upper class. Meres also happens to be a cold-blooded sadist.

Callan will also need the assistance of his disreputable friend Lonely. Lonely is an outcast and he smells bad but he does possess certain talents - he is a skilled burglar and there is nobody better at tailing people without being seen than Lonely.

Callan’s target is Schneider, a successful German-born businessman in the export-import trade. Callan has no idea why Hunter wants Schneider dead and although it is strictly against orders he is determined to find out. What exactly is it that Schneider imports and exports?

Schneider shares Callan’s passion for wargaming and that proves to be a very useful way of making contact. It’s also a way for the two men to test each other out.

Edward Woodward is superb as always as Callan. Russell Hunter is equally good as Lonely. Carl Möhner as Schneider and Catherine Schell as his wife are both fine. Eric Porter makes a good Hunter, charming but ruthless. The problem is Peter Egan as Meres. Actually the real problem is that Anthony Valentine was so superb in this role in the TV series that nobody else was likely to match his performance. Valentine added so many nuances to the part and he had a gift for sardonic humour that made the character both more human and more inhuman. Peter Egan just isn’t in the same class and as a result his  Toby Meres is a mere sadistic thug. This is a pity since the interplay between Callan and Meres had been one of the highlights of the TV series.

Don Sharp was a very competent action thriller director. The TV series had been intensely character-driven with action and violence used sparingly but effectively. The movie had to have more action but Sharp still retains the essential feel of the series and its focus on character.

Umbrella Entertainment’s Region 4 DVD release offers a reasonably decent if not brilliant transfer and it includes a rather good interview with star Woodward.

This movie version is more successful than might have been anticipated. It’s not quite as strong as the Callan TV series but it’s still a fine spy thriller very much in the gritty realist mode, with plenty of cynicism and moral ambiguity. Highly recommended.

A Dandy in Aspic (1968)

Spy movies were all the rage in the 1960s. In tone they ranged from dark, brooding and tragic all the way to outrageous light-hearted silliness. It was the success of the first Bond film, Dr No, in 1962 that really kicked the spy genre into high gear and established the essential truth that whatever the mood a spy film needed to be stylish. Of course Hitchcock  had already been making stylish spy movies for years and at the tail end of the 50s had had one of his biggest hits with North by Northwest but after Dr No spy movies became a positive craze. A Dandy in Aspic was Anthony Mann’s first attempt at the genre and it would prove to be his last film.

Alexander Eberlin (Laurence Harvey) is a British spy. Only he isn’t really Alexander Eberlin. His real name is Krasnevin and he is actually a Soviet spy. He’s a double agent but his loyalty is to the Russians, not surprising since he is a Russian. Now the British have handed him a rather awkward assignment. They want him to kill a top Russian agent, a chap by the name of Krasnevin. He himself is the man he has been ordered to kill.

It’s actually even more complicated than that. The British of course don’t know that Eberlin is Krasnevin. 

Eberlin/Krasnevin’s impossible task is made even more impossible when Gatiss (Tom Courtenay) is assigned to help him on this mission. He hates Gatiss and the feeling is mutual. Gatiss is cold-blooded and very very efficient. He enjoys killing.

To make a difficult situation even worse Eberlin/Krasnevin has met a bright, breezy and rather eccentric English girl named Caroline (Mia Farrow). The last thing he needs right now is a romantic entanglement but that’s what he’s going to get. Caroline has no idea what she is getting involved in although she’s crazy enough that she probably wouldn’t care anyway.

An even bigger problem for Eberlin/Krasnevin is that he wants to go home. Home to Russia. He is tired of being a spy, tired of having no real identity, tired of deception and tired of killing. He is a Russian and Russia is home. The Russians however do not want him to come home - he is too valuable to them where he is. When he is sent to West Berlin he thinks his opportunity has come. Everyone else is trying to escape from East Berlin. He is trying to escape to East Berlin.

Sadly Anthony Mann died during the making of the film. Laurence Harvey took over as director (having already had some experience as a director). Harvey stated at the time that his aim was to complete the film in Mann’s style without intruding any of his own style into it. It’s difficult to say how completely he succeeded since the movie was in any case a radical departure from Mann’s own previous style.

The film was not well received at the time and is generally dismissed as an unfortunate end to the career of a great director. It is a quirky film but quirky spy movies tended to do very well in the 60s. A Dandy in Aspic bears little resemblance to the Bond movies, belonging more to the dark and brooding school of spy film-making. Dark and brooding, but very stylish. In that respect it’s not dissimilar to the Harry Palmer movies such as The Ipcress File. Given that The Ipcress File did pretty well and has since gained a major cult following it’s difficult to understand why A Dandy in Aspic failed and has languished in obscurity ever since.

There’s not a great deal of action but other character and atmosphere-driven spy thrillers were successful at that time.

The film’s failure cannot be attributed to the cast. Laurence Harvey is perfect for the role of the embittered and desperate double agent. It’s a very low-key performance but given that he’s playing a man with no coherent sense of identity that works quite well. It also helps in not making the character too sympathetic - he is after a ruthless spy and a pitiless assassin. Tom Courtenay is surprisingly chilling as the ice-cold Gatiss, and manages to make him more than just a killing machine. We get a sense that he does have emotions but they’re well and truly buried and they’re seething away somewhere deep inside him. Mia Farrow is ditzy but appealing. The strong supporting cast includes such fine British character actors as Harry Andrews, Geoffrey Bayldon and Norman Bird. Look out for comic Peter Cook as a lecherous British spy.

Derek Marlowe’s screenplay was adapted from his own novel. It has plenty of twists and turns and plenty of the kind of cynicism that went down so well in the 60s. Having a Russian spy as the hero was an interesting twist. 

Sony’s Region 2 DVD release offers an extremely good anamorphic transfer.

A Dandy in Aspic is a tense stylish spy thriller which deserves to be rediscovered. Highly recommended.