And by the mid-1960's those little American boys who wanted to grow up and become cowboys would give up on those dreams, once the spy movie craze rolled into town. Sparing jingly jangly spurs, stetsons and quarter horses, in lieu of telephone watches and walkie-talkie shoes. And with a round of thanks to the Cold War, the film industry could continue capitalizing away on all the intrigue and those plots to bring disaster. And the spy was the limit - CIA cryptograms, pricey Italian duds, code name : anything under the sun. That would do. Now auteur beyond compare Fritz Lang turned out a first of its kind spy picture not so much during the Cold War but a decade after the Great War, astutely titled Spies and Alfred Hitchcock just knew he was on to something with The Man Who Knew Too Much in 1934, that starred Peter Lorre, who as you know, knew quite a bit himself. Powell and Pressburger's omnipotent The Spy in Black (1939) supplied endless fodder as per for future productions.
And because so many said an emphatic yes to Dr No in 1962, those same Italian directors who listened intently to the Hollywood machine when it came to early Westerns and action films, sported those open for business placards on their assembly lines and though the ambitious Bruno Corbucci's James Tont Operazione Uno (see what he did there?) was intended to be a spoof, the legal beagle reps and Broccoli and Saltzman, were none too elated when those sacred three digits of 007 were being used verbatim in eurospy film titles. In the eleventh hour, they were transposed to 077 As there were countless variations on the theme 'Djangos' and spurious ripoffs - there were countless Bondsmen bandied about in many an Italo-Franco production.
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| Monica Vitti puts the mod in 1966's Modesty Blaise |
Not to dismiss their entertainment value, and the other European nations were responding in kind, make that kinder, as the most achieved espionage entry was surely Britain's contribution of the Harry Palmer series based on Len Deighton's eponymous work, starring Michael Caine as the iconic ,bespectacled one. Eurospy films, although now a half a century since reaching their zenith still spell out Code Name : AOK with me.
