Tradecraft: True Detective Producers Developing Benedict Arnold Movie

Just as AMC launches it Revolutionary War spy series TURN (review here), Princess Pictures and Anonymous Content (the latter behind HBO's awesome True Detective) are hatching a plot of their own to bring the most notorious spy story of that era to the big screen. Deadline reports that they've acquired the screen rights to The Traitor's Wife by Allison Pataki, a bestselling historical novel focusing on Peggy Shippen Arnold, wife of the notorious turncoat Benedict Arnold. (Question for British readers here: In America, we learn in elementary school to loathe Benedict Arnold as a traitor. In the UK is he taught as a hero? He was, after all, the linchpin of a major British spy ring.) Pataki's presents Peggy as the woman behind the turncoat, alleging that the beautiful socialite half her husband's age was herself an agent working for (and formerly romantically involved with) British spy Major John André, and that it was she who first put Arnold in contact with Andre, the man who would become his controller. When Arnold was exposed and defected to the British, fighting for them against the fledgling Americans, his wife followed him. I haven't read the book, but this sounds like a pretty interesting spy story from the dawn of the United States.

TV Review: TURN (2014)

While there are a lot of spy shows on television right now, and a lot more in development, AMC delivers a different sort of spy drama in TURN. Different because of its unique setting, at least… but also pleasingly familiar in a lot of ways. In the ways that mean the most to aficionados of the genre.

TURN is set in 1776 against the backdrop of the American Revolution. The Continental Congress has declared independence, and an insurgency against the British rulers is raging. In the Long Island town of Setauket, farmer Abe Woodhull (Jamie Bell) doesn’t want to pick sides. He wants to stay neutral, he wants the war to end, he wants to tend to his crops, and he wants to watch his baby son grow up and not have to fight. But fate has other plans for him. His complicated personal relationships and a rash decision to smuggle his cabbage across the Long Island Sound to Connecticut result in on offer from American patriot Ben Talmadge (Seth Numrich) to spy for General Washington, providing news of troop movements and other vital intelligence from within the British stronghold of New York. It’s the same sort of offer that Harry Palmer’s always grumbling about—the sort Abe can’t really refuse. Abe is given the option of spying for the patriots or jail time for his smuggling activities. But one gets the sense that there’s already a budding insurgent inside Abe’s soul, and it might not have taken blackmail to get him to take up the cause.

While Abe is married to Mary (Meegan Warner), who seems to genuinely care for him, he still carries a torch for his ex-fiance, Anna (Heather Lind)… but she’s now married to tavern owner Selah Strong (Robert Beitzel), a patriot sympathizer to whom Abe owes money. For Anna's sake, Abe finds himself stepping into an altercation with British soldiers in Selah’s bar. The altercation gets Selah sent to jail, but Abe’s father, Richard (Kevin McNally, The Contract), a British loyalist close to garrison commander Major Hewlett (Burn Gorman, Torchwood), manages to get Abe off the hook. Selah makes Abe promise to take care of Anna while he’s in jail, and it’s for her sake that he seems to have some patriot sympathies even before Talmadge presses him into service. The same smuggling that got him into that predicament with the Continental Congress also gets him into trouble with the Redcoats, and once again his father steps in on his behalf. The only way Abe can avoid jail time is by taking a public oath of loyalty to the Crown, which he does… even as he’s secretly embarking on his new career as a spy against the British.

The biggest flaw in the pilot is that it introduces so many characters that they’re a bit hard to keep track of and in some cases difficult at first to tell apart. (And I’ve only mentioned a handful of the many featured players!) But with all these characters, obviously, there’s plenty of human drama to drive the story even without the spy plot. But it’s the spy plot we’re here for, and in that respect TURN doesn’t seem as different as you might think. While the technology has certainly changed over the years, the basics of espionage and treachery have remained the same since the dawn of time, and spy fans will be thrilled to find the makings of a labyrinthine le Carre-style plot of spymasters and agents, assets and couriers, tradecraft and double-crosses, and even rudimentary gadgetry. (The British make use of a cool, if very basic, decoder.)

Once I figured out who was who, I found the pilot of TURN to offer highly compelling character-driven spy drama in a unique and fascinating historical context. Seeds are sewn for an exciting and harrowing story to come, with interesting characters on both sides of the conflict. I will definitely be tuning in again next week.

AMC has also put up a free digital prequel comic that serves as a good aid in figuring out who's who, and how the different characters relate to one another. Read it here.

Another Teaser For AMC's Turn

AMC has released the another teaser trailer for their Revolutionary War-era spy series Turn. This one reveals more of the show's espionage aspects. Turn is based on the book Washington's Spies: The Story of America's First Spy Ring by Alexander Rose. With a pilot directed by Rupert Wyatt (Rise of the Planet of the Apes), Turn tells the story of The Culper Ring, America's first spy network. It stars Jamie Bell (Tintin), Kevin McNally (The Contract), Burn Gorman (Torchwood), Seth Numrich, Heather Lind, Meegan Warner, Angus MacFadyen, J.J. Field, and Samuel Roukin. It airs this Spring.

Trailer For AMC's Revolutionary War Spy Series Turn

AMC has released the first trailer for their upcoming Revolutionary War-era spy series Turn, based on the book Washington’s Spies: The Story of America's First Spy Ring by Alexander Rose. Directed by Rupert Wyatt (Rise of the Planet of the Apes), Turn tells the story of The Culper Ring, America's first spy network. It stars Jamie Bell (Tintin), Kevin McNally (The Contract), Burn Gorman (Torchwood), Seth Numrich, Heather Lind, Meegan Warner, Angus MacFadyen, J.J. Field, and Samuel Roukin. It airs this Spring.

Paul Revere, Spy

The LA Times' 24 Frames movie blog (via Dark Horizons) reports that the production company behind Robert Redford's new Lincoln assassination movie, The Conspirator, is developing a Paul Revere movie next.  Why is that news on a spy blog?  Well... Paul Revere was essentially a spy, and according to the blog, this movie "will concentrate on the espionage elements of the event; while almost any schoolchild can tell you about Revere's ride, few of us know how he knew what he did, and the challenges he and [fellow rider William] Dawes faced in obtaining that information. 'For people who grew up mainly with the [Longfellow] poem, it's a far more interesting story,' said the [producer] Rob Stone."  The production company's mission statement is to make movies about American history, and to that end they've optioned the book Paul Revere’s Ride by Pulitzer Prize winner David Hackett Fischer. Intolerable Cruelty screenwriters Robert Ramsey and Matthew Stone will pen the script, but change the title to Midnight Riders. Producer Brian Falk describes the film project to the LA Times as "a historically accurate swashbuckler about the spark of the American Revolution, with horses, gunfights, swords and a little bawdiness." Sounds good to me! I've long been interested in Paul Revere's spy career, and even wrote a script on the subject myself quite a while ago. (Obviously, this project is entirely unrelated to that one, which, needless to say, went nowhere.)