Lots of Big Screen Spy Movies at L.A.'s New Beverly This Month

The June line-up at Quentin Tarantino's L.A. revival theater The New Beverly Cinema has lots to offer for spy fans! Foremost among them, in terms of big screen rarity, is a Sixties Irving Allen spy double bill of the fourth and final Matt Helm movie, 1969's The Wrecking Crew (advertised as being a gorgeous new 35mm print!) and the highly entertaining 1968 Eurospy movie Hammerhead. (Read my review here.) Like all of the Dean Martin Helm movies, the former (also starring Sharon Tate, Nancy Kwan, Tina Louise, and the villainous Deadlier Than the Male duo of Elke Sommer and Nigel Green) has relatively little to do with the gritty Donald Hamilton novel whose title it bears, but the latter is a pretty faithful adaptation of James Mayo's debut Charles Hood novel, despite changing hero Hood from a Brit to an American (Vince Edwards). This swinging double feature plays two nights--Wednesday, June 12, and Thursday, June 13. The first feature starts at 7:30, and the second at 9:45.

They'll also be showing Alfred Hitchcock's two late Sixties spy movies on consecutive Wednesday afternoons as part of their "Afternoon Classics" matinee series. Since these aren't among Hitch's most famous titles, they're also relative rarities on the big screen. I wish they weren't only playing during the day when I'll be at work! But should you be lucky enough to have Wednesdays off, be sure to check out "vibrant" IB Technicolor prints of Torn Curtain (1966), starring Paul Newman and Julie Andrews, on Wednesday, June 19, at 2pm, and Topaz (1969), based on the Leon Uris novel and featuring a Eurospy all-star cast of Frederick Stafford (OSS 117: Terror in Tokyo), Michel Piccoli (Danger: Diabolik), and Karin Dor (You Only Live Twice), on Wednesday, June 26, at 2pm.

There's also a slew of spy-adjacent Sixties movies on the docket, including Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman's other giant Ian Fleming adaptation, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, playing as a 2pm matinee on Saturday, June 22, and Sunday, June 23, Sean Connery in another Wednesday matinee of Hitchcock's Marnie (1964) on June 12, Eurospy goddess Elke Sommer in the heist picture They Came to Rob Las Vegas (paired with another Gary Lockwood vehicle, Jacques Demy's mesmerizing love letter to Sixties L.A., Model Shop) on June 18 (one night only), and on June 19 and 20 a double feature of Frank Sinatra's second Tony Rome movie (essentially an attempt to reinvent the hard-boiled P.I. genre for the Swinging Sixties Bond-Age), Lady in Cement (co-starring Fathom's Raquel Welch) and the faux spy thriller Pretty Poison, wherein mental patient Anthony Perkins convinces Tuesday Weld he's a secret agent. That's quite a month!

It should be noted that both The Wrecking Crew and They Came to Rob Las Vegas both feature in the latest trailer for Tarantino's upcoming 1969-set Once Upon A Time... in Hollywood (the former in a clip and poster, the latter flashing by in a billboard adorning the Chinese Theater).

Tickets for all shows are available through Brown Paper Tickets.

DVD Review: Who’s Got the Black Box? aka The Road to Corinth (1967)

Yesterday I reviewed one Eurospy movie with a mysterious black box as its "MacGuffin" (Alfred Hitchcock's term for the desired artifact motivating the plot, whose specific nature is unimportant); today we have another. Why not? A mysterious black box: perhaps the quintessential MacGuffin by Hitchcock’s definition. It could be anything—and it won’t cost the production very much. The European title to Claude Chabrol’s 1967 Hitchcock homage, The Road to Corinth, has a nicer ring to it, but the U.S. title, Who's Got the Black Box?, proves particularly apt. This movie makes a joke of its MacGuffin and its overall meaninglessness. When a radiant Jean Seberg (Breathless), eager to coax her secret agent husband away on a vacation, tells him that “there are other things in life besides looking for little black boxes,” he replies sagely, “If it weren’t little black boxes, it would be big red ones. You knew that when you married me.” With this, he not only makes an amusing joke about the pursuits of movie spies, but fully acknowledges Hitchcock’s assertion that the Macguffin itself doesn’t matter as long as audiences believe it’s important to the characters. In that light, Who’s Got the Black Box? is really quite a perfect title, succinctly summarizing the primary character motivation in most spy movies of the era. However, it also portends a film that goes for broader jokes at the genre’s expense. Even the back of Pathfinder's DVD case bills Who's Got the Black Box? as a “spy parody,” but the parody aspects are very subtle. In the tradition of the French New Wave, Chabrol more winkingly acknowledges (and freely uses) the genre’s clichés rather than outright spoofing them. Most of the film’s humor is generated organically by the characters and their predicaments, in keeping with Hitch’s frothier fare like To Catch a Thief. That said, the laughs are fairly abundant and quite genuine.

It’s a good sign when something billed as a spy parody manages to elicit a few such genuine laughs before the credits, and this one does. First, from a magician who’s detained at the Greek border when a mysterious electronic black box is found in his car full of rabbits and doves. During his interrogation, the magician manages not only to untie himself (after a lazy guard refuses to do so, snarkily intoning “You’re a magician. Why don’t you do it yourself?”), but to produce first a cigarette (“It’s against regulations,” he’d been sharply reprimanded when he tried requesting one of his inquisitor), and then a cigar out of thin air… when he’s not even wearing a shirt! Before he bites the inevitable cyanide capsule in the cigar, the magician-spy reveals that there are fifteen other such black boxes already in Greece jamming up NATO radar systems and toppling missiles. The second laugh comes from Chabrol’s take on the Eurospy tradition wherein, for budgetary reasons, the boss’s office must have a curtain comprising at least one wall. Chabrol goes one better: yes, there’s a curtain, but another wall is made up entirely of a giant American flag! The CIA honcho who sits in front of it, Sharps (Michel Bouquet), is portrayed as an idiot, and blatantly called as much by his staff.

Our typical Eurospy hero appears to be Bob Ford (Christian Marquand), a CIA agent with a beautiful wife, Shanny (Jean Seberg), a devoted partner, Dex (Maurice Ronet) and the aforementioned idiot boss, Sharps. For some reason Shanny seems prone to performing sexy leg stretches in their hotel room while he’s having discussions with Dex and Sharps, which proves distracting to all concerned. Perhaps enticed by those stretching legs, Sharps sends Ford away from Athens on an assignment more so that the superior can pursue his agent’s wife than so that the agent can find the black boxes. And let it be noted, Seberg is very, very attractive—especially in the bikini that she taunts Sharps with during a little striptease by a swimming pool. But that’s still no excuse for Sharps to behave so utterly boorishly. (That type of behavior is supposed to be left to the Eurospies in the field, not their bosses!) Between pestering his employee’s wife and vetoing any reasonable suggestion his agents make, you’d swear that Sharps must be a double agent out to intentionally sabotage the investigation. But the movie doesn’t even really dangle that possibility as a red herring. He’s just a jerk.

Ford, however, is no slouch, and his mission (with the aid of some binoculars that look like ordinary sunglasses) quickly yields some vital information about the black boxes from an informant who works at a marblery. (That’s right, I said a "marblery." It’s a unique enough setting for a spy operation!) It also yields one of the film’s most memorable shots: an extremely wide view of stairs leading down to the waterfront as villainous henchmen pursue Ford and his informant. (It’s visually interesting here, but Seijun Suzuki did it much better thirty-some years later in his underrated Branded to Kill follow-up Pistol Opera.) Ford returns with his findings to Athens, but unfortunately he’s picked up a tail along the way: a fastidious henchman who wears a white suit, white gloves, white shoes with red spats and a white boater hat with a red ribbon.

The character may be American (supposedly), but the film is French, as reflected by Ford’s priorities. Rather than immediately rushing his vital intelligence to Sharps (who would probably disregard it anyway), he first stops by his hotel to make love to his beautiful wife. When she goes to refill the champagne, the white-suited assassin slips into the hotel bedroom. Shanny returns to find her husband dead on the bed. Okay, I guess Bob Ford wasn't the hero of this film after all! Shanny now takes center stage, but unfortunately the first thing that happens to her is she gets knocked out by the assassin, who duly plants his gun in her hand to frame her for her husband’s murder. Sharps is no help, either, for some reason telling the police that the couple weren’t getting along and that Shanny is prone to violence. (I guess this is because she wouldn’t sleep with him? I’m not sure; his motivations are unclear... or perhaps just unmotivated.)

Luckily, the informant Bob Ford met with before he died has the audacity to visit Shanny’s prison cell, disguised as an Orthodox priest… in order to demand the $1,000 Bob had promised him from his jailed widow! But that gives her the lead she needs to follow up and solve her husband’s murder. Sharps changes his mind and gets her out of the slammer, but only to put her onto the first plane back to the States. He has no interest in following up her fresh lead, condescendingly telling her at one point, “You have been courageous, but naïve as a child.” Naturally, Shanny slips away at her first opportunity, evading both Sharps and Dex, who he’s assigned to keep an eye on her. This becomes the pattern for the rest of the film: Shanny gets away, does some investigating, and then gets found again by agents who don’t believe her progress and want to ship her off to America. It gets a little old, but there are some nice moments along the way, like a murder in a cemetery perpetrated by three bogus Orthodox priests with knives that plays out like the climax of "Julius Caesar." There’s also that classic Hitchcock staple (ala North By Northwest, among others) where she finally convinces Sharps to call the police and the army to search the marblery, but the bad guys, having been tipped off, have cleared it of any evidence of wrongdoing so the good guys look foolish.

At one point, the fastidious henchman in the boater hat parks himself for a long time in Shanny’s hotel room, aiming his gun at the door as he reads a magazine called “Women.” Chabrol generates some good suspense from this set-up as numerous people (including Shanny, Dex and a hapless bellboy) almost open that door to certain death at different times.

A late blooming romance with Dex seems to come too soon after Shanny’s beloved husband’s death, but this is froth so we’ll let it slip. Less forgivable, unfortunately, is a final change of hero in the third act. If the first act was Bob’s and the second act Shanny’s, the third act belongs to Dex, and he’s disappointingly the least compelling hero of the bunch. (And far less easy on the eyes than Seberg.) He does get to navigate a Scooby Doo-style tomb filled with secret passages and even a painting with the eyeholes punched out for someone to peer though, though, so there’s enough happening to generate interest even while Shanny’s kidnapped.

Even kidnapped and tied up, Shanny still proves the most compelling character. When the villain (usually seen eating meals… even if he’s in the middle of a ruined temple, where’s he’s got a whole suckling pig spread out!) chains her up for sacrifice like Andromeda of Greek mythology in a rock-filled mine cart ready to be pushed over a cliff into the sparkling Aegean, the intrepid Shanny still doesn’t lose her nerve. She cuts off his big Talking Villain speech, saying, “No talking. Please, finish it.” This defiance in the face of death reminded me of Diana Rigg in The Avengers (particularly “A Surfeit of H20—“You diabolical mastermind, you!”). Luckily, Dex is fast approaching by helicopter (affording us some beautiful, scenic aerial shots of the picturesque Greek coastline) like Theseus on a latterday Pegasus.

Who’s Got the Black Box? drags a bit because of its somewhat awkward three-hero structure (and it’s got a somewhat disorienting and at times oddly atonal score that’s serviceable, but certainly not among the genre’s best), but overall it plays out as a pretty and passably entertaining imitation of frothy Hitchcock elevated by an engaging lead performance from Jean Seberg. It’s certainly not Chabrol’s best go at the Eurospy genre (that would be Marie-Chantal vs. Dr. Kha), but it’s still a beautifully shot film with beautiful locations and a beautiful leading lady. It’s also available on Region 1 DVD, which gives it the edge over the hard-to-find Marie-Chantal. Pathfinder’s anamorphic DVD seems slightly misframed (evidenced in the opening credits), but otherwise manages to convey all that beauty quite well. The English subtitles are kind of weirdly done, though; they seem like fansubs, translating every word literally (rather than poetically providing the gist of the dialogue, the way most subs do) and therefore often disappearing during rapid conversations before the viewer even has a chance to read them. That’s a shame, because you definitely want to be enjoying the beautiful Greek scenery and the beautiful Ms. Seberg rather than constantly reading quickly evaporating subtitles! Still, I’m glad the DVD exists. Fans of glossy Hitchcock imitations like The Prize or Arabesque (I’m not going to put this in the same league as Charade!) will probably find Who's Got the Black Box? worth a viewing.

Upcoming Spy DVDs: Criterion Revisits Hitchcock's 39 Steps

I've been waiting for this ever since Criterion revisited their original release of Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes nearly five years ago! This June, finally, they will revisit the master's other essential prewar spy movie, The 39 Steps, with new Blu-ray and DVD editions. At the very least, that one was in dire need of an artwork update, and indeed this new cover is far more stylish and in keeping with the company's current Lady Vanishes disc. But I'd never been entirely satisfied with the transfer on the old 39 Steps, either, and expect big improvements with this Blu-ray's new high-definition digital restoration. In addition to the new transfer, the Blu-ray sports a typically impressive array of new and old supplemental material (all of the features from the previous edition appear to be present and accounted for), including (per the Criterion website) an audio commentary by Hitchcock scholar Marian Keane, a 2000 British documentary covering the director's prewar career called Hitchcock: The Early Years, original footage from British broadcaster Mike Scott’s 1966 television interview with Hitchcock, the complete broadcast of the 1937 Lux Radio Theatre adaptation, performed by Ida Lupino and Robert Montgomery, original production design drawings, excerpts from François Truffaut’s (deservedly) ubiquitous 1962 audio interview with Hitchcock, and a new "visual essay" by Hitchcock scholar Leonard Leff. I'm actually really looking forward to that one, as Leff's visual essay on The Lady Vanishes (a sort of combination featurette and select scene commentary) proved to be a far more substantial extra than the name would imply. In addition to all that bonus material on the disc, there will also be a booklet featuring an essay by film critic David Cairns. The 39 Steps hits Blu-ray and DVD from Criterion on June 26, retailing for $39.95 and $29.95 respectively. Don't be misled by any of the many public domain versions of this title that are floating around out there; this Criterion edition is definitely the one you want.

New Spy DVDs Out Recently

This catch-up post keeps growing longer and longer the more it keeps getting put off. I missed quite a few weeks of new spy DVDs in January and February, and in hopes of getting back on track for weekly Tuesday posts, here's a great big roundup of some choice titles from the past month and a half.

The Michael Brandt/Derek Haas spy thriller The Double, starring Richard Gere, Topher Grace and Quantum of Solace's Stana Katic, received a limited theatrical release last fall on its way to a DVD debut at the end of January from Image Entertainment. Consequently, it's probably new to most spy fans on DVD, and comes with an impressive pedigree: The Double was penned by the writers of 3:10 to Yuma and Wanted (as well as the as-yet-unproduced spy movies The Matarese Circle and Matt Helm).
The DVD and Blu-ray hit stores a few weeks ago. Extras include a commentary with writer Haas and writer/director Brandt, producer interviews, and a reportedly spoiler-filled trailer. Here's the studio's description of the film:

When a United States Senator is brutally murdered, the evidence points to a Soviet assassin code-named Cassius, who was long-thought to be dead. Two men who know Cassius best are thrown together to catch him. Paul Shepherdson (Richard Gere, An Officer and a Gentleman) is a retired CIA operative who spent his career tracking Cassius around the globe. Ben Geary (Topher Grace, Spider-Man 3) is a hotshot young FBI Agent and family man who has studied the killer's every move. Ben thinks he knows Cassius, but Paul knows he is dead wrong. Now, time is running out to stop this merciless killing machine before he finds his next target. Martin Sheen (The Departed), Odette Yustman (Cloverfield) and Stana Katic (Castle) costar in this tense thriller from the co-writers of Wanted and 3:10 to Yuma that will keep you guessing until the very last shot.

Retail is $27.97 for the DVD and $29.97 for the Blu-ray, though of course both are available much cheaper on Amazon.

One of the weirdest and coolest corners of the spy genre has to be the decidedly odd fumetti and fumetti neri subgenre of the mid-to-late Sixties, an offshoot of the Eurospy movement which found the Italian James Bond wannabes dressing up in tights and masks. (The Fantastic Argoman and Diabolik are prime examples; you can read all about them and others of their ilk in my Costumed Adventurer Week recap.) Hollywood stunt man-turned-director Scott Rhodes very obviously shares my affinity for this unique marriage of spy and superhero, and as I first wrote about last summer when the series debuted, he's single-handedly revived it with his web series homage to the likes of Superargo and Argoman, The Adventures of Superseven! (No direct relation to the eurospy Super Seven - two words - who liked to call Cairo.) Hopefully you've already seen Superseven in action on YouTube, but if you haven't, the web series' entire first season is now available on DVD! And it's brimming with special features, too, including interviews, behind-the-scenes footage, bloopers, and even a gallery of artwork designed in the style of Sixties lobby cards by my fellow spy blogger, Permission To Kill's David Foster. Superseven is a very entertaining series with impressive production values and acting, sure to thrill fans of Sixties Eurospy and costumed adventurer movies. The 2-disc set can be ordered for $14.99 plus $3 shipping and handling directly from the Superseven website. Stay tuned in the coming week or so for an interview with Scott Rhodes and a chance to win this DVD!

Disney has released the cult favorite 1983 Margot Kidder spy movie Trenchcoat on DVD as part of their made-on-demand "Disney Generations" line. Trenchcoat, which also stars Robert Hays and features Raiders of the Lost Ark's Ronald Lacey and Poirot's David Suchet in smaller parts, caused a bit of controversy when it came out in 1983, as it was the first film Disney had aimed specifically at the adult market. (Not that it's that adult, but it's not designed for kids.) Ultimately it led to the creation of the Touchstone brand so the studio could differentiate such fare. Kidder stars as a mystery writer who goes on vacation in scenic Malta (another undeniable star of this show) and finds herself caught up in a web of international espionage and terrorism, where no one is who they seem to be. It's long been demanded on DVD by its fans, so this release is sure to please quite a few people. Now I hope Disney uses their Generations label to put out a few more of their 80s spy capers, like the 1987 Walt Disney's World of Color TV movie Double Agent, starring Michael McKean (which I saw on the same day I first saw Thunderball - and I preferred the Disney movie!*), or perhaps a reissue of the long out-of-print latter-day fumetti Condorman, with Bond Girl Barbara Carera.

Alfred Hitchcock's 1946 spy masterpiece Notorious made its Blu-ray debut a few weeks ago courtesy of Fox and MGM. Besides an impressive HD transfer (really, I don't know what some Amazon reviewers are complaining about), the Blu-ray boasts two commentaries by film historians, an isolated music and effects track, "The Ultimate Romance: The Making of Notorious" featurette, "Alfred Hitchcock: The Ultimate Spymaster" featurette (a must-see for fans of the genre), an AFI Tribute to Hitchcock, a 1948 radio play starring Joseph Cotton and Ingrid Bergman, a Peter Bogdanovich audio interview, a second audio interview with François Truffaut quizzing Hitch on a number of subjects including both Notorious and the auteur's earlier spy movie Sabotage, a restoration comparison and a still gallery. Retail is already a bargain at $24.99, but, unsurprisingly, it's significantly less on Amazon.

After an extraordinarily prolonged drought, another James Bond movie materialized on Blu-ray a few weeks ago... but not, I'm afraid, one of the titles that many fans have long been hoping for, like The Spy Who Loved Me, You Only Live Twice or On Her Majesty's Secret Service. (We'll finally see those in high-def as part of a massive 50th Anniversary box set this fall.) Instead, Fox and MGM have made the 1967 spoof version of Casino Royale widely available. The title was previously available on Blu only as a Best Buy exclusive. Casino Royale '67, starring David Niven, Woody Allen, Peter Sellers and Orson Welles (among many others), can now, at last, be found everywhere (including Amazon). The SRP is $19.99, and the disc contains the same extras available on the last DVD edition: an audio commentary with Bond historians Steven Jay Rubin and John Cork, the original theatrical trailer, and a five-part documentary produced by Rubin on the unbelievable behind-the-scenes shenanigans that went on during the making of Casino Royale.

The latest in Shout! Factory's series of multi-DVD set reissues of out-of-print Roger Corman exploitation movies, Lethal Ladies Collection: Volume 2, includes the low-budget Seventies spy movie Cover Girl Models. According to the studio copy, "a fashion photography assignment teams three American models and inadvertently plunges them into the mystery and danger of international espionage. When an invaluable roll of microfilm is sewed into one of the girls’ fashion gowns, they are drawn into the violence and intrigue of a spy-vs.-counterspy conspiracy." It's all just an excuse for T&A in cheap Manila locations, of course, but that's the Seventies for you. Cover Girl Models was previously issued on a Region 1 disc from Televista for Latin American companies. The Shout! set also includes the stewardesses-vs-hijackers movie Fly Me and a most welcome reissue of the long unavailable (and very pricey on the collector's market) Pam Grier gladiator classic The Arena. Extras include trailers and TV spots as well as all the Arena special features from the out of print New Concorde DVD, plus a new director's commentary on that one. Retail is an affordable $24.97 for the 2-disc set.

*Of course I was 10, and haven't had the opportunity to see it since. It's probably terrible.

New Spy DVDs Out This Week

This week sees the release of The Debt (movie review here) on DVD and Blu-ray from Universal. The Debt follows a team of Mossad agents hunting a Nazi war criminal in Sixties East Berlin... and then dealing with the consequences of their Cold War actions decades later. Both formats include the featurettes "A Look Inside The Debt," "Every Secret Has A Price: Helen Mirren In The Debt" and "The Berlin Affair: The Triangle At The Center Of The Debt," as well as an audio commentary with director John Madden and producer Kris Thykier. Retail is $29.98 for the DVD and $34.98 for the Blu-ray, though naturally both are substantially cheaper at all the usual online vendors.

The Mission: Impossible "Extreme Trilogy" comes on both Blu-ray and DVD, too, though most people who want to no doubt already own the DVDs. I'm not really sure what qualifies these three feature films spun out of the classic TV series as "extreme" (dangling, I guess? They're not xXx!), but I do know that one of the reasons why I love Peter Graves is because he was never extreme. (Though some of his shirts and coats were.) Extreme or not, the cover art is actually pretty cool, and this set certainly makes for a good way to accumulate the first three movies at a very reasonable price just in time for the new fourth entry from director Brad Bird. The Mission: Impossibe Extreme Blu-ray Trilogy retails for $39.99 (though it's currently under thirty bucks on Amazon), and the Mission: Impossible Extreme DVD Trilogy is priced at just $26.98 ($19.99 on Amazon right now).

From Music Box Films comes (at last) the Dragon Tattoo Trilogy: Extended Edition on both Blu-ray and DVD. While the first film in the Swedish trilogy based on Stieg Larsson's bestselling novels, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, is a murder mystery (and required viewing in the overall saga), the two subsequent entries (The Girl Who Played With Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest) are both spy movies. To reveal exactly how is to give too much away, but they involve a ruthless Cold War defector and the Swedish security service the Säpo. Essentially, the plot progresses from Agatha Christie territory to Robert Ludlum's realm over the course of the three films. "Films," however, is a slightly misleading term. While the first one was always intended for theatrical release, the other two were made as a miniseries for Swedish TV, then cut down into features for international distribution. That means that the versions seen in American theaters (and previously available on DVD) were truncated. This release marks the first time that all three "films" have been available here in their entirety. Tying this release with the one discussed above, Swedish star Michael Nyqvist (whose role Daniel Craig takes on in the upcoming David Fincher version) plays a villain in Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol.

Finally, from Criterion we have the high-def debut of an Alfred Hitchcock spy classic with The Lady Vanishes Blu-ray Blu-ray. This disc contains all the same special features as the excellent DVD version from 2007 (discussed in my review here), as well as a new HD transfer of the film. A special bonus among those features is the inclusion of an entire second movie, 1941's Crooks' Tour, starring Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne reprising their Lady Vanishes roles as the oh-so-British, cricket-obsessed overgrown schoolboys Charters and Caldicott. Charters and Caldicott also turned up in Carol Reed's 1940 spy movie Night Train to Munich (from the same writers as The Lady Vanishes), which is also available on DVD from Criterion. (Review here.)

Tradecraft: A New Twist on Hitchcock - The Kid Who Knew Too Much

According to a Deadline article about a new HBO comedy from writer Bryan Sipe, "Sipe has [also] signed on to do a re-write on the Parkes/MacDonald-produced feature The Kid Who Knew Too Much for Paramount, a remake of Alfred Hitchcock's 1934 and 1956 movies." As the title clearly indicates, this is a remake of the film that Hitch himself remade (and preferred the remake), only focusing on a kid. In the original(s), a vacationing couple has their son kidnapped to prevent them from talking when they unwittingly stumble upon some intelligence about an upcoming assassination attempt. The father then tracks down clues to save his son. A February story on /film confirms that in the new version, instead of a couple desperately searching for their missing child, we’ll see "a kid looking for his stolen parents." I think that's a sound premise—and one so obvious I can't believe we haven't seen it sooner. Paramount is sort of carving a niche for themselves by remaking Hitchcock movies with a kid focus. (2007's Disturbia was a teen version of Rear Window.) It's unclear from either story how old the protagonist will be, but personally I'd prefer to see a slightly grittier film about a teen rather than a Cody Banks-type fantasy about a younger child. According to the /film article, Fair Game writers John and Jez Butterworth penned the first draft of this.

DVD Review: Night Train To Munich (1940)

DVD Review: Night Train To Munich (1940)

Carol Reed’s Night Train to Munich is another stellar and deserving addition to the Criterion Collection. As usual with Criterion releases, I’ll begin reviewing the disc on the outside, because I just love their packaging. It’s a standard clear Amray case, but boy does this DVD look good! Criterion’s designers should be commended; they routinely do such a great job. The carefully chosen poster detail (stylized artwork of a man hanging from an Alpine cable car) makes a visually striking cover graphic and serves as excellent shorthand for what to expect of the movie. The back is equally attractive, and the fonts are all well chosen. I know, I know; it’s weird to talk about fonts in a DVD review, but Criterion packaging is so attractive that I feel they bear mentioning! The thick plastic (none of that cheap, flimsy, eco-friendly casing that the studios favor these days!) and hefty 16-page booklet inside give some satisfying heft even to a single disc release. Criterion DVDs always weigh a bit more than a regular DVD, and I like that about them too. It really makes you feel like you’ve got something special in your hands, which in most cases (including this one), you do. The interior artwork is equally satisfying.

Moving beyond the tactile to the reasons most normal people buy DVDs, the actual disc contents, Criterion’s Night Train to Munich disc is no less impressive than its packaging. The 1.33:1 full-frame transfer is as crisp as you could possibly hope for, looking much better than VHS versions or even TCM broadcasts of this film. This is the way black and white films should look. Since Fox (once a leader in terms of catalog releases) aren’t really giving this kind of lavish treatment to their older titles anymore (or releasing them at all, really; I think Man Hunt may have been the last of its kind), I’m glad that they licensed Night Train to Munich to Criterion. It’s a special film, and it deserves special treatment.

Night Train to Munich is one of many spy films that popped up on the eve of America’s involvement in WWII, and it’s one of the better ones, almost in the same class as Hitchcock’s Foreign Correspondent (review) and The Lady Vanishes (review). I like the fairly unique tone of the spy films of this era, still unsure about audience reaction to the cataclysmic events going on in Europe, and therefore tentatively injecting lighthearted Thirties-style romantic adventure with a dangerous edge, and a perceptibly volatile backdrop.

The film’s Prague-set opening moments (cut together with actual newsreel footage) effectively convey the terror of living in a country being invaded by Germany. They’re actually not that indicative of the film to follow, whose lighter approach never generates the same sort of suspense as Fritz Lang’s much darker Man Hunt (review here), but they set the scene well not only for the adventure to come, but for the grim new era dawning on the world in 1940.

Leaders of Czech industry arrange the exciting escape of Axel Bomasch, a scientist working on a new kind of armor plating (whose plane takes off mere seconds ahead of a Nazi staff car tearing after it down the runway), but his daughter Anna (The Lady Vanishes’ Margaret Lockwood, playing a different character) isn’t so lucky. The Gestapo meets her at her front door as she tries to make her getaway, and promptly interns her in a concentration camp in hopes of using Anna to get at her father. There she meets Karl (Paul Henreid), an outspoken fellow prisoner (visciously beaten immediately upon his internment for standing up to his captors) who uses his connections to help her escape. Their escape together leads to a rapid-fire series of unexpected twists and turns. Is Karl just a schoolteacher, as he claims? Or is he a Nazi agent, orchestrating some larger plot? Or is he a British agent, tasked with extricating Anna? Or a double working for both sides? Like Cary Grant in Charade, his identity keeps changing.

For a movie that I expected (from its title) to get on a train fairly early and be all about escaping Nazi-occupied territory, I was surprised when the action shifted quickly to England. But we don’t stay there long, as Anna and her father are recaptured by the Nazis, and transported to Germany! Rex Harrison (who confusingly looks a bit similar to Paul Henreid at this age) is Gus Bennett, the smooth British agent who volunteers to get them back. (Smooth agents are rarely named Gus anymore.) His brazen plan involves masquerading as a Nazi officer with forged papers, relying upon the bureaucratic quagmire inherent in any army to fool German authorities at the highest levels.

Harrison is good as the dashing hero, but he’s upstaged by two returning characters from The Lady Vanishes: the cricket-obsessed quintessentially English tourists Charters and Caldicott (Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne, reprising their respective roles). In the Hitchcock movie, the duo were purely comic relief. But in Night Train to Munich, these two play a much more proactive role in the plot. In fact, they’re integral to the second half of the film. That doesn’t mean that they’re not also funny, though.

We meet Charters and Caldicott (who, despite seeming the very opposite of cosmopolitan, always seem to be traveling Europe via spy-infested railroad cars) more than halfway through the film at the German station where all parties involved are finally boarding the titular night train. When Charters can’t locate a copy of Punch at the local newsstand, he settles on an amusing alternative. “Bought a copy of Mein Kampf,” he tells his traveling companion. “Occurs to me it might shed a spot of light on all this how-do-you-do.” And therein lies the brilliance of these characters. With their utterly stereotypical comical Britishness, they are capable of reducing even the most seemingly insurmountable challenges–like the threat of pure evil enveloping the world–to a bit of “how-do-you-do.” It’s a very humorous image to see a man dressed in such a way that he couldn’t possibly be anything other than an English tourist clutching a copy of Mein Kampf. Typically, when he hears that England has declared war on Germany, Charters’ first thought is of his golf clubs, which he lent to someone in Berlin saying he wouldn’t need them back until Wednesday.

While at first their role seems to be one of standard farce (Caldicott recognizes Bennett because they went to school together, but can’t fathom why he might be in a Nazi uniform; after all, he played cricket for the Gentlemen!), Charters and Caldicott soon prove integral to the spy plot. After learning a crucial bit of intelligence by accident, they engage in a Marx Brothers-ish secret meeting with Bennett inside the cramped quarters of a train lavatory, the comic setting offsetting the dire life and death consequences of their discussion. Eventually this pair of unmistakable Brits even end up disguised in Nazi uniforms themselves. (This leaves two stormtroopers tied up in a train compartment in their underwear–Charters’ copy of Mein Kampf gagging one of them, spine out! Who would have thought you could get two first-rate sight gags out of a book by Hitler?)

The thrilling finale begins with a breakneck chase along Alpine roads in a cool-looking armored car and culminates in the cable car hijinks you expect from that poster image on the cover. By the Sixties, nearly every Eurospy movie would have a cable car fight (although 007 himself doesn’t get around to it until Moonraker in ‘79), but few of them come close to this early entry in the spy movie cable car sweepstakes. In a well-staged setpiece involving model work and matte paintings, Bennett shoots it out with Nazi agents from a cable car suspended between two Alps and two nations–Germany and neutral Switzerland. As you can tell from that cover, he also ends up dangling from one, while trying to switch cars in mid-flight. It’s a stunning climax to a solid movie with an especially solid second half.

Night Train to Munich starts off well enough, but doesn’t transcend its genre until that second half. The payoff is definitely worth sticking around for, though. The comic presence of Charters and Caldicott may ensure that tension never gets too high, but that’s okay. (Frankly, I prefer it to the more white-knuckle dread of the similar Man Hunt.) After the German invasion at the beginning, we’re never too concerned about stakes. Like any good train trip, we’re along for the ride, and it’s quite an enjoyable one with great scenery, entertaining company and one hell of a destination.

Besides that thick booklet (containing informative critical text essays as well as production information), there’s only one major special feature on Night Train to Munich, but it’s a good one: a thirty plus minute video essay discussing all aspects of the film from its script to its production and reception to a critical analysis. I really love Criterion’s video essays! They’re much closer to a film school lecture than a standard making-of, and, personally, I like that. This one is actually billed as a dialogue, not an essay, between authors Bruce Babington (author of Launder and Gilliat, a biography of the film’s writers, who also penned The Lady Vanishes) and Peter Evans (biographer of director Carol Reed). But to spruce things up and (quite successfully) disguise the fact that this is just clips cut in with two people having a conversation, Criterion’s features producers film the conversation aboard a train, which was a really brilliant choice. It makes the whole presentation feel more special than standard talking heads against a generic background, which is typical of the Criterion brand.

There are a few pertinent clips from The Lady Vanishes (but surprisingly none from Crooks’ Tour, the other Charters and Caldicott film included as a supplement to the Hitchcock film on Criterion's DVD of it) and some stills relevant to the topics under discussion, including one of crowds outside the London theater (adorned with giant banner ads) where the film premiered. The two film scholars discuss the period in which the movie was set and made and the role of Charters and Caldicott–both in the film itself and in a larger cultural context. They make an excellent point that in The Lady Vanishes, made prior to England’s involvement in the war, they only speak English, but now Charters appears to speak German and Caldicott French. They see this as indicating that Britain can no longer afford to be isolationist; war has broken out and it must be part of Europe. That’s just one of many insightful points made in this video essay. Like most Criterion features, it’s just really well made and informative and never dull. Criterion's DVD of Night Train to Munich is an easy recommend for the whole package–feature, supplements and even case.

The 39 Steps Stageplay Opens In Los Angeles

When the comedic stage adaptation of the classic John Buchan spy novel and Alfred Hitchcock film opened on Broadway two years ago, I lamented being stuck in Los Angeles, far away from America's theater capital.  (In my frustration, I may have even used the term "smog-bubble" to describe a city I actually love. For this I now apologize.)  Well, now Angelenos can finally enjoy this production that's played London and New York and elsewhere to rave reviews.  "The 39 Steps" is running at LA's Ahmanson Theater downtown from April 27 to May 16, 2010. Nodding to the book, but apparently owing more to the first of several film adaptations of the material, The Hollywood Reporter noted when it opened on Broadway that "this particular adaptation is an almost scene-for-scene spoof/interpretation of Hitchcock's 1935 movie version that starred Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll." The procuction uses a cast of only four actors and minimal sets to, apparently, great effect. Tickets are available through the Ahmonson's website.

Upcoming Spy DVDs: 2008 Remake Of The 39 Steps

The latest filmed adaptation of John Buchan's classic spy novel The 39 Steps will be all new to American audiences when it debuts on DVD this March, courtesy of BBC Home Video. British audiences are probably already familiar with it, as it aired on UK television last Christmas and is already available on DVD there. Rupert Penry-Jones, known to spy fans as Adam Carter on MI-5 (aka Spooks), steps into the role of Richard Hannay in this retelling. Lydia Leonard and Patrick Malahide co-star.

The 39 Steps has been filmed at least three times previously. It's unsurprising that Alfred Hitchcock was the first to make it, as it features his favorite theme of an ordinary man suddenly pulled into a world of espionage and deception–and of course a chase. Ralph Thomas and Betty Box (Deadlier Than the Male) made a very entertaining if obscure version starring Kenneth More in 1959, and Avengers and Callan director Don Sharp made one in 1978 starring Robert Powell, who reprised the lead role a decade later on the TV series Hannay. A few years ago Robert Towne was rumored to be developing a new big-screen adaptation, but that project seems to have run out of steam. Most recently, the story was adapted for the stage in a comedic Broadway production. The Hitchcock version is available on DVD from Criterion, and was recently reissued in a budget no-frills edition that maintains the same excellent transfer at a lower price as part of the company's "Essential Art House" line. Neither of the other versions is available in America, but both (1959 and 1978) are out on Region 2 discs in England, as is Hannay.

The new TV version with Penry-Jones is, of course, updated for modern audiences, but retains the book's 1914 setting. According to producer Lynn Horsford, "With this adaptation we wanted to stay faithful to the spirit and period of the book, but asked the writer to feel free to re-imagine it for a modern audience more familiar with James Bond and Jason Bourne." The latest incarnation of The 39 Steps hits stores on March 2, 2010. Retail is $19.98, but of course it's cheaper on Amazon.

New Spy DVDs Out This Week

Spy season continues! Following hot on the heels of last week's major releases of The Prisoner Blu-Ray and From the Orient With Fury, this week sees several more crucial spy discs. First and foremost, we've got the seventh and final season of the original Mission: Impossible. Season 7 sees the team take on a few more espionage-related threats than they did in the Syndicate-heavy sixth season, but the primary enemy remains organized crime. (Or bad Seventies fashions; it's a tough call.) And Jim's still got some great cons left up his sleeve! This release completes one of the cornerstones of the spy TV genre... although there are still two seasons' worth of a late Eighties revival yet to see release on DVD. Hopefully CBS/Paramount will put those out on the same twice-yearly schedule as the original series. When I first started this blog three years ago, the first season was just about to be released, and that was cause for excitement. Seven years' worth of Missions seemed so far away! And there was no guarantee we'd get them all. Now we have, and it seems appropriate that the seventh coincides with the Double O Section's Third Blogiversary. These DVD sets have been coming out as long as I've been blogging! Honestly, it will be weird not having more of them to look forward to. CBS/Paramount has conditioned me to get a hankering for Peter Graves & Co. every six months or so, quenchable only by tearing through a new season of the show. Then I burn out on it and need a break until that next pang. Hopefully the Eighties version will be in the pipeline by that time...

There is also a bundle available containing all seven seaons, Mission: Impossible: The Complete Series. It appears to be just the original releases shrinkwrapped together, though; there's no special new packaging. Given CBS/Paramount's release history, I'd fully expect a newly-packaged Complete Series boxed set somewhere down the line (as they did for The Wild Wild West), possibly once they've released the two revival seasons. If you really want the whole thing together, I'd hold off for now and wait for that.

Today also sees the long, long-awaited Region 1 debut of Casino Royale director Martin Campbell's 1986 surreal spy TV masterpiece Edge of Darkness: The Complete BBC Series. The late, great Bob Peck plays a dedicated cop (and former intelligence officer) investigating the murder of his environmental activist daughter. The investigation uncovers layer upon layer of nuclear conspiracy involving the CIA, MI5, the Thatcher government and big business. As he peels away these layers, though, he exposes himself to great danger–both physical and mental. Is his daughter's ghost really helping him? Or is he going mad? All six episodes feature music-only tracks, showcasing the score by Michael Kamen and Eric Clapton. There's a documentary (originally made for the 2003 Region 2 DVD release) revealing "The Secrets of Edge of Darkness" including new (then, anyway) cast and crew interviews as well as several vintage interviews. Those include the late Bob Peck's appearance on UK chat show Breakfast Time. Rounding out the special features are reviews of the original broadcast and excerpts from various awards shows at which Edge of Darkness cleaned up. Campbell has just remade the series as a theatrical feature starring Mel Gibson. I think it's due out this year.

Last, but certainly not least, we also get the Blu-ray debut–and a new DVD edition–of what's arguably the most influential spy movie of all time, Alfred Hitchcock's classic North by Northwest: The 50th Anniversary Edition. The 50th Anniversary Edition contains all of the features of the previous DVD edition (including a commentary track by screenwriter Ernest Lehman), as well as "Cary Grant: A Class Apart" and the new documentaries "The Master’s Touch: Hitchcock’s Signature Style" and "North by Northwest: One for the Ages." The Blu-ray edition comes packaged in 44-page book "full of photos, film facts and insider information."