Upcoming Spy DVDs: Superargo Cover Art Revealed

DVD Sleuth reports that the Code Red Superargo DVD we heard about last June finally has a release date—and cover art.  The 1968 Eurospy/Superhero "costumed adventurer" hybrid Superargo (aka Superargo and the Faceless Giants aka Superargo the Giant aka Superargo vs. the Giant Robots, etc.) stars Giovanni Cianfriglia, Guy Madison and Diana Lorys.  Code Red's "Exploitation Cinema" double feature pairs the film with a 1972 John Astin comedy called Wacky Taxi.  The original announcement mentioned that a comedy troup called Cinema Head Cheese would provide an MST3K-style commentary track, but there's no reference to that on the cover art, so I'm not sure if that's still the case or not.  Personally, I don't care one way or the other as long it's possible to watch the movie without such commentary, which it seems clear it will be.  There's no word on the aspect ratio, either.  Here's hoping for widescreen!  The Wacky Taxi/Superargo DVD will retail for $14.98, but it's available to preorder on Amazon for just $10.49. 

Read my coverage of other Costumed Adventurer movies from this era here.

Upcoming Spy DVDs: Luck And Leverage

On March 16, Acorn reissues the long out-of-print British show Wish Me Luck: Series 1.  Based on the true stories of female intelligence agents behind Nazi lines, Wish Me Luck boasts "strong female characters, tension-filled plots, and historical authenticity."

Honestly, I'm not at all familiar with this show (but I'm intrigued!), but here's Acorn's description:

At the height of World War II, France is occupied and all of England is in peril. Col. James “Cad” Cadogan (For Your Eyes Only's Julian Glover) will use any means necessary to get the intelligence he needs—even sending civilians to work undercover behind enemy lines. Based on the real-life stories of women recruited by Britain’s Special Operations Executive, this suspenseful drama series follows wife and mother Liz Grainger (Kate Buffery) and half-Jewish factory girl Matty Firman (Suzanna Hamilton) from training in England through the terror of their daily lives in Nazi-occupied France. Created by Jill Hyem and Lavinia Warner (BBC’s Tenko), Wish Me Luck aired on ITV for three series (1988-90) and broadcast on U.S. public television in the 1990s. Jeremy Northam and Jane Asher co-star.

Besides all eight episodes of the first series, this two-disc set also includes historical background on the real operation that inspired the series and a photo gallery. Retail is $39.99, but naturally it's available to pre-order online for cheaper than that...

TV Shows On DVD reports that Paramount will unleash Leverage: The 2nd Season on May 25.  While not quite a "spy show" per se, Leverage remains the closest thing on television to the original Mission: Impossible.  In fact, in its second season it's more Mission than ever!  (In one episode, for example, they convince a phony psychic that one of their team is a real psychics.  How many times did Jim Phelps's team pull that one?)  Besides including all fifteen Season Two episodes, the set also contains copious extras.  Among them: commentary on every episode, a Q&A with the show's creators, a set tour with executive producer John Rogers, a "Behind the Boom" featurette, a music featurette, a gag reel and a spoof video entitled "The Hand Job."  (Every episode is called "The [Something] Job.")

Tradecraft: Matarese Circle Faces Shaky Future

I've speculated in recent posts that one of the upcoming spy movies I'm personally most looking forward to may be in trouble.  A recent article in the Los Angeles Times would seem to confirm those fears.  As has been frequently covered here since the initial bidding war almost two years ago, MGM was set to adapt one of Robert Ludlum's best novels, The Matarese Circle, with David Cronenberg directing and Denzel Washington and Tom Cruise starring.  According to the Times, that's all up in the air now thanks to MGM's very public financial woes. 

[Mary] Parent, a former top executive at Universal Pictures, had originally planned to make a full slate of movies at MGM that would include big-budget sequels to James Bond, adaptations of  "The Hobbit" and a spy thriller adapted from Robert Ludlum's suspense novel "The Matarese Circle." But, those plans were dashed when MGM ran into a financial wall shortly after her arrival.

So what does "dashed" mean?  That's unclear.  Perhaps if MGM gets bought by another studio like Warner Bros. or Lions Gate (both of whom have shown interest), the project could still be revived.  Or perhaps "dashed" is totally dead.  I really hope not.  And if that is the case, I hope another studio picks it up and somehow manages to keep Cronenberg attached.  (Such an interesting choice for Ludlum material–and after Eastern Promises I firmly believe he's ideal for it.)  The Matarese Circle is one of Ludlum's very best (along with The Bourne Identity and The Parsifal Mosaic, which is currently in development at Universal), and would make a great film! 
As for MGM's dreary outlook, the article concludes:

Apart from an outright sale, there's a chance MGM could remain independent if the company can restructure its $3.7-billion debt and secure new capital. But many expect the studio will be acquired by another media company and exist as a label for new productions of James Bond and other movie properties culled from its library.

Analysts say that in a worse case scenario, MGM would wind up filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and be sold off in pieces.

Movie Review: The Ghost Writer (2010)

Despite a few missteps, Pierce Brosnan maintains his mostly winning streak of eclectic, intriguing post-Bond projects with Roman Polanski’s spy thriller The Ghost Writer. (I think it’s fair to say that he’s second only to Connery in terms of maintaining a thriving career after 007.) As for Polanski, while I certainly can’t advocate his life choices, there's no denying that he’s a great filmmaker, either. He’s one of the very best, in fact, and one of the few of his generation who continues to make compelling, first-rate cinema. In terms of Polanski’s greater oeuvre, The Ghost Writer doesn’t rank at the very top, but it’s certainly one of the good ones–and it’s also certainly one of the better thrillers you’re likely to see in theaters this year.

Ewan McGregor stars as an unnamed ghost writer (or simply “ghost” as he’s usually referred to in the vernacular of his industry; indeed, the original title of this film was simply–and perhaps more appropriately–The Ghost) hired to rewrite the memoirs of an enigmatic, Tony Blair-like former British Prime Minister Adam Lang (Brosnan). The deadline is tight already and quickly tightened even more when Lang comes under fire–and under investigation by the International Criminal Court–for alleged complicity in extreme rendition of British subjects (terror suspects) to CIA torture prisons. McGregor is whisked off to a desolate, windswept and storm-prone Martha’s Vineyard (whatever European coastline filled in as the location did an admirable job of it) to complete the manuscript at the vacation home where Lang, his wife, a skeleton staff and an omnipresent security detail are staying. He is not permitted to take the manuscript out of the house, and Lang seems a little too caught up in his very public troubles to spend much time being interviewed by his ghost.

The Ghost’s first reaction on reading the existing version of the memoirs is to fall asleep; they’re that bad. Then he comes across some intriguing clues left by the previous ghost writer on the project, Mike McAra, whose body washed ashore the week before under very mysterious circumstances. Soon McGregor is becoming a much more literal ghost–the ghost of McAra–as he follows up on his leads (guided by McAra's voice from the grave in an ingenious device) and starts to draw some disturbing conclusions about Lang and his connection to the CIA and its torture flights. But are they the right conclusions? Nothing is as it seems and no one is quite as they seem at the dreary, isolated beach house. The women in Lang’s life–his wife and longtime advisor, Ruth (an excellent Olivia Williams) and his closest aide and apparent mistress, Amelia (Kim Cattrall)–each clearly have their own agendas... but what are those agendas? And how do they affect The Ghost? For that matter, who are the sinister men following him?

Polanski ratchets up the suspense at such a masterfully deliberate pace that while you’re always aware that something is wrong, you’re still in shock when the true jolts start to come. The word “Hitchcockian” is thrown around far too much these days, and applied to any old generic thriller. This is one case in which the term is truly applicable. Polanski is clearly emulating the master, from his lengthy, nail-biting suspense setpieces (leave it to a septuagenarian to find the best ever filmic use of a piece of modern technology like a GPS system) to the intensely Bernard Herrmanesque score by Alexandre Desplat. The results are hugely entertaining.

McGregor’s characteristically solid performance makes a surprisingly compelling lead character out of someone the script provides with virtually no background–not even a name. Yet we still care about him, thanks to McGregor and to the specific ways that Polanski manages to put him in danger. His function is basically a husk to be possessed by the ghost of the former ghost writer (all metaphorically speaking, of course; this is not a horror movie), and yet he’s a husk we can root for. Olivia Williams relishes what’s probably the most fleshed out role in the film and leaves us constantly guessing whether she’s Lady Macbeth or Desdamona. And Brosnan provides another reliably excellent turn in a relatively small but undeniably crucial role. All of the action centers around his character, and his presence is always felt, even during his lengthy absences from the screen. Lang is by necessity an enigma; the audience, like The Ghost, is constantly guessing as to the true motivations that drive this man. Yet Brosnan imbues this enigma with all-too-human emotions and flaws. It’s easy to see both the politician and the man at the same time in his performance, which is quite a feat considering how diametrically opposed those two things can be!

Early on, The Ghost latches onto Lang’s time spent as an actor at Cambridge prior to pursuing a political career. He sees that as a possible angle for the memoir, but Lang won’t allow it. His enemies used to pull that out, he says, whenever they wanted to undercut his impassioned speeches. He’s just an actor, they’d say. The notion, however, of an actor as politician (presumably owing a bit more to Ronald Reagan than Tony Blair) takes on certain extra-textual significance in Brosnan’s hands. Brosnan himself rose to fame on American television as Remington Steele, an actor (essentially, though maybe “con man” or “fraud” would be better words) using his considerable charm to pose as a suave private detective while the true brains of the operation (in that case, Laura Holt–played by Stephanie Zimbalist) went unheralded. Isn’t Remington Steele, perhaps, the ultimate politician? Adam Lang is, and he's a clear screen descendent.

To discuss the movie itself in too much more detail would risk giving away the many, many plot twists (which come fast and furious until the perhaps too-abrupt ending), but suffice it to say that it's likely to entertain spy fans and Pierce Brosnan fans alike.  The material may sound heavy, but politics are purely the film's milieu, not its message.  Polanski is in Ninth Gateterritory here (albeit a completely different genre), not Pianistcountry.  (Both movies that I love, for the record.)  He's having fun–and so will the audience.

An Excess of Subjectivity: DVD Review: Callan: Set 2

An Excess Of Subjectivity

DVD Review: Callan: Set 2

Overview

I hadn’t seen the first two black and white seasons of Callan yet when I watched the fourth, color season in Callan: Set 2, because they’ve never been commercially available. (That changed last week when Network released them in England. Fingers crossed that Acorn quickly follows suit in America!) I’d been told by people who had seen them (like blogger Medium Rob, who’s an expert on the subject) that they’re the series’ best, and my feeling was that if that’s the case, they must be simply amazing. Because all of the color episodes from seasons three and four that Acorn have released so far (Set 1 began with season three to kick things off in color) have been absolutely top notch, each episode seemingly outshining the one that came before it. Knowing that the fourth season contained in Acorn’s Callan: Set 2 was the show’s last, I expected a downward spiral, at least to some degree. I knew that David Callan himself (the incomparable Edward Woodward), previously a field agent for a shadowy black ops division of MI-5 known only as “The Section,” became Hunter this season, the codename for the chief of the Section. That worried me. Could the show maintain it’s extremely high level of quality with the lead character behind a desk? Obviously other spy dramas did (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and The Sandbaggers both focus on deskbound spymasters), but Callan seemed to thrive when its lead character got his hands dirty–really dirty. Needless to say, I shouldn’t have worried. Even with series creator James Mitchell penning fewer scripts himself in Season 4 (Set 2), Callan still maintains all of the quality of Season 3 and then some. I think I enjoyed Callan: Set 2 even more than Set 1!

As I’ve stated before, Callan belongs to the “serious” school of spy stories, in a league with Deighton and Le Carré rather than Fleming. But serious, gritty and realistic don’t mean action-free. Callan has the dirtiest job in the profession: he is essentially a government assassin. But he’s not a glamorized government assassin like James Bond; he’s a man who hates his work, but can never leave it. He’s skilled at killing and he’s forced to use those skills; retirement is not an option. But, unlike his colleagues Meres and Cross (Anthony Valentine and Patrick Mower, respectively), Callan takes no joy in his work. It sickens him, but he does it because he must, and because he knows it must be done. His assignments are often messy, and innocent people constantly get caught up–and hurt, or killed–in the games of his controllers and their Soviet counterparts. But just because a spy show is grim and serious doesn’t mean it can’t have action. Callan features far more action than The Sandbaggers or Tinker, Tailor, and Season 4 lays it on even thicker than before. In keeping with the show’s spirit, it’s messy, brutal and often surprisingly grisly (especially for Seventies television) action, but action nonetheless. Does the extra gunplay this season taint its realism? Perhaps ever so slightly, certainly not in its occurrence but in its frequency. But does it make the show more exciting? Undoubtedly. This is a serious spy show that depresses and entertains in equal measure, and the latter cancels out the former.

Callan may present the business of espionage as grim and dreary, but it’s never boring. While I personally enjoy the serious and fantastical sides of the spy genre in equal measure, there are those who prefer one or the other. Callan is a series that can satisfy both tastes. Hardcore realists who scoff at James Bond can nod along at the extistentialism of it all and secretly enjoy action they might otherwise disparage in acceptable doses. And escapists who prefer 007 to Smiley can enjoy that action while at the same time being exposed to the realistic tradecraft, backstabbing politics and masterful manipulations that Le Carré fans are so familiar with. It’s a win/win scenario. Callan is compelling, terrific spy television for every taste.

Episode Analysis

Callan: Set 2 begins with Callan’s smelly thief friend Lonely finding out about Callan’s “funeral” and then rushing off to it. We cut quickly to Moscow’s Lubyanka Prison, where David Callan is very much alive (though suffering an unfortunate prison haircut) and being interrogated by the KGB’s Julian Glover (almost unrecognizable in glasses and mustache). Callan’s response to his Prisoneresque situation is as defiant as Patrick McGoohan’s; he tells his captor to “get stuffed” and refuses to budge in the face of torture and drugs. Meanwhile, Callan’s smug former colleague, Cross (who might enjoy his dirty work just a bit too much) seems pleased to have Callan out of the way. Now he’s top dog in the Section. Cross (a deliciously smarmy Mower) is therefore quite unhappy when ordered by Hunter (William Squire once more, just as reptilian as ever) to escort a KGB prisoner named Richmond to Helsinki to be exchanged for Callan. (We’re treated to nice parallels between Callan’s experience and Richmond’s, both undergoing the same harsh interrogation–and planting the seeds already for the season’s finale.) Obviously, Hunter has no great love for Callan (or even any evident feelings or emotions whatsoever), so it’s no surprise that there are twisted politics behind the trade. As on The Sandbaggers, the shadowy motivations of characters on every side are just as fascinating as the assignments. Since this is the first episode of the season and we’re talking about the title character, it should come as no spoiler to know that the exchange pays off, and Callan does indeed return to England. But that doesn’t mean that anyone’s really happy about how it works out.

Upon his return, Callan is alarmed to discover that he was “buried” in his absence (for official appearances–and underscoring his general expendability). But he’s not surprised to discover that there’s an actual body in the grave. “The Section never had any trouble in finding bodies, did it?” he asks Hunter, bitterly.

“No,” replies his boss, “we’ve been pretty lucky so far.” And thus the show’s trademark cynical tone is successfully re-established for the season to come. The Section will not want for bodies in the months ahead.

Callan’s superiors are left with the sticky task of deciding exactly what to do with their man now that he’s back. For his part, Callan would prefer to quit (which is nothing new for the character), but he’s told in no uncertain terms that that simply isn’t an option. With his usefulness on an operational level gone thanks to the Russians now knowing all about him, it only makes sense to move him up. The promotion to Hunter is the last thing Callan wants, but he’s stuck with it. It’s also the last thing Cross wants, and he does his best to undermine his new superior, but he’s stuck with the situation as well.

Personally, I love the convergence of office politics with state security. When handled in a realistic manner (as it is on Callan or in Queen & Country) and not as an absurd soap opera (24), that combination makes for some of the most compelling spy stories out there. Obviously, I needn’t have worried about the series running out of steam with Callan promoted; he’s now stuck behind a desk he doesn’t want with resentful underlings (including Toby Meres from the monochrome years, who’s been recalled from his assignment in Washington after sitting out the previous season) and equally resentful superiors. The situation in the Section would be a powderkeg even if the security of Britain didn't depend on these people

The mutual resentment felt between Callan and his immediate boss, Bishop (Geoffrey Chater), is quickly evident in the third episode, “First Refusal.” In this classic espionage set-up, a freelance broker is offering to sell SIS a list of ten of its own agents: they get “first refusal” before the names go to the KGB. And to prove it, of course, the seller tips the Russians off to one of the names in advance. Blue-collar Callan assumes the leak must be in London, because no field agent would ever know the names of ten of his colleagues. The aristocratic Bishop takes umbrage at that suggestion:

Callan: Quite obviously the leak is here in London.
Bishop: The SIS? Come, come. It would be very high level for that sort of information. No, no, no, no. Rule that out.
Callan: Have you heard from your friend Kim Philby lately?
Bishop: Callan! That was a gratuitously offensive remark!

Exchanges like that prove why the British Security Services serve as the absolute best backdrop for spy drama: the culture of their intelligence community is so firmly entrenched in the British class system that drama is inherent in every single exchange.

Callan is not well-suited to the job of Hunter for the very reason that he’s also not particularly well-suited to the job of professional killer, despite his knack for it. “What does it say on my file?” he asks the cool-headed Bishop. “Emotionally unstable?”

“‘An excess of subjectivity,’ I believe they called it.”

“Oh yeah, I like that,” says Callan, mulling it over. “What’s it mean when it’s at home?”

“You get too involved. You care.” Bishop spits the word out like it’s the worst thing he could possibly say about someone. Callan cares too much. As a field operative (going all the way back to the series pilot, “A Magnum for Schneider”), he often wanted to know why he was assigned to kill this or that target, and Hunter did his best to keep him in the dark. As Hunter, he quickly discovers that in many cases, prior Hunters were probably just as much in the dark as he was. These orders come from high up–and it was their strength not to ask questions. It may not be Callan’s job to personally carry out the dirty jobs anymore, but it’s his job to plan them... and he still wants to know why. Why is he supposed to arrange the death of this person? Why is he supposed to wage a campaign of harassment against this embassy official? Etcetera. And the answers are no more forthcoming than they were before. It drives him nuts. And he’s not particularly supported by his staff: Meres (the perfectly condescending Valentine) makes no bones about the fact that he has his eye on Callan’s desk, and loose cannon Cross appears to be cracking up–especially after a rash act on his part leaves an innocent girl with permanent brain damage. (That old Callan theme of the suffering of the innocent.)

The fifth episode, “If He Can, So Could I,” is a turning point, not only in this season but in Callan’s life. Someone close to him dies very suddenly, and it’s a real shock to him. (Us, too; the death has no dramatic build-up; it’s not the pay-off to rising suspense; it just happens. So fast you don’t even realize it.) This isn’t an episode that I can reveal too much about, but it builds to a virtuoso monologue by Edward Woodward as a drunk and very angry Callan spills his guts to his only confidant. The episode is a real acting showcase for all concerned, and if Callan were on American TV today, this is the episode that would be sent to Academy voters touting Woodward for an Emmy. It’s no wonder this was one of the two episodes chosen for Woodward to do a commentary track on. The episode is so good that it’s a real surprise that several others in this set manage to top it

“None of Your Business” may be my favorite of the batch, though the competition is stiff. In this one, Callan finds himself persona non grata in the Security Services thanks to his recent actions. He’s suspended of all duties (er, put on “special leave”) and his passport is confiscated. Desperate to leave the country, he sets about finding a suitable forgery through Lonely’s underworld contacts. This quest coincidentally dovetails with an official Section investigation, and soon Callan and Meres find themselves reluctantly working together. Their investigation takes them from the seediest sections of the London underworld to the upper echelons of society, where they track down a ruthless spymaster in a posh bridge club. It’s very Bondian for this series. Meres even wears a tux (I highly doubt that Callan owns one.) Callan is clearly more at home on the other end of the spectrum, and when one of those underworld goons attempts to give him a scare (unaware with whom he’s really dealing), Woodward gets to demonstrate McCall-like utter badassery in his handling of the situation.

Woodward gets to show off more of those balls of steel later on in “I Never Wanted the Job,” when Lonely’s indiscretions force Callan to encounter gangsters once more. It’s great to see Callan and Meres take on the mob (unofficially, of course, and ideally without their superiors finding out). And it’s not just any old London gangsters they’re after, either; it’s wide-lapelled, mustachioed Seventies London gangsters–the very best kind! It’s a terrific little episode with a rather high body count. (All very unofficial, of course.)

As demonstrated earlier with the wounded girl, the high toll of espionage taken on innocent lives is once again a recurring theme in this season of Callan. It’s at the forefront of another excellent episode, “Charlie Says It’s Goodbye.” Callan is assigned to keep a wealthy British economist named Palliser (guest star Dennis Price) from defecting. Palliser is gay and his young lover has gone to Warsaw, where he’s waiting for Palliser to join him. Whether or not the boyfriend is complicit in the ruse is immaterial to the Section; to them it’s an obvious ploy either way by the opposition. As it happens, though, he is not; the young man is just another victim of ongoing secret struggle between East and West. Palliser himself is also a victim, driven by love to betray his country. But there’s another victim in this story, too: a woman named Susan Morris (Beth Harris) who’s a friend of Palliser’s. Callan meets her at a cocktail party where he’s keeping tabs on Palliser and his opposition minders, and Callan takes an instant shine to her. And when Callan likes a woman, well, it’s inevitably bad news for her, because he’s not allowed to be happy. Not only at the behest of the show’s writers, mind you, who certainly prefer keeping their lead character as dour as possible, but also at the behest of Callan’s masters in the Section. Such a romance would be unacceptable.

Susan has already been a victim of the Security Services once before. Her late husband killed himself after allegations of espionage and an official investigation. (A Call For the Dead scenario.) He was later cleared, but it was too late. Therefore, she has a definite aversion to Callan’s job (driven home when she feels his gun press against her as they kiss), but she likes Callan nonetheless. She wants him to quit. She thinks it’s that easy. Callan, of course, knows from bitter experience that it’s not. Susan even hatches a plot to get Callan fired, thinking that then they can be together, but not quite grasping that “fired” has a very specialized meaning within the Section.

You don’t need to be psychic to guess that this episode isn’t going to end well for anybody, but there are thrills in store as well as gloom. There’s a fight that ends with Callan killing someone with a speargun... indoors! It’s kind of awesome... but not to Susan. She witnesses this, and she’s horrified. Callan thinks she’s scared of the guy who was shooting at them and tells her it’s all right now, but she was terrified of him. For those who debate the relative realism of The Sandbaggers and Callan, it would be a valid point to make that no one (to my recollection) ever gets killed with a speargun in Sandbaggers. Then again, this speargun death is certainly not a glamorous, Deadlier Than the Male type of speargun death. It’s gruesome and realistic, the only way a speargun death could be in a series like Callan... or in real life, probably. No one “got the point.” The entire scene–right down to its dreary shot-on-video studio set–plays out as a commentary on that scene in Thunderballwhere James Bond casually shoots Vargas with a speargun in front of Domino. How would Domino react in real life if she saw her new lover murder someone with a spear? Probably like Susan reacts. While all of its practical real world uses are for fishing, the speargun has become an unlikely weapon readily associated with the spy genre, thanks mainly to Ian Fleming (but in no small part to Elke Sommer and Sylva Koscina). It turns up in pop culture homages like Yuki 7 and parodies like Archer, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen the speargun-as-espionage-trope actually deconstructed before! It’s an incredible sequence, and it typifies Callan’s distinctly un-glamorous approach to violence.

Innocent victims also factor heavily in “The Carrier,” which is another excellent episode–par for the course with this series. This episode focuses on the tenuous relationship between the Security Services and Special Branch. To Callan’s horror, his superior (with Meres’ full complicity) allows two unarmed Special Branch officers to pursue a man they think to be a simple courier, but whom the Section knows to be a deadly KGB assassin. It’s certain death for the police officers (one of whom is a totally green if very eager young woman), but the Section allows it to happen. Callan’s fury when he learns this is palpable, but his masters are playing a longer game than the police, with a loftier objective. To that end, they couldn’t compromise their goal with a simple warning to Special Branch. Once again, completely innocent people are sacrificed to the espionage machine.

The deaths in “The Carrier” are especially bloody, even by Callan’s standards of rather gruesome violence for Seventies television. Yet the reason behind all of this brutal death is a supposedly peaceful one. A British scientist doing defense research is an idealist striving for world peace. To achieve that, he thinks the East and the West should be on equal footing, and arranges to smuggle secrets to a Dutch publisher (really a KGB agent, of course). He’s an idealistic fool, and Callan hates him for that. “You’re not even a real traitor,” he hisses disdainfully, following another round of brutal violence sparked by this idealism.

The Richmond File

Season 4 (and Callan as a series, for that matter) concludes with an intense three-part episode called “The Richmond File.” This is a season of symmetry, and given that symmetry, we see the return of Richmond (T.P. McKenna), the Russian agent Callan was swapped for in the first episode, to wrap things up. Once again underscoring that symmetry, Richmond’s plight is compared to Callan’s own. The men are bitter enemies, but they are also the same.

The first part of “The Richmond File” (subtitled "Call Me Enemy") is written by George Markstein, who served as script editor on The Prisoner before decamping to fill that same role on Callan. The episode, with its rapid-fire, Pinteresque dialogue, plays very much like the second to last episode of The Prisoner, “Once Upon A Time," in that it's just two men in a confined space trying to break each other. (Somewhat ironic, since that was the script, by Patrick McGoohan, that precipitated Markstein's exit from the series!  In fact, he dismissed it as "absolute gibberish."*  Perhaps "Enemy" is how he would have done it...) Callan and Richmond are alone in a safe house in the country, where Callan is trying to figure out if Richmond’s supposed defection is genuine or not. At the same time, Richmond wheedles away at Callan, playing on all of his weaknesses and rivalries. It’s a stage drama for television, with all of the excitement generated by two dazzling performances (particularly Woodward’s slow burn) rather than any actual action. It also reminded me of the safe house scenes in The Spy Who Came in From the Cold, but I suppose such comparisons are inevitable given the similar subject matter here. (Though with the roles reversed.)

Other characters from earlier in the season return as well, as the setting moves beyond the house in the second and third episodes of “The Richmond File,” but it remains primarily Woodward’s show–and secondarily McKenna’s, whose role is almost as large. All of James Mitchell’s favorite themes recur, and once more the innocent and the not-so-innocent alike are grinded up on the millstone of the Cold War. “The Richmond File” is also the apex of Callan’s relationship with Lonely. This has been building from the series’ very beginning. Callan is frequently unkind and abusive to the smelly cockney thief, and some of Lonely’s Jar Jar Binks-like acts of stupidity leave the audience wanting to treat him the same way. But Callan is also very protective of Lonely, as he realizes deep down that he’s the only real friend in the world he’s got–the person who keeps Callan sane, who keeps him from losing all humanity like Meres. And that friendship is pretty much the only thing that can save Callan’s soul, a soul he surrendered in the very first episode.

While the character completes his journey in a satisfying manner at the conclusion of “The Richmond File,” physically he’s in as bad a spot as he’s ever been. In fact, he’s pretty much right where he started. Callan ends up in an appropriate situation, but perhaps one offering less definitive closure than some audiences would care for. It’s right for the character, though, and right for the series. It’s been predestined from the very beginning that an upbeat conclusion is not in the cards for David Callan. That it’s not upbeat, however, certainly doesn’t mean the finale isn’t satisfying And, of course, it’s not truly the end of the line for the character, either. Woodward reprised the role two years later in a big-screen feature film, but it was a remake of the pilot episode rather than a continuation of the series. The series did get a continuation many years later in the form of a TV reunion special called “Wet Job” (1981). Sadly, that isn’t included on this set due to rights issues, and I haven’t seen it. According to Edward Woodward himself on one of the commentary tracks here, that might be for the better.

Conclusion

Overall, Season 4 is more serialized than previous seasons, although other than “The Richmond File,” every episode does stand on its own as well. But television drama was starting to become more sophisticated, and several ongoing arcs span the season. While Callan: Set 2 could stand perfectly well on its own seen start-to-finish, I recommend watching Callan: Set 1 first; it will afford the viewer a better appreciation of the characters. Callan is truly amazing television, anchored by a mesmerizing lead performance. I said it when I reviewed Set 1 and I’ll say it again: this is absolutely essential viewing for spy fans. And as I mentioned at the beginning of this review, it should appeal in equal measure to fans of both the serious and the more action-packed sides of the genre.

Acorn Media’s release of Callan: Set 2 ports over some most welcome extras from Umbrella’s Australian release: two commentary tracks by Edward Woodward. The moderated commentaries (conducted just after the actor had done Hot Fuzz) unfortunately aren’t amazing, but it’s still really great to hear Woodward talk about the series. While there are long dull patches, there are also some great moments that will reward full listening. The tracks are at their best when the moderator leads Woodward off topic from what’s going on on the screen; the actor’s tangents on other episodes and other actors and even other series are all enthralling. Fans of The Equalizer, for example, will also find much of interest in these commentaries. Woodward discusses that series a fair bit, and reveals that the creator told him he was a huge Callan fan and that his series was “based on Callan” and written specifically for Woodward. The actor is quick to point out the differences in the two characters, insisting that McCall is much more educated and clearly of a higher class than Callan, but he acknowledges that the later character wouldn’t exist without the earlier one. Woodward also gives his opinions of “Wet Job” and the Callan film, talks about how Callan began and came to end, and reveals that “Wet Job” was in fact a failed attempt to launch a whole new Callan series. While it would have been interesting to see Callan in the early Eighties, I think it’s just as well that the revival was aborted. The series as it stands is a masterpiece.

I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but overall Callan: Set 2 is an even better set than Callan: Set 1. Of course, Set 1 is great in its own right, and I wouldn’t recommend skipping it. You’ll want to see everything. After I’d watched the final episode of Callan: Set 2, I immediately suffered remorse that it was all over. Luckily, Network’s release of the never-before-available Callan: The Monochrome Years was just around the corner... and hopefully those episodes will eventually make their way to Region 1 DVD via Acorn as well.

Read my obituary of the great Edward Woodward here.
For a very touching, funny and personal rememberance of the actor,
read Hot Fuzz director Edgar Wright's obituary of Woodward here.

Read my review of Acorn's Callan: Set 1 here.
Read Part 1 of my review of Network's Callan: The Monochrome Years here.
...and stay tuned for Part 2 of that review!

*Fairclough, Robert (ed.), The Prisoner: The Original Scripts: Volume 2. London: Reynolds and Hearn, 2006.  p. 371.

Tradecraft: Mike Newell To Direct Litvinenko Movie

Variety reports (via Dark Horizons) that Mike Newell (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Donnie Brasco) is angling to direct a movie for Warner Bros. about poisoned ex-spy Alexander Litvinenko.  Newell is developing the project with writer David Scarpa, basing it on the Doubleday book The Terminal Spy by New York Times London bureau chief Alan Cowell.  Former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned in 2006 with polonium-210, allegedly while eating in a London sushi restaurant.  On his deathbed, he accused then-Russian President Vladimir Putin of ordering his assassination.  With it's Cold War overtones and Flemingesque bizarreness, the story generated headlines worldwide and triggered an international investigation and subsequent diplomatic tension between Russia and Britain.  It's since fueled other pop culture spy stories, including Dame Stella Rimington's novel Illegal Action, and was also the subject of a 2007 documentary, Poisoned by Polonium: The Litvinenko File.  Michael Mann was developing a rival Litvinenko project at Sony with the ex-spook's wife, but that seems to have stalled in recent months.

For an excellent interview with Mike Newell that doesn't actually touch on this project, but does cover almost all the rest of his career, including his time directing The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, visit /Film.

R.I.P. Johnny Dankworth

I'd missed this, but Modesty Blaise News reports that composer Johnny Dankworth passed away earlier this month at the age of 82. Dankworth (more respectably known in later years as Sir John Dankworth) composed several key spy scores in the 1960s.  I'll always think of him first and foremost as the composer of the quite quite fantastic Cathy Gale-era Avengers theme.  (Does anyone know a CD with a good version of this theme?  All I ever find is Laurie Johnson's later, Emma Peel-era theme.)  Most of his Sixties spy music accompanied the judo kicks of strong female secret agents; besides Honor Blackman's Cathy Gale he wrote the scores for Monica Vitti's Modesty Blaise and Raquel Welch's Fathom.  (In descending order of "strong.")  His Modesty Blaise score in particular is a masterpiece, featuring what might be the most infectious of all spy theme songs and easily on par with Burt Bacharach's 1967 Casino Royale score in terms of over-the-top, wacky espionage hijinks.  Dankworth's scores for both Modesty Blaise and Fathom are available on CD from the Harkit label; Fathom only just came out last December (as reported with additional information here).  Dankworth's other significant contribution to Sixties spy music was his score for the Peter Lawford/Sammy Davis, Jr. vehicle Salt and Pepper.  He also worked with Modesty Blaise director Joseph Losey and star Dirk Bogarde on The Servant and Accident, and with Bogarde again scoring John Schlessinger's outstanding Darling.  Other notable Dankworth scores of the Sixties include Morgan and the Michael Caine movie The Magus.  After pursuing other interests for a few decades, Dankworth returned to film scoring in 2000 to lend a suitably Sixties vibe to the British gangster movies Kiss Kiss (Bang Bang) and Gangster No. 1.  I have no doubt that Dankworth will live on forever, because the theme song for Modesty Blaise is indelibly stuck in the heads of anyone who's ever seen the movie!

DVD Review: Callan: The Monochrome Years: Season 1

DVD Review, Part 1: Callan: The Mono-chrome Years: Season 1

I went directly from watching the fourth season of Callan (just released in the US as Callan: Set 2) to watching the first season in Network’s new Callan: The Monochrome Years set. I’d heard that the early years were the best, so my first reaction was, “hm, this really isn’t so different from Season 4. It’s more Callan. More of the same, but when the same is so incredible, that’s a good thing.” I quickly realized I was in the wrong mindset. Yes, going from Season 4 to Season 1, Season 1 is indeed more of the same. But what I should have done was watched a bunch of Avengers and Saints and Barons from 1967, the year Callan began. Because then it would have hit me harder that when Callan debuted, it was as far from “more of the same” as you could get. It wasn’t like any other regular spy show on television. Even the grittier ITC series, like Man in a Suitcase and Danger Man, were still adventure series first and foremost. Callan is not.  This grim and gritty espionage drama must have knocked British TV audiences on their ears in 1967. David Callan was a wholly different kind of secret agent than people were used to seeing in their living rooms every week.

Edward Woodward made his first appearance as Callan in an episode of the anthology series Armchair Theatre entitled “A Magnum for Schneider,” but it’s clear that the concept was envisioned as a series even at this point. “A Magnum for Schneider” is very much a pilot. All of the regular characters are in place (if not all the regular actors), and even the Callan theme music is already there, following the evocative Armchair Theatre theme. Callan’s boss, Hunter (later established to be a codename assigned to a succession of different people), is played here (quite excellently) by Ronald Radd, who would reprise the role in the first proper season of the show. All of the series dynamics are quickly outlined in a brief (and useful) expositional exchange between him and Callan:

Hunter: What’s my section for?
Callan: Getting rid of people.
Hunter: Exactly. Bribery, frame-ups, deportation...
Callan: Death.
Hunter: If... there’s no other way, yes.

Hunter says that he’s had ten men killed in the last seven years and Callan did two of them. Those numbers would rise dramatically over the next seven years; I think Callan kills a whole lot more people than that by himself over the ensuing seasons! But despite being good at it, Callan is never happy about killing, and that character trait is in place from the show’s inception here. Evidently, he’s been transferred out of the Section for his scruples. Callan worried about the innocent (which even Hunter must admit was commendable), but he also worried about the men he killed, so Hunter had to let him go. Hunter says he went soft. Callan, however, doesn’t enjoy the dead-end job he was transferred to, and Hunter misses his skill. He wants him back, but first he wants him to prove that he’s got what it takes to come back–that he hasn't gone soft. Hunter assigns Callan to kill someone on his own, with “no help from the Department, not even a gun.”

Hunter gives Callan a red file. Red files indicate those considered a danger–those marked by the Section for elimination. The file in question concerns a man named Schneider. “What’s he done?” Callan wants to know, true to form.

“Never mind what he’s done!” snaps Hunter. “You’re always asking for reasons. That’s what makes you weak. Schneider’s in a red file! That’s reason enough. Well?” Well nothing. Callan accepts the assignment. He may have scruples, but he’s also bored to death at his dead-end accounting job for a horrible, uptight boss. As much as he professes to hate Hunter and the Section and everything that it stands for, and as much as he doesn’t like what he’s asked to do, he does like the challenge such work provides. And so he accepts the mission–provisionally, anyway–and sells his soul, an act he’ll be repenting for the rest of the series. (And, thematically for Woodward, even longer, onto The Equalizer.)

Making matters worse, Callan quickly discovers that he likes Schneider. Schneider (Joseph Fürst, Professor Metz from Diamonds Are Forever) is a fellow model soldier enthusiast, and the two men genuinely connect over this shared hobby. Schneider invites Callan to play a campaign against him sometime. And so, in addition to plotting the man’s death, Callan launches his own investigation into Schneider, determined to pass judgement on his crimes himself before killing him.

The characters are all fully formed and intact at this stage, as is Woodward’s bravado performance, and Callan is already demonstrating his objectionable rebellious side and his annoying (to Hunter) habit of asking questions. But not everything is yet firmly established in the pilot. Callan’s cockney underworld contact and friend, Lonely (Russell Hunter, as always) is as smelly as he ever is, but he dresses nicer–and frequents nicer establishments–than he will on the ongoing series. Hunter’s office in the pilot is a lot more luxurious than later versions of that set will be; it even has windows! The later basement digs seem more befitting the Section’s seedy nature. And, most glaringly, Callan’s eventual cohort Toby Meres is played by a different actor altogether! The character himself is there (Meres is everything that Callan’s not: upper class, psychopathic and utterly incapable of caring), but the face is that of Peter Bowles, not Anthony Valentine. Unsurprisingly to anyone who’s seen his stellar work on other shows (he turned up in virtually every ITC series of the time, and his guest spots–usually villainous–on The Avengers were always memorable; personally I think of him first as the diabolical mastermind in “Escape in Time”), Bowles makes an entirely suitable Meres. In fact, had Anthony Valentine not come along, I have no doubt he would have made a definitive Meres; he would have made the character his own completely–and a classic. The guy’s a great character actor. But since Valentine did come along and made the part so thoroughly his own, such speculation is entirely academic. It’s tough to accept any substitutes, so Bowles comes as a bit of a shock to those used to Valentine from later seasons.

The other biggest difference in the pilot is that, while the drama is just as excellent as ever, the pilot doesn’t seem as “in the know” as later season manage to about espionage tradecraft and technique. Perhaps this is because George Markstein, who had an actual intelligence background, hadn’t come aboard yet as script editor. Or perhaps creator James Mitchell simply didn’t have enough time to research before getting the play on the air. Callan’s street cred is most seriously undermined (both in the pilot and the early episodes) by Woodward’s tendency to scratch his head with his pistol, like the cop in Plan 9 From Outer Space. It might be some good “stage business” (as they say) for an actor, but it’s certainly not very becoming of a professional assassin! An arms expert of some sort must have said something to Woodward about it later on, because this distracting habit fortunately goes away.

All in all, “A Magnum For Schneider” does everything a good pilot should. It establishes the main character (explaining his insubordination, Callan recalls his army days: “I was a corporal... twice. I didn’t get on with officers.”), establishes all the crucial supporting characters and makes clear their relationships to Callan, and establishes a very distinctive (and bleak) tone for the series. It also serves its purpose of setting up all of these elements for an ongoing series. By the pilot’s end, Callan and Hunter have come to “an arrangement” securing Callan’s future employment in the Section on his own terms. “A balance of terror,” Hunter calls it. Basically, they have each vowed to kill each other should things go badly–and they each know the other to be capable of making good on their threat. “A Magnum for Schneider” is a crucial stepping stone in the show’s evolution, and I’m very grateful that Network managed to clear the separate rights to include this episode of Armchair Theatre in this set. As it's so tied in to what follows, Season 1 wouldn’t be complete without it. While the otherwise impressive audio has that hiss so commonly associated with videotaped Sixties television, the video quality is remarkably good.

Due to the frustrating practice at the time in British television of “wiping” old episodes once they’d aired (and served their entire purpose, as envisioned by the shortsighted programming executives of the time who thought of TV as a disposable medium and could not possibly foresee DVD or home video), most of Callan’s first season no longer exists. Luckily, though, all of these episodes are generally standalone, and we don’t miss out on crucial installments of a serial plot. (Just imagine if half of Lost’s episodes were wiped and unavailable to future generations?) And quite fortunately, the very first episode does still exist, so as armchair television historians, we can watch the series spring out of the pilot!

Stylistically, “The Good Ones Are All Dead” continues as a piece from “A Magnum for Schneider.” Hunter’s office is now gloomier and Meres is now Anthony Valentine, but the same theme music and same bleak videography are firmly in place. Also carrying over from the pilot are Callan’s internal monologue voiceovers. These are later dropped (and later unnecessary, I would say, as Woodward conveys it all with his expressions), but they are helpful in establishing this antihero character early on. The audio on the DVD has improved (the hiss is gone), but the video isn’t quite as sharp as on the pilot. Such variances are to be expected when dealing with old elements, and overall Network has done a thoroughly commendable job with their remastering and preservation. (The company has even restored a previously lost episode in Season 2 by recutting its surviving, unedited footage!)

When the series proper begins, the arrangement between Callan and Hunter seems to be working well–even if it horrifies Meres. Callan’s new mission is to go undercover as a bookkeeper for a man Hunter assures him is a Nazi war criminal living under an assumed identity and wanted by the Israelis. There’s no killing required, Hunter assures Callan; he just needs to turn the man over to the Mossad. Once more, though, Callan feels the need to prove to himself beyond a shadow of a doubt that his new, kindly employer is indeed who Hunter says he is. To do so, he enlists Lonely’s help, cracking the man’s safe and examining its contents. Those contents quickly bear out Hunter’s briefing, but Callan still has trouble reconciling the kindly man (who, when confronted, admits to years of guilt and penance) he knows with the monster he supposedly was. I can’t help but think that Hunter might be right, and that Callan might indeed be a little too soft if he even feels sympathy for a Nazi!

The Mossad agent involved doesn’t like Callan’s methods and doesn’t like Callan, but Meres actually defends him. “I despise him,” he admits, “but he’s very good at his job.”

From the existing opening episode, we jump forward to the next existing episode, which happens to be the season finale! (Luckily, it was a very short season, so there are actually only four episodes missing.) This episode, "You Should Have Got Here Sooner," focuses on Lonely, and his relationship with Callan is already getting Callan into trouble with his colleagues, as it will for years to come. Lonely has coincidentally stumbled onto a Section operation in the midst of one of his rather clumsy burglaries, and the Section sends round a man to beat him up. This doesn’t sit well with Callan, who considers an attack on Lonely akin to a direct attack on himself. He swings by the office (as his casual employment arrangement entitles him to do) and demonstrates his tough guy coolness that would make even Jack Bauer cower in terror by deducing which new recruit bat up lonely and responding in kind, in full view of Hunter. The is the first salvo in a game of oneupmanship between the two men, as Hunter and Meres attempt to extract the location of a deadly nerve gas formula from a Russian spy they’ve allowed to escape, and Callan basically tries to derail their game as revenge for what they did to Lonely. Callan and Hunter always have a tense relationship on their best days, and every meeting between them is a verbal chess match, but it’s great to see them actually working against each other, plotting move and countermove.

Innocents caught up in espionage without their knowledge (and usually being damaged or destroyed by it) is a favorite theme on later seasons of Callan, and it’s already in place in the first season. The innocent in this episode is the escaped Russian spy’s former girlfriend, a Party Member who’s foolish enough to believe that he loved her. He was of course using her, but no more than Meres or Hunter or even her own mother are also trying to do. It’s a real pleasure to watch Callan figure out what’s going on and then figure out what he’s going to do about it. And it’s almost as much of a pleasure to the audience as it is to him that his solution involves Meres ending up in the hospital.

Only three episodes of Callan may survive from Season 1 (counting the Armchair Theatre pilot), but they are three stellar episodes, proving that the show had all the elements that made it great from the very beginning. And they’re three more than we had before, excepting expensive and hard to find bootlegs. Spy fans the world over are indebted to Network for releasing these episodes legitimately for the first time ever. Callan is as good at its beginning as it is at its end, and its great that fans can now actually see that beginning. Of course, this isn’t a DVD set containing only three episodes. Network has also included every surviving episode from Season 2 (which features a new Hunter and even more doomed innocents), and those will be covered in Part 2 of this review later this week.

Callan: The Monochrome Years is currently available to buy through Network’s website at a remarkable discount. If you have the means to pay PAL Region 2 discs, be sure to get it! You won’t regret it.

NOTE: For some reason I am unable to take screen captures from Network DVDs, and therefore could not provide my usual illustrative accompaniment for this review.  But, fortunately, you can see what the discs look like for yourself; Network has uploaded the whole beginning of "The Good Ones Are All Dead:"
 

Breath Control: Bond Girl On Ice

Spies are everywhere—even at the Olympics!  South Korean figure skater Kim Yu-Na (Kim Yuna) took the lead in the women's short program with a "Bond Girl"-inspired routine to the sounds of John Barry's distinctive 007 music (with assists from Monty Norman and David Arnold).  Most mainstream news reports erroneously say she skated to "The James Bond Theme," but Bond fans know differently.  It was definitely a medley of Bond music, beginning with what sounded to me like some of the underwater cues from Thunderball before going into bits of From Russia With Love and (maybe?) You Only Live Twice and concluding with some David Arnold music and an Arnold-era verison of the Bond theme.  (If anyone identified the exact tracks, please comment below!)  Sadly, she didn't work in any of Bill Conti's score from For Your Eyes Only, in which ice skating features in the plot.  Oh well; Conti's music wouldn't have fit in very smoothly with the more classic stuff.  The 19-year-old sensation incorporated the Bond mystique into her routine as well, pulling off a convincing "Bond Girl" look with her choice of costume and ending up in a gun pose after "firing" at the audience—or the competition. See this real-life Bibi Dahl for yourself on YouTube.

Yu-Na is not the first skater to perform a routine to Bond music; I remember Brian Boitano doing a similar program (I think in Lillehammer) and even ending it with a traditional gun barrell pose.  French skater Eric Millot and Russian Tatiana Rachkova have also used Bond music.  Personally, I'm not that into figure skating, but I am into that music, and I'll always root for anyone who chooses it!