“We do disagreeable things, but we are defensive….We
do disagreeable things so that ordinary people here and elsewhere can sleep
safely in their beds at night….Of course, we occasionally do very wicked things.”
—The
Spy Who came in from the Cold
John Le Carré
What the hell do you think spies are? Moral
philosophers measuring everything they do against the word of God or Karl Marx?
They're not! They're just a bunch of seedy, squalid bastards like me: little
men, drunkards, queers, hen-pecked husbands, civil servants playing cowboys and
Indians to brighten their rotten little lives. Do you think they sit like monks
in a cell, balancing right against wrong?
—From the film version of The Spy Who came in from the Cold
—From the film version of The Spy Who came in from the Cold
“The junior
Senator from Wisconsin, by his reckless charges, has so preyed upon the fears
and hatred of uninformed and credulous people that he has started a prairie
fire, which neither he nor anyone else may be able to control.”
—J. William Fulbright, US senator, 1954
“We may be likened to two scorpions in a bottle,
each capable of killing the other, but only at the risk of his own life.”
—Foreign
Affairs, 1953
"I don't want to arrest anyone. I just want to shoot somebody."
—Mike Hammer in I, the Jury
"There's no such thing as innocence - innocence touched with guilt is as good a deal as you can get."
—Mike Hammer in Kiss Me, Deadly.
Links
“I shot them in cold blood and enjoyed every minute
of it….They were Commies….They were red sons-of-bitches who should have died
long ago.”
—Mickey Spillane
One Lonely Night"I don't want to arrest anyone. I just want to shoot somebody."
—Mike Hammer in I, the Jury
"There's no such thing as innocence - innocence touched with guilt is as good a deal as you can get."
—Mike Hammer in Kiss Me, Deadly.
Links
For an appreciation of the late Pete Seeger see
http://www.criticsatlarge.ca/search/label/Susan%20Green
For a review of the television series, The Americans
Hannah Arendt reviewed in New York Review of Books
For an interview of the author of a recent book on how Nazi scientists were recruited by the Americans Operation Paperclip
Advise and Consent is an intriguing period piece political drama based on Allen Drury's novel of the same name. The film like the book raises the threat of Communism, the selfishness of a President and the surprise scandal for an up-and-coming senator. The story revolves around the president's nominee for Secretary of State, Robert A. Leffingwell. While his character is the main catalyst for the film's events, it is the other characters who drive the actions. A southern senator named "Seab" Cooley who begins a witch hunt against Leffingwell when he discovers that perhaps Leffingwell is a Communist, based on the quickly rebutted testimony of a government worker. Heading the committee to question Leffingwell, "Brig" Anderson must wrestle with his convictions about whether to support and pass through Leffingwell's nomination. However, when a scandal raised by a McCarthy-like demagogue from the left threatens to destroy his marriage and his political career, it leads to an improbable conclusion. The conservative politics of Drury pervades both the novel and the film.
Regarded by many critics as the ultimate film noir
and by many more as the finest movie adaptation of a book by Mickey Spillane, Kiss Me Deadly features an amoral private detective Mike Hammer. While driving down a lonely road late one
evening, Hammer picks up a beautiful blonde hitchhiker dressed in nothing but a
raincoat. At first, Hammer assumes that the incoherent girl is an escaped
lunatic; his mind is changed for him when he and the girl are abducted by two
thugs. The men torture the girl to death as the semiconscious Hammer watches
helplessly. He himself escapes death when the murderers' car topples
off a cliff and he is thrown clear. Seeking vengeance, Hammer tries to discover
the secret behind the girl's murder. Among those who cross his path in the
film's tense, tingling 105 minutes are a slimy gangster, a turncoat scientist,
and the dead woman's sexy roommate. All clues lead to a mysterious box—the
"Great Whatsit," as Hammer's secretary Velda describes it. The
box is stolen and Velda is kidnapped by the villains, at which point Hammer discovers that
the "Whatsit" contains radioactive material of awesome powers. Brazen
and bleak, it's a film noir masterpiece and an essential piece of cold war
paranoia.
In The Third Man, a Cold War spy classic, Holly Martins, a
third-rate American pulp novelist, arrives in postwar Vienna, where he has been
promised a job by his old friend Harry Lime. Upon his arrival, Martins
discovers that Lime has been killed in a traffic accident, and that his funeral
is taking place immediately. At the graveside, Martins meets outwardly affable
Major Calloway and actress Anna Schmidt,
who is weeping copiously. When Calloway tells Martins that the late Harry Lime
was a thief and murderer, the loyal Martins is at first outraged. Gradually, he
discovers not only that Calloway was right but also that the man lying in the
coffin in the film's early scenes was not Harry Lime at all—and that Lime is
still very much alive (he was the mysterious "third man" at the scene
of the fatal accident). Thus the stage is set for the movie's famous climactic
confrontation in the sewers of Vienna—and the even more famous final shot, in
which Martins pays emotionally for doing "the right thing."
Based on the novel by Eugene Burdick and Harvey
Wheeler, Fail-Safe is set for the
most part at Strategic Air Command headquarters, where a misguided transmission
sends a squadron of bombers hurtling towards Russia, fully prepared to drop
their atomic weaponry on Moscow. Air Force commander Frank Overton desperately tries
to establish radio contact with the bombers, but once the pilots have passed
the "fail safe" point, they've been instructed to disregard any
reversal of orders. Racing against time, the President, through his
interpreter, informs the Russian premiere of the impending nuclear disaster.
Working in concert with SAC, the Russians send up interceptors to shoot down
the American bombers, while some of the planes run out of fuel and crash.
Unfortunately, one aircraft, piloted by Edward Binns, manages to escape
destruction and continues on its fatal mission. Realizing that Moscow is
doomed, the President must decide how to avert World War III. Fail-Safe is followed by a
government-dictated disclaimer insisting that the events leading up to the
nuclear disaster depicted in the film could not possibly happen.
Based on the classic novel of the same name, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John Le Carre, this
international thriller is set at the height of the Cold War years of the
mid-20th Century. George Smiley, a disgraced British spy, is rehired in secret
by his government—which fears that the British Secret Intelligence Service,
a.k.a. MI-6, has been compromised by a double agent working for the Soviets. The movie is riveting as we come to understand what is going on. At MI5, the British “circus” for secret intelligence, there
is a Soviet mole. We find out who it is. He is disposed of. A major strength of this sober, cerebral film is that it reflects le Carre’s rather bleak vision of Britain’s spying class. It is the antithesis of ab action-packed Bond or Bourne film.
For a review of the television series, The Americans
Hannah Arendt reviewed in New York Review of Books
For an interview of the author of a recent book on how Nazi scientists were recruited by the Americans Operation Paperclip
Advise and Consent is an intriguing period piece political drama based on Allen Drury's novel of the same name. The film like the book raises the threat of Communism, the selfishness of a President and the surprise scandal for an up-and-coming senator. The story revolves around the president's nominee for Secretary of State, Robert A. Leffingwell. While his character is the main catalyst for the film's events, it is the other characters who drive the actions. A southern senator named "Seab" Cooley who begins a witch hunt against Leffingwell when he discovers that perhaps Leffingwell is a Communist, based on the quickly rebutted testimony of a government worker. Heading the committee to question Leffingwell, "Brig" Anderson must wrestle with his convictions about whether to support and pass through Leffingwell's nomination. However, when a scandal raised by a McCarthy-like demagogue from the left threatens to destroy his marriage and his political career, it leads to an improbable conclusion. The conservative politics of Drury pervades both the novel and the film.
 |
From Kiss Me Deadly |
In The Third Man, a Cold War spy classic, Holly Martins, a
third-rate American pulp novelist, arrives in postwar Vienna, where he has been
promised a job by his old friend Harry Lime. Upon his arrival, Martins
discovers that Lime has been killed in a traffic accident, and that his funeral
is taking place immediately. At the graveside, Martins meets outwardly affable
Major Calloway and actress Anna Schmidt,
who is weeping copiously. When Calloway tells Martins that the late Harry Lime
was a thief and murderer, the loyal Martins is at first outraged. Gradually, he
discovers not only that Calloway was right but also that the man lying in the
coffin in the film's early scenes was not Harry Lime at all—and that Lime is
still very much alive (he was the mysterious "third man" at the scene
of the fatal accident). Thus the stage is set for the movie's famous climactic
confrontation in the sewers of Vienna—and the even more famous final shot, in
which Martins pays emotionally for doing "the right thing."Based on the novel by Eugene Burdick and Harvey
Wheeler, Fail-Safe is set for the
most part at Strategic Air Command headquarters, where a misguided transmission
sends a squadron of bombers hurtling towards Russia, fully prepared to drop
their atomic weaponry on Moscow. Air Force commander Frank Overton desperately tries
to establish radio contact with the bombers, but once the pilots have passed
the "fail safe" point, they've been instructed to disregard any
reversal of orders. Racing against time, the President, through his
interpreter, informs the Russian premiere of the impending nuclear disaster.
Working in concert with SAC, the Russians send up interceptors to shoot down
the American bombers, while some of the planes run out of fuel and crash.
Unfortunately, one aircraft, piloted by Edward Binns, manages to escape
destruction and continues on its fatal mission. Realizing that Moscow is
doomed, the President must decide how to avert World War III. Fail-Safe is followed by a
government-dictated disclaimer insisting that the events leading up to the
nuclear disaster depicted in the film could not possibly happen.
George Clooney pays homage to one of the icons of
American broadcast journalism, Edward R. Murrow, in this fact-based drama. In 1953, Edward R.
Murrow was one of the best-known newsmen on television as host of both the talk
show Person to Person and the
pioneering investigate series See It Now.
Joseph McCarthy, a U.S. senator from Wisconsin, was generating heated controversy in the public and private sectors with his allegations that
Communists had risen to positions of power and influence in America. Among them was an Air
Force pilot, Milo Radulovich, who had been cashiered out of the service due to
McCarthy's charges that he was a Communist agent. However, Radulovich had been
dismissed without a formal hearing of the charges, and he protested that he was
innocent of any wrongdoing. Murrow decided to do a story on Radulovich's case
questioning the legitimacy of his dismissal, which was seen by McCarthy and his
supporters as an open challenge to his campaign. McCarthy responded by accusing
Murrow of being a Communist, leading to a legendary installment of See It Now
in which both Murrow and McCarthy presented their sides of the story, which was
seen by many as the first step toward McCarthy's downfall. Meanwhile, Murrow
had to deal with CBS head William Paley, who was supportive of Murrow but
extremely wary of his controversial positions, while Murrow was also trying to
support fellow newsman Don Hollenbeck, battling charges against his own
political views, and working alongside Fred Friendly
Based on the classic novel of the same name, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John Le Carre, this
international thriller is set at the height of the Cold War years of the
mid-20th Century. George Smiley, a disgraced British spy, is rehired in secret
by his government—which fears that the British Secret Intelligence Service,
a.k.a. MI-6, has been compromised by a double agent working for the Soviets. The movie is riveting as we come to understand what is going on. At MI5, the British “circus” for secret intelligence, there
is a Soviet mole. We find out who it is. He is disposed of. A major strength of this sober, cerebral film is that it reflects le Carre’s rather bleak vision of Britain’s spying class. It is the antithesis of ab action-packed Bond or Bourne film.
Jonathan Demme directed this updated 2004 remake of
John Frankenheimer's 1962 cult favorite The Manchurian
Candidate, a pioneering examination of political conspiracy and
psychological reconditioning. Major Bennett Marco and Sergeant Raymond Shaw are
two soldiers who served in the same company during Operation Desert Storm, but
their paths following their tours of duty have been very different. Shaw, the
son of powerful congresswoman Eleanor Shaw, has used his reputation as a war
hero to quickly scale the ladder of American politics, and with the help of his
mother earns the Vice Presidential nomination. Marco, on the other hand, has
been troubled with mental illness, and is convinced that something strange
happened to him and his compatriots during the war. As Marco struggles to find
the truth behind his nightmares and emotional torment, he unearths some
disturbing facts about how his mind and body have been reworked by shadowy
forces, as well as those of his fellow soldiers—including Raymond Shaw. Many critics and film viewers have dismissed this film as decidedly inferior to the original, but I think the film's merit is in dramatizing that although the methods of brain control may be more sophisticated, the original thesis—that war-weary veterans are vulnerable to psychological manipulation—remains relevant for our time.
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