All language subtitles for S02E03 - Spies

Follow me, yeah?

Cinema likes clean-cut heroes,

good guys who fight bad guys
out in the open.

The cop, the soldier, the fireman,

the fearless reporter,

the crusading lawyer,

the superhero.

But others fight in the shadows.

They exist in a world not of black
and white,

but shades of grey.

These are the cloak-and-dagger men.

The disavowable operatives.

Licensed to kill,

but often left out in the cold.

The secret agent,

the hired assassin,

the spy.

A woman.

Take the bloody shot.

Yeah, baby. Yeah.

In Secrets Of Cinema, I explore the
conventions

which underwrite the movies we love
the most

and examine the techniques
film-makers use

to keep us coming back for more.

Shoot the traitor now.

Tonight, I'm looking at one
of the most distinctive

and popular genres of all,

one that plays on our paranoia
and feeds our fears,

as well as fulfilling our fantasies
of secret missions

and special skills.

It's also given us perhaps the most
famous hero in all of cinema.

Can I do something for you, Mr Bond?

Just a drink.

A martini, shaken, not stirred.

# This is the end

# Hold your breath
and count to ten... #

Two of my favourite films
from the last ten years

are Skyfall and Tinker Tailor
Soldier Spy.

They couldn't be more different.

Tinker Tailor is an artful
psychological drama,

while Skyfall is a big,
bold action movie.

But their central characters,

the fearless secret agent

and the analytical intelligence
officer,

are the key archetypes of the spy
genre.

And in this post-truth era,

the shifting, uncertain world
of espionage

seems closer to home than ever.

Of course, spies have been around
since ancient Egypt.

Moses sent 12 agents into Canaan

and bad intel kept the Israelites
in the desert for 40 years,

but the spy story proper didn't
exist until the late 19th century,

when nations got organised about
running intelligence services.

A couple of Arthur Conan Doyle's
Sherlock Holmes stories

feature Sherlock's brother Mycroft,
who's a shadowy government man.

Other writers like Joseph Conrad
and Somerset Maugham

also dabbled in espionage.

What's on your mind, General?

My dear friend, you have given
us big, big trouble for long time.

Sand. Sabotage. Wrecking.
Deliberate.

What's at the back of it? Who did
it?

The emerging genre of spy literature
fired the imagination

of a young British director called
Alfred Hitchcock.

Hitchcock was attracted to espionage
for its psychological dimension,

the sense that the world
was hostile, that no-one,

especially a woman on a train,
could be trusted,

that quirky, malicious forces could
suddenly decide to pick on anyone

and throw them onto a crazy
roller-coaster ride

with a potentially deadly outcome.

This is the man you want, I think.

But when we passed just now... He
moved his way in here

and told me his name is Hannay.

Is your name Hannay? No.

Are you coming in to tea, sir? I'll
be right along.

Even Hitchcock's famous cameo
appearances

have the whiff of espionage.

He's always there pretending
to read a newspaper,

slipping out of a party early,
loitering with intent,

watching us watching him, the
ultimate undercover director.

Alfred Hitchcock didn't invent
the spy film genre singlehanded,

the Austrian director Fritz Lang
explored the world of the diabolical

international mastermind in his
Dr Mabuse films of the 1920s

and in Spione, "Spies", in 1928.

Both of these were influenced

by the earlier French thriller
serials of Louis Feuillade

like Fantomas.

But Hitchcock dominated the origins
of the spy film

with such pre-war British thrillers
as The Lady Vanishes.

Listen carefully.

In case I'm unlucky and you get
through,

I want you to take back a message

to a Mr Calendar. If you call him
up, he's in Whitehall.

Then you are a spy. I always think
that's such a grim word.

Well, what is the message?

He continued to set the tone
in a succession

of sophisticated Hollywood movies.

May I have your picture,
Mr Van Meer? Thank you.

GUNSHOT

Push me away.

Hitchcock was the master
of the shifting, uneasy world

of mistrust and suspense.

This development was taken
to a whole new level

in the spectacular romantic
adventure North By Northwest.

The heroes are often accidental.

Robert Donat's Richard Hannay
connects with the wrong woman

at a music hall in The 39 Steps...

Well, there we are.

May I come home with you?

What's the idea?

..while Cary Grant's ad man,
Roger Thornhill,

is mistaken for a non-existent agent
in North By Northwest.

Wait a minute. Wait, wait...

Did you call me Kaplan?

I know you're a man of many names,
but I'm perfectly willing

to accept your current choice.

Current choice? My name is
Thornhill.

Roger Thornhill. It's never
been anything else.

These unwitting protagonists
are forced to adapt

to survive an ordeal that could

and has led to the deaths of trained
agents.

Hitchcock's influence on the look
and feel of the action is critical.

Sean Connery said that the early
James Bond films

would have looked very different

without the model of North By
Northwest.

For proof of that,

look at the visual style of these
two aerial attack scenes

from North By Northwest,
which Hitchcock made in 1959,

and the Bond film From Russia
With Love just four years later.

Many spy pictures before the 1960s
are more like a strand of film noir.

They're often stories of small men
caught up in vast intrigues.

Fritz Lang made a film of Graham
Greene's The Ministry Of Fear

in 1944, and a couple of years later

set nuclear physicist Gary Cooper on
the trail of Nazi atom secrets

in the emblematically titled Cloak
And Dagger.

Wilson speaking. Listen carefully

and don't say anything over this
phone you don't have to.

Yes?

Geheime Staatspolizei.

Your name? Corinne Leroy.

Address? 64, Rue De L'Avre.

Your papers?

In the 1950s, film-makers began to
shine a light on the inside workings

of espionage in a run of fact-based
films

like Carve Her Name With Pride,

in which Virginia McKenna

played wartime special operations
agent Violette Szabo,

or 5 Fingers, which featured
James Mason

as the infamous spy codenamed
Cicero.

As the decade progressed,

the escalating nuclear arms race
informed a series of bleak B-movies

like Pickup On South Street

and the near-apocalyptic Kiss Me
Deadly.

At stake was not just the formula
for a new aeroplane fuel

or a map of gun emplacements,

but the plans for potential
Armageddon.

These global threats demanded
a new kind of hero.

In 1962, a spy film came
along that changed everything

and began a hugely successful
franchise

that's still running today.

Miss Moneypenny, forget the usual
repartee, 007's in a hurry.

Dr No, based on Ian Fleming's
1958 novel,

featured James Bond, a spy who was
out of the shadows.

Ciao.

Good luck.

Bond can hardly be called a "secret"
agent.

He lives the most flamboyant
lifestyle imaginable,

even introducing
himself by his real name.

Bond.

James Bond.

Mr Bond, I suppose you wouldn't care
to raise the limit?

I have no objection.

The Bond movies were in colour,

where previous spy films had tended
to be black and white.

And there was a modern edge
to Bond's jet-setting consumerism.

These are films which make much of
boarding flights to faraway places

and staying in glamorous hotels.

Imagine how they played to audiences

who had barely got used
to the end of rationing.

Dr No kicked off a spy boom
which was to the 1960s

what disaster movies and Star Wars
were in the '70s

and what Marvel movies are to the
present.

No longer just spies, but
super spies.

A parade of agents starring in the
big escapist pictures of the age.

Connery's 007 had a host of rivals.

There was James Coburn as
playboy agent Derek Flint,

brought out of retirement to fight a
trio of mad scientists

in Our Man Flint.

Why would anyone want to kill
Mr Cramden?

I think the dart was meant for me.

It seems I have a job, whether I
want one or not.

You think I walked in here without
knowing I could walk out?

Freya...

..tell them, the tourist bureau,

they know where I am, right?

Oh, no, Mr Helm. No, Mr Helm?

No. Our clients have complete
privacy.

No-one knows who you are.

Then there's Matt Helm,
who works for ICE,

Intelligence And Counter Espionage.

Dean Martin's Helm had four
outings,

the last of which, The Wrecking
Crew,

also starred Sharon Tate,
the actress whose fate

at the hands of the Manson family

was recently re-imagined by Quentin
Tarantino.

Scenes from The Wrecking Crew
featured in Tarantino's

paean to '60s Tinseltown, Once
Upon A Time In Hollywood.

In the 1960s, everyone wanted
to be a spy.

On TV, there was Danger Man,
Mission: Impossible

and The Man From UNCLE,

even Fred Flintstone in his
big-screen spin-off

yearned to be a spy-type guy with
his own blazing theme song

playing over the titles.

TENSE SPY MUSIC PLAYS

# He's going to be a spy

# A double zero guy

# He's got that certain air

# Debonair, full of the old
savoir-faire. #

CLASSIC BOND THEME PLAYS

In Bond movies, the title sequence
is one of the primary ways

to establish the mood and tone
of what's to follow.

Maurice Binder was the designer
of the iconic gun barrel sequence

first seen in Dr No.

Binder went on making the Bond
titles for over 30 years.

Combined with specially composed
title songs,

these would become mini movies in
their own right

which cleverly prefigure the plots
and action of the main feature.

# You only live twice

# Or so it seems... #

# Just like the Moonraker... #

Their style reflects the times.

In the '70s, sexy silhouettes were
the order of the day,

but the 2006 Casino Royale titles
indicated a smarter, sharper edge

and a new, uncompromising Bond.

# You know my name

# You know my name. #

Super-spy movies have overwhelmingly
tended to be male fantasy vehicles

in which women are all too often
portrayed as disposable bimbos

or gold-sprayed victims.

They are secondary characters
who can be innocents caught

up in intrigue, avengers of murdered
loved ones or bad girls

won over by the hero's sexual
prowess.

You can turn off the charm. I'm
immune.

In Goldfinger, Honor Blackman's
Pussy Galore, a lesbian in the

novel, is won over by Bond's
lovemaking,

though only after some nifty judo
throws.

You've asked for this.

For decades, the Bond films were
largely white affairs

with black actors only to be found
in secondary roles

as bit-part players or henchmen.

In Die Another Day,

African-American actress Halle
Berry emerges from the sea,

echoing Ursula Andress 40 years
earlier.

But as NSA agent Jinx Johnson,

she broke the mould and fought
alongside 007.

The one returning female character
in the Bond series

is M's secretary, Miss Moneypenny.

Moneypenny!

What gives?

Her primary purpose
was to flirt with 007.

You never take me to dinner
looking like this, James.

You never take me to dinner,
period.

I would, you know,

only M would have me
court-martialled

for illegal use of government
property.

But when British star Naomie Harris
became the first black actress

to play Moneypenny in Skyfall,

her version of the character came
out from behind the desk

to take an active role in the field.

It's not clean. Repeat, I do not
have a clean shot.

Over the years,

there have been attempts in and out
of the 007 series

to come up with a female super spy.

In the 1960s, Monica Vitti
wasn't quite right

as the comic strip agent Modesty
Blaise.

Then there's Nikita from 1990,

in which Anne Parillaud plays a
criminal

who's forced to become a glamorous
but deadly assassin

by unscrupulous male authority
figures.

In Salt, made in 2010, Angelina
Jolie plays a CIA operative

who may be a double agent.

Having escaped from the authorities,

she's just as dangerous as Bourne
or Bond on the run.

Jesus Christ.

Her character, Evelyn Salt,
was originally called Edwin

and was meant to be played by Tom
Cruise,

but he dropped out because it was
too close to Mission: Impossible.

Jolie's ambition was to create
the first female spy franchise,

but it got no further than this
film.

# See these eyes so green... #

Gender equality in the super-spy
movie may finally have come of age

in the 2017 hit Atomic Blonde.

Charlize Theron's MI6
agent may be battle-scarred,

but she's ultimately triumphant

thanks to her bone-crunching
fighting prowess.

Where's 007?

And in the latest Bond film, No Time
to Die,

Lashana Lynch takes one
significant step further

and achieves Double-O status.

The world's moved on,
Commander Bond.

Are you a Double-O? Two years.

So stay in your lane.

You get in my way,
I will put a bullet in your knee.

The one that works.

I thought you two would get along.

The strategy of the spy movie
is to take us behind the scenes,

to show us how the business of
espionage is done.

This spycraft is frequently embodied
by the technology

and equipment that the agent uses to
carry out their mission.

On the side here, flat throwing
knife.

Press that button there and out she
comes.

In the Bond films, there are the
increasingly bizarre gadgets

issued to 007 by Q Branch,

beginning in From Russia With love

with an attache case that
conceals multiple secrets...

Now watch very carefully.

An ordinary tin of talcum powder...

..and reaching absurd heights with
the invisible car

that no-one could take
seriously in Die Another Day.

Vanish.

Oh, very good.

No element of the spy film is as
easy to parody

as the super-spy gadget,

here demonstrated by Rowan
Atkinson's well-meaning

but incompetent MI7 operative Johnny
English.

Reminds me of the old service-issue
ballpoint.

I remember every agent would carry
a pen that looked just like this,

completely innocent to the untrained
eye, but click it twice...

But James Bond originally used
simpler, more improvised methods -

such as the single hair stuck
with spit to the hotel room door

in Dr No, designed to let him know

if anyone had searched
his room while he was out.

And in Skyfall, there's
a return to basics,

as Q wryly explains
to Bond in this scene.

A gun...

..and a radio.

Not exactly Christmas, is it?

Were you expecting an exploding pen?

We don't really go
in for that any more.

Spy films thrive on tiny details.

The business of manufacturing a
cover identity with documentation

is always fascinating, and so is
the meticulous, methodical business

of actual espionage via hidden
cameras and listening devices.

The compelling and chilling
Stasi drama The Lives Of Others

concentrates on listening and
watching and the toll that

kind of spying takes on
the spy AND the spied-upon.

I haven't decided what
I'm going to get you yet.

There's also the potential
for catastrophic errors
and misunderstandings.

ECHOEY: ..get him for Christmas yet.
He's already got everything...

STATIC AND GARBLED SPEECH

The plot of Francis Ford Coppola's
The Conversation - which turns out

to involve murder rather
than industrial espionage -

hinges on a simple phrase...

He'd kill us if he got the chance.

The problem is that surveillance
expert Harry Caul - played by

Gene Hackman - misinterprets
what he hears,

leading to a descent into
paranoia and a lethal outcome.

But what happens when the subject
of surveillance is on the move

and needs to be stalked in secret?

Pursuit sequences have been a staple

of the spy genre
since the beginning,

the careful tailing of
somebody in a public place

and the difficulties of
not losing them in a crowd.

What happened?
I'm not sure yet.

The hunt is on, and the
obstacles are many,

but the primary rule for the pursuer
AND the pursued is don't get caught.

Excuse me.

The proliferation of CCTV and
satellite observation technology

has given film-makers a
360-degree perspective

on this game of cat-and-mouse.

Audio engaged.

Mobile wants you to have him,
mobile wants you to have him.

Get mobile one on it.
Let me know when you hear it.

Hi, Waterloo Station,
south entrance.

In The Bourne Ultimatum, director
Paul Greengrass constructed

a nerve-jangling, ultra-mobile
chase through the crowds

at Waterloo Station.

Do exactly as I say.

Need you to move up to your right.

The first escalator on the right.

The production tricked commuters
by pretending to film at one end

of the concourse, while the real
action was being captured elsewhere.

Tie your shoe, tie your shoe
right now. Tie your shoe.

Hand-held cameras, fast cutting
and John Powell's urgent,

unsettling score combine
to immerse us in the hunt.

I'm going to walk by you,

I want you to move along
the far wall to your left.

In four, three, two, one...

..stand up. That's it.

Spies are also detectives -

and some of the most thrilling
moments come when the audience

gets to spot a clue along
with the protagonist.

The fake nun wearing high-heeled
shoes in The Lady Vanishes.

Sean Connery identifying
assassin Robert Shaw

in From Russia With Love...

I'll have a bottle of the Blanc
de Blancs. Oui, monsieur.

Make mine Chianti.

White Chianti, monsieur?
Uh, no, the red kind,

..because the fake gent makes
a faux pas at the dinner table.

I think I have the
answer to our problems.

Red wine with fish.

Now that should have
told me something.

You may know the right wines.

You're the one on your knees.

Or how about Colin Firth giving
away that he's just spent the night

with Smiley's wife in Tinker Tailor
as he tries to slip his shoes on?

I was just passing,
I thought I'd call in.

Ann was in bed, but she
insisted on getting up.

Said she'd be down in a minute.

These are the moments that
make us feel really involved
in the unfolding drama.

What's keeping her?

Diligent detective work forms the
basis of the realistic spy films

that emerged in contrast
to the super-spy fantasies.

Harry Palmer - the name given
to the unnamed spy of Len Deighton's

novels when they were filmed -
is nothing like Bond,

a civil servant who rightly
doesn't trust his bosses,

and spends more time on dreary
bureaucracy than fighting.

What is form L101?

A field report. You've got to
make one out after every job.

Makes Dalby happy, if nothing else.

You mean I've got to ask about
Grantby in 19 different places...

..and then make out 19 lots
of silly answers?

Aye, that's about it, laddie.

You'll soon find out this
job's nearly all legwork.

The Ipcress File was made by some
of the same team as the Bond movies,

including composer John Barry,

who created an evocative,
low-key and brooding score.

The opening titles show
us Palmer in his kitchen,

although he's making real coffee,

a sign of culinary discernment
when instant was the norm.

Michael Caine imbues his
bespectacled working-class

character with a deadpan cool
that is just as hip and snappy

as 007 with his martinis
and post-murder quips.

Argh...!

Shocking.

More authentic still are the films
made from John le Carre's novels

about the branch of British
intelligence codenamed "The Circus"

and the desk-squatting,
pen-pushing spy George Smiley.

What about Smiley?

Smiley is leaving with me.

Alec Guinness owned
the role on television,

and there are excellent
portrayals by Rupert Davis

in The Spy Who Came In From The Cold

and James Mason in
The Deadly Affair.

But for my money, Gary Oldman
was the perfect Smiley

in Thomas Alfredson's
superb adaptation of
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

His portrayal of the inscrutable
agent was delicate and nuanced.

Smiley is the real anti-Bond.

Not a womaniser...

..he's married to an unfaithful
wife who sleeps with his enemies.

Not a man of action...

..he sits in his office and
ponders while agents suffer
and die in the field.

He's worn down by office
politics and personal betrayals,

even as he's asked to do
the sort of rotten things

that make him wonder whether his
side's methods are in any way

morally superior to the enemy's.

Alec Leamas, another of le Carre's
creations, is in no doubt -

as he shows in this eloquent
and bitter outburst.

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,
henpecked 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?

Yesterday I would have killed Mundt,

because I thought him evil
and an enemy. But not today.

Today he's evil and my friend.
London needs him.

They need him so that the great
moronic masses you admire so much

can sleep soundly in their
flea-bitten beds again. They need

him for the safety of ordinary,
crummy people like you and me.

Look at us.

Look at what they make you give.

Every spy has a boss.

It's not very comfortable, is it?

Are you going to complain
the whole way?

Oh, go on, then, eject me.

M, the head of MI6 in the Bond
movies, is based on a real post

that exists in the very hierarchical
British civil service.

I would ask you if you could
remain emotionally detached.

But I don't think that's
your problem, is it, Bond?

No.

But in cinema, the relationship
between spy and spy chief

is frequently an uneasy one.

Come in, Palmer.

Sergeant Palmer reporting
as ordered, sir.

Close the door, Palmer.

Movie spies are the ultimate loners,

mavericks and rule breakers who
don't take instruction easily.

You just love the Army, don't you?

Oh, yes, sir. I just
love the Army, sir.

Shut the door.

In The Ipcress File,
Harry Palmer has not one

but two bosses to contend with...

..one of whom may be a traitor.

It isn't usual to read a B107
to its subject, Palmer...

..but I'm going to put you straight.

Insubordinate.

Insolent.

A trickster...

..perhaps with criminal tendencies.

Yes, that's a pretty
fair appraisal...sir.

Who are you to judge my actions?

I'm your superior.

SHE CHUCKLES DRILY

My superior...

The movie spy boss is an authority
figure, whose superior knowledge

gives them an overview
of the unfolding situation.

I don't think I caught your name.

I don't think I pitched it.

You're police, aren't you?
Or is it FBI?

FBI, CIA, ONI - we're all
in the same alphabet soup.

The archetype of this
character is the CIA chief

played by Leo G Carroll in
Hitchcock's North By Northwest.

Carroll went on to reprise
the role as Alexander Waverly

in the UNCLE films and
TV series of the 1960s.

The first thing the spy boss
must do is to brief the agent

on their mission, and this is
where the MacGuffin comes in.

Hello, Austin. I'm Basil Exposition
with British intelligence.

The MacGuffin is a term popularised
by Alfred Hitchcock.

It simply means a plot device.

Here, the thing that brings our
opposing spies into action.

Your mission, should you choose
to accept it, is to prevent

the Apostles from acquiring
plutonium

using any means at your disposal.

Hitchcock said that the point
of a MacGuffin was that all

the characters should care about it
but the audience doesn't.

We promised Spyglass immunity
in exchange for a document

on microfilm, codenamed the List.

He has intelligence of a plot
to assassinate the Chinese premier

at the Anglo-Chinese talks
next week.

Jamal Khaled. We think he's dirty

so we raid his private
financial files.

Unfortunately, the IP address
I traced it to is registered

to the Valentine Corporation.

It's an atomic bomb of information
that could extend the Cold War

for another 40 years.

The bottom line is Rayna Boyanov
is about to sell a small-scale

tactical nuclear weapon
to a terrorist organisation

and we don't know where she
or the bomb is.

Well, in that case,
Pegasus, count me in.

CAT SQUEALS

In other words, the MacGuffin
is just an excuse

for the action to take place.

Every adaptation of John Buchan's
novel The 39 Steps has a different

explanation of what the title means.

But, in each case, it's a MacGuffin.

What are the 39 steps?

Come on! Answer up!

What are the 39 steps?

The 39 Steps is an
organisation of spies

collecting information on behalf
of the Foreign Office of...

GUNSHOT

SCREAMING

The MacGuffin might be
incriminating letters,

the plans for a new superweapon,

wine bottles full of uranium,

or perhaps the mysterious
Ipcress process that apparently

indoctrinates Harry Palmer.

However, in cinema it's often
the part of the spy boss

to be duplicitous, even
with their own agents.

A shark can smell blood a mile
off when he's hungry.

And Mundt
is hungry for our blood.

Name me a counterespionage head

who isn't hungry for one
high-grade defecting spy.

So I'm to defect?

M is unusually trustworthy.

We need to tread carefully.

Graves is politically connected.

Lucky I'm on the outside, then.

Well, it seems
you've become useful again.

But how many other spy chiefs send
their minions off to die as part

of a scheme they don't fully
explain, and which turns out

to be highly dubious?

In the Mission: Impossible films,
the unseen man who records

those instructions for Ethan Hunt
doesn't give him the whole story,

forcing the hero to go against his
handlers as well as the enemy.

Good evening, Mr Hunt.

The anarchist Solomon Lane.

Since you captured him two years
ago, his absence from

the world stage has had
unintended consequences.

DOORBELL BUZZES

In The Spy Who Came In From
The Cold, Cyril Cusack plays

a manipulative agency head
known as Control.

I want you to, er,
to stay out in the cold...

..a little longer.

Please do sit down.

His ambiguous, slippery portrayal
leaves us uneasy

and fearful for the fate
of the central character,

played by Richard Burton.

Our work, as I understand it,
is based on a single assumption

that the West is never
going to be the aggressor.

Thus, we do disagreeable things,

but we are defensive.

Our policies are peaceful,
but our methods can't afford

to be less ruthless than
those of the opposition.

Can they?

Jack Ryan, in a series of films
derived from Tom Clancy's very

pro-CIA novels, is a rare attempt
to depict the spy boss

as a thoroughly good guy.

But, even then, cynicism creeps in.

Here, Harrison Ford's Ryan
tells off the ultimate spy boss,

the President, in Clear
And Present Danger.

You should never make important
decisions while you're upset.

You did.

And American soldiers and innocent
civilians are dead because of it.

I never ordered any... No.

Don't even think about playing
that game with me.

The ultimate expression
of this disillusionment comes

in the highly successful
Jason Bourne series,

based on Robert Ludlum's
very anti-CIA novels.

In these films, the hero
has been robbed of his identity

and discarded by his employers.

He must fight his own former masters
rather than his country's enemies,

pitting his exceptional combat
and survival skills against a vast

organisation of ruthless killers.

CLICKS FINGERS

Code in place.

Who the hell are you?

The man you sent is dead,

so, whoever this is, you better
start talking.

Hello, Jason?

The secret establishment cabal
of the Bourne films can be directly

traced to a strain of paranoid spy
thrillers in the 1960s and '70s.

This was the era of the Cold War,

the Kennedy assassination,
Vietnam and Watergate.

Conspiracy theories were rife.
At the beginning of this period,

paranoia permeates John
Frankenheimer's chilling thriller

The Manchurian Candidate.

Frank Sinatra plays a Korean War
veteran who uncovers a sinister plot

involving an assassin programmed
to kill a presidential nominee

and change the balance
of power in the USA.

My fellow Americans...

You couldn't have stopped them.
The army couldn't have stopped them.

So I had to.

Extreme camera angles,
distorting lenses and unorthodox

framing give The Manchurian
Candidate an uneasy, dislocating

atmosphere, and draw us
into a nightmarish world.

Then Johnny will really hit
those microphones and those cameras

with blood all over him, fighting
off anyone who tries to help him,

defending America,
even if it means his own death,

rallying a nation of television
viewers into hysteria

to sweep us up into the White House
with powers

that will make martial law
seem like anarchy.

It's a film that feels alarmingly
relevant.

Some commentators have made
analogies with The Manchurian

Candidate when describing
alleged foreign interference

in present-day politics.

Now, these pictures were filmed
in stark black and white

but later in the '60s and '70s
this gave way to steely, muted

colour cinematography
in conspiracy thrillers

like The Parallax View
and Three Days Of The Condor.

DOORBELL BUZZES

Who is it?

Richard Paley?

Who is it? Are you Richard Paley?

Who?

Who wants him?

Congratulations, Richard,
you had some very interesting

scores on the first series
of tests for Parallax.

Testing for what?
The Parallax Corporation.

In Three Days Of The Condor, Robert
Redford is a bookish CIA researcher

who comes back from buying lunch
to find all of his colleagues

in the station have been killed.

He must uncover the reason
and keep himself alive.

The enemy here is hidden
within the state itself.

Let's say...

..for the purposes of argument,
I had a .45 in one of my pockets.

And I wanted you to take a walk
with me. You'd do it, right?

When governments act like Spectre
or THRUSH, it seems there's unlikely

to be a super spy to fight them.

In fact, the licence to kill
is the province of faceless hit men

who pick off our heroes
with assassins' rifles.

Witness the end
of The Parallax View.

A single shot and it's all over
for our side.

Look after Mr Bond.

See that some harm comes to him.

Just as movie spies have a boss,

so they also need a nemesis -
the evil genius

that our hero must
pit themselves against.

Scott, I want you to meet Daddy's
nemesis, Austin Powers.

What, are you feeding him?

Why don't you just kill him?

No, Scott, I have an even
better idea.

I'm going to place him in an easily
escapable situation involving

an overly elaborate and exotic
death.

With your disregard for
human life,

you must be working
for the East.

East, west, just points

of the compass, each as stupid
as the other.

I am a member of Spectre.

Spectre? Spectre.

In fact, the figure of the scheming
mastermind predates the super spy.

A successful criminal brain
is always superior.

It has to be.

Early examples like Fu Manchu
first appeared

in the 1920s and '30s.

These prototype supervillains
are far more memorable

than the mundane heroes who tried
to thwart their schemes.

This is gold, Mr Bond.

All my life I've been in love
with its colour, its brilliance,

its divine heaviness.

I welcome any enterprise
that will increase my stock.

The Bond villain, whether a maniac
billionaire

or a calculating ideologue,
is a powerful archetype.

Are you ready, Monsieur Scaramanga?

Ready.

Are you ready, Monsieur Bond?

Ready.

It even crops up in far less
fantastical films.

George, get in here!

George Smiley's long duel
with the Soviet spy master Karla

is just as personal as Bond's feud
with Spectre's Blofeld.

The firing power inside my crater

is enough to annihilate
a small army.

You can watch it all on TV.

It's the last programme
you're likely to see.

Then there were the thugs and
assassins. Even before Ian Fleming,

these tended to be strange
misfit characters.

Look at Peter Lorre in The Secret
Agent and The Man Who Knew Too Much

or the unforgettable-looking
Reggie Nalder

in the 1956 version of that film.

These were the ancestors of Oddjob,
Jaws and a host of less-remembered

hit men, bodyguards and
wet work specialists.

And then there are the snitches,
informers, double agents, betrayers

and disposable goons who get
dropped along the way

with barely a pause for thought.

Let me help you with your bags.

Come on.

Fuck's sake!
Russians are fucking heavy!

It ups the stakes, of course,
to pit a hero against his exact

opposite number, or a version of
himself gone over to the dark side,

like Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt
battling Henry Cavill's formidable

rogue agent in
Mission: Impossible - Fallout.

The worst villains of all,

of course, are the traitors and
double agents,

the mole sought by George Smiley,

the power-hungry higher-ups who've
deemed Jason Bourne expendable.

I'm not sure what we're
talking about.

Someone tried to take him out.

Tried and failed.

The more grounded, in fact, a spy
film is, the more understanding

is extended to the adversary.

We are agents from the Federal
Bureau of Investigation.

Look at me. I'm talking to you.

We've received information

concerning your involvement
in espionage.

You can either cooperate with us
right now or you'll be under arrest.

You understand, Colonel?
No, not really.

Why...Why do you keep calling me
Colonel?

In Steven Spielberg's taut
Cold War drama Bridge Of Spies,

we identify just as much with the
ambiguous Soviet undercover man,

played by Mark Rylance, as we do
with his American lawyer, Tom Hanks.

I have a mandate to serve you.
Nobody else does.

Quite frankly, everybody else
has an interest

in sending you to the
electric chair. All right.

You don't seem alarmed.

But...

..would it help?

The Cold War did not end.

It shattered into a thousand
dangerous pieces.

The West has grown weak, drunk on
shopping and social media.

In the post-Cold War thriller
Red Sparrow, made in 2018,

Jennifer Lawrence plays
Dominika Egorova, a ballet dancer

turned Russian intelligence officer.

Ever since I was a small child

and I would take the bus to
rehearsal after school,

and I would look out of the
windows at the people

going about their lives,
going to work half-asleep,

and I would tell myself,
"I'm not like them

"and I never will be.

"Because I'm special."

Take off your dress.

Once again, our sympathies
are with the spy.

Trained to seduce by the state,

she must run the gauntlet
of enemies on both sides.

Take off your dress.

Using sex to obtain secrets

is one of the oldest tropes
of the spy film.

In 1930s Hollywood,

the dominant image of the movie spy
was a woman, inspired by the fame

of Dutch dancer and agent Margaretha
Zelle, known as Mata Hari,

during World War I.

Greta Garbo played her in
a fictionalised biopic. Of course,

being a famous spy isn't
good for business

and, following her famous seductions
and famous espionage, she was even

more famously shot at dawn...

..while in the same year screen
siren Marlene Dietrich appeared

in a Mata Hari-like role in
Josef von Sternberg's Dishonored.

Are we going to work together again?

Do you happen to have
a looking glass?

I'm surprised
at Mr Devlin coming tonight.

I don't blame anyone for being
in love with you, darling.

I just hope that nothing will happen
to give him any false impression.

I'll be with you in a minute.

Notorious, made in 1946, was
Hitchcock's most morally complex

spy movie, and really gets under the
skin of the seductress, casting

Ingrid Bergman as a woman
manipulated into marrying

fugitive Nazi Claude Rains.

It's not that I don't trust
you, but when you're in love

at my age, every man who looks
at your woman is a menace.

Will you forgive me
for even talking about it?

I'm very contrite.

She must steal a key from
her husband

and get it to her fellow
agent, Cary Grant.

The action takes place
in the well-heeled expat world

of Rio de Janeiro.

Watch how this beautifully
choreographed crane shot takes us

from high above a glamorous party
gathering into an extreme close-up

of our anxious heroine's hand,
clutching the vital key.

Scotch? Rye? Bourbon?

Vodka? Nothing, thank you.

I'll just take a quick ride
back to town.

Oh, that has been arranged.

But, first, a libation.

A tried and tested convention
of the spy movie is that our

protagonist is put in a series of
increasingly dangerous situations,

seemingly impossible to escape from,

only for our resourceful agent,
whether amateur or professional,

to get away with it through
quick thinking, skill,

and impressive stunt work.

Here's Cary Grant in North By
Northwest, filled with liquor

and sent to certain death
in a car on a cliff edge.

And here's Roger Moore in Moonraker,

pushed out of a plane
with no parachute...

..while Angelina Jolie,
outnumbered and surrounded,

does the only thing
possible to stay free.

There's nowhere to run. Quit now!

No, I didn't do anything.

SHOUTING

Spies keep secrets, and their
enemies want those secrets -

whatever that takes.

Torture scenes are often
found in spy films.

Sometimes they're almost
light-hearted,

like the famous laser beam
sequence in Goldfinger.

Do you expect me to talk?

No, Mr Bond! I expect you to die.

GASPING

In Die Another Day, in 2002, torture
was incorporated into the title

sequence along with scorpions
and dancing women,

which felt wrong in so many ways.

Wow. You've taken good care
of your body.

Torture represents the ultimate
loss of control,

where power is all in the hands
of the interrogator.

Casino Royale has a protracted
and highly sexualised torture scene

between Bond and Le Chiffre.

An uncomfortable combination,
especially in a film rated 12.

HE SCREAMS

But what about when the threat
faced is the ticking clock

of an unexploded bomb?

This type of suspense set piece is
a staple of the spy genre,

and film-makers deploy all their
tricks to make our palms sweat.

Look at these three sequences
from Sabotage,

Goldfinger and Mission: Impossible -
Fallout. They're found in films

over 80 years apart and each builds
in different ways

to a seemingly inevitable
conclusion.

Damn! Ethan, the countdown has
started. We have 15 minutes.

Walker has the detonator!

In Sabotage, from 1936, a young boy
is unwittingly delivering a bomb.

He's delayed en route
to his destination, and the tension

mounts to an almost unbearable pitch
through the rhythm of the editing.

In Sabotage and Goldfinger, made
30 years later, the music adopts

a pulsing countdown tempo
to increase suspense.

Locked inside Fort Knox,

Bond struggles to shut down
a nuclear weapon,

which will explode in seconds.

Rescuers are at hand, but time
is running out fast.

In Mission: Impossible - Fallout,
there are not one but two bombs

and neither can be defused
without access to the detonator,

which is in the hands of the enemy.

It's too late! No!

I'm going to get the detonator.
What? How?!

I'll figure it out!

You find Lane and find
the other bomb.

What the hell is he doing?
I find it best not to look!

The payoff in each of these
three scenes is very different.

In Sabotage, the tension
builds and builds until...

..the unthinkable happens.

In Goldfinger, the solution
turns out to be simple.

FLICKS SWITCH

An anti-climax that defuses
the threat.

What kept you?

While in Mission: Impossible, the
action becomes ever more frenetic

and complex. Multiple twists
and turns serve to ramp up

the suspense as Cruise
tries to grab the detonator...

Hold this for me, will you?

..while parallel editing takes us
back and forth

to those trying to stop the bombs.

Wire strippers.

I'm a doctor, not an electrician.
Sorry.

The thing with the green grip.

Got it. The wire in my left hand.

The black one. My left hand.

That's your left hand.
Sorry. The other wire.

The red one?
Yes, the red one in my right hand.

Just checking.

A series of mini climaxes propel us
to a grand conclusion.

BEEPING
Why won't you just die?

Hitchcock realised after making
Sabotage that he'd made

a great error allowing the bomb
to explode, killing not only

the young boy but also
a puppy onboard the same bus.

By doing so, he'd violated
his primary rule of suspense,

that it must always be relieved.

Otherwise, the audience are
left unhappy and unsatisfied.

All right, Twinkle Toes,
what's your exit strategy?

I'm going to walk right
out of the front gate.

Ballsy! Stupid, but ballsy.

It didn't have to end this way.

Of course it did.

So where does a spy film end?
With a mission accomplished.

James Bond tends to thwart the
diabolical schemes of his enemies

in the most explosive way
imaginable...

..blowing up a secret base...

..personally killing a mastermind...

GUNSHOT

..and then relaxing in his own
inimitable fashion...

What are we going to do now?

Well, we can swim or, er...

Or what?

Oh, no, you don't!

This is no time to be rescued.

# Goldfinger... #

..though the end credits
promise James Bond will return,

meaning that his struggle
is never-ending.

Or the drama can end more
ambiguously in a classic spy film

trope with an exchange of
personnel at the border.

In the real-life Cold War drama
Bridge Of Spies, Tom Hanks' lawyer

Donovan ensures the swap of two
Americans for Abel, the captured spy

played by Mark Rylance.

But what will be the Russian
agent's fate when he gets home?

We can be left in no-man's-land
in more ways than one.

The Spy Who Came In From The Cold
sees our two protagonists

double-crossed as they attempt
to scale the Berlin Wall.

GUNSHOT

No pyrotechnics, just echoing
gunshots and a lonely death

on a stretch of waste ground.

Jump, Alec! Jump, man!

Shoot the traitor now.

But sometimes the double-cross
can be thwarted,

and the individual
agent will overcome

the power of the forces
ranged against him.

Harry Palmer resists the
conditioning he's been

subjected to and shoots the
double agent...

..while Jason Bourne turns his
skills against the shadowy

operatives who once controlled him.

I remember.

I remember everything.

# La mer

# Les a berces

# Le long... #

George Smiley, too, may calmly
contrive the execution of a traitor

and get back to work.

In a post-Cold War, post-9/11,
post-truth world,

the rules may have changed
but the great game continues

and the movie spy lives on.

MUSIC ENDS, APPLAUSE