0:00:23 > 0:00:25Hello, I'm Al Murray
0:00:25 > 0:00:27and over the next hour we're going to be talking
0:00:27 > 0:00:29about British spy movies.
0:00:29 > 0:00:31We're going to look back at my favourite spies
0:00:31 > 0:00:33and find out what makes them tick.
0:00:33 > 0:00:35Cool spies, like the cocky,
0:00:35 > 0:00:38uber confident Harry Palmer in The Ipcress File.
0:00:38 > 0:00:39Morning.
0:00:39 > 0:00:43Sharp suited spies, like the suave Alec Guinness in Our Man In Havana.
0:00:43 > 0:00:45Romantic spies like George Segal's smitten title
0:00:45 > 0:00:47character in The Quiller Memorandum.
0:00:47 > 0:00:51Hard-drinking spies like the virile Bulldog Drummond from Some Girls Do.
0:00:51 > 0:00:55- What is it?- Well, pretty strong. It's a bullshot.
0:00:55 > 0:00:58And damaged spies like Richard Burton's broken,
0:00:58 > 0:01:02isolated Alec Leamas in The Spy Who Came In From The Cold.
0:01:02 > 0:01:04We'll meet the bad guys they squared off against,
0:01:04 > 0:01:08like the testicle-scorching Auric Goldfinger from, er, Goldfinger.
0:01:08 > 0:01:09Do you expect me to talk?
0:01:10 > 0:01:12No, Mr Bond, I expect you to die.
0:01:12 > 0:01:14And of course the man who defeated him,
0:01:14 > 0:01:17our favourite spy of all, James Bond.
0:01:17 > 0:01:18Saving the world with a gun
0:01:18 > 0:01:21and a wisecrack in films like The Man With The Golden Gun.
0:01:21 > 0:01:24I'm now aiming precisely at your groin,
0:01:26 > 0:01:28so speak or forever hold your peace.
0:01:28 > 0:01:31Joining me on this top secret assignment are my very
0:01:31 > 0:01:34special guests, comedian Matt Forde,
0:01:34 > 0:01:38novelist and former director general of MI5 Stella Rimmington
0:01:38 > 0:01:42and broadcaster and film expert Matthew Sweet.
0:01:42 > 0:01:43Matthew, we'll start with you.
0:01:43 > 0:01:46Why do we think the British love spy movies so much?
0:01:46 > 0:01:49Well, I think it speaks to something very deep in us.
0:01:49 > 0:01:51It speaks to all our fantasies
0:01:51 > 0:01:54and anxieties about our position in the world.
0:01:54 > 0:01:56And I think these are the things that being played
0:01:56 > 0:01:58through in the spy film.
0:01:58 > 0:02:02Really from its beginning, the idea is still present now.
0:02:02 > 0:02:04Who are we? How powerful are we?
0:02:04 > 0:02:06What should the world expect of us?
0:02:06 > 0:02:09Stella, are you a fan of these movies in particular?
0:02:09 > 0:02:12I'm a fan of some of them, the realistic ones
0:02:12 > 0:02:15but the James Bond ones, for example, I just find completely over
0:02:15 > 0:02:18the top and irrelevant, quite honestly, cos James Bond is
0:02:18 > 0:02:22not a spy and maybe we'll expand on that later, what is a spy?
0:02:22 > 0:02:24But it's certainly not a James Bond.
0:02:24 > 0:02:26And, Matt, are you a fan of these films?
0:02:26 > 0:02:29Yeah, I think the Bond ones are my favourite.
0:02:29 > 0:02:31THEY LAUGH
0:02:31 > 0:02:33I think because they are so unrealistic and you know when you
0:02:33 > 0:02:36watch them that this can't be what spying's really like
0:02:36 > 0:02:38because otherwise we'd see it on the streets of London.
0:02:38 > 0:02:41You'd notice it if it was as ridiculous and as bombastic as this.
0:02:41 > 0:02:44There's more to it than the Bond franchise though, isn't there?
0:02:44 > 0:02:46We have the work of John le Carre, of course,
0:02:46 > 0:02:48who's, I think, the serious end, as you'd put it, Stella.
0:02:48 > 0:02:51- Yeah.- Yeah, the boring stuff.
0:02:51 > 0:02:53- Oh!- Come on, the real stuff.
0:02:53 > 0:02:54So, to kick us off,
0:02:54 > 0:02:57let's have a look at where the British spy movie got started.
0:02:57 > 0:03:01The undisputed master of the genre in the 1930s was, of course,
0:03:01 > 0:03:04Alfred Hitchcock, who churned out a string of brilliant spy
0:03:04 > 0:03:07films during his British period.
0:03:07 > 0:03:10Best of all was The 39 Steps, which starred the immaculate Robert Donat,
0:03:10 > 0:03:14rocking a 'tache that'll net him a fortune come Movember, as a man who
0:03:14 > 0:03:17goes on the run after being wrongly accused of killing a secret agent.
0:03:17 > 0:03:18SHE GASPS
0:03:18 > 0:03:22It's got quirky characters like Derren Brown prototype Mr Memory.
0:03:22 > 0:03:25What won The Derby in 1921?
0:03:25 > 0:03:27Mr Jack Jool's humourist with Steve Donoghue up.
0:03:27 > 0:03:29Won by a length at odds 6 to 1.
0:03:29 > 0:03:32Second and third - Craig-an-eran and Lemonora.
0:03:32 > 0:03:33- Am I right, sir?- Right!
0:03:33 > 0:03:38Thrilling police chases, albeit on foot, it was the 1930s.
0:03:38 > 0:03:42And a flirty, romantic subplot between Donat and Madeleine Carroll.
0:03:42 > 0:03:44My shoes and stockings are soaked. I think I'll take them off.
0:03:44 > 0:03:47The first sensible thing I've heard you say. Can I be of any assistance?
0:03:47 > 0:03:50- No, thank you.- Sorry.
0:03:50 > 0:03:53And your usual Hitchcock device of a person being dropped
0:03:53 > 0:03:55into a baffling situation at the deep end
0:03:55 > 0:03:56and having to figure it all out.
0:03:56 > 0:03:59Well, I'm afraid you leave me no alternative.
0:03:59 > 0:04:00GUN FIRES
0:04:00 > 0:04:03That's what you get if you keep your overcoat on indoors, mate.
0:04:03 > 0:04:06Is this where our fascination with spies really kicks off?
0:04:06 > 0:04:08These films are capers really, aren't they?
0:04:08 > 0:04:11I mean, they're not really spy films, are they?
0:04:11 > 0:04:1439 Steps, what resemblance does that have to spying
0:04:14 > 0:04:16as you know it, Stella, professionally?
0:04:16 > 0:04:18Well, it... The film doesn't have very much
0:04:18 > 0:04:20but the book on which it was based,
0:04:20 > 0:04:24The John Buchan Story, is a very different thing, of course.
0:04:24 > 0:04:26I mean, I think John Buchan would have turned in his grave
0:04:26 > 0:04:30if he could see Donat performing as Hannay.
0:04:30 > 0:04:34In any case, Hannay would never have had a haircut like that.
0:04:34 > 0:04:35THEY LAUGH
0:04:35 > 0:04:40If you watch him the way through this film, he never changes.
0:04:40 > 0:04:42He's just a nothing character.
0:04:42 > 0:04:44Hitchcock characters, part of the mechanics of the plot,
0:04:44 > 0:04:47they're avatars, aren't they? They're never deep people.
0:04:47 > 0:04:49The thing about The 39 Steps is that there's nothing in any
0:04:49 > 0:04:53of the film adaptations that we remember that's in the book at all.
0:04:53 > 0:04:59All those great sequences, the chases and The Memory Man.
0:04:59 > 0:05:02Certainly the sexy business with the Madeleine Carroll character,
0:05:02 > 0:05:04none of that is there in the book.
0:05:04 > 0:05:08The book is something much stranger and dirtier and odder.
0:05:08 > 0:05:11Matt, do you think these films have aged well?
0:05:11 > 0:05:12In an odd way, I think they have
0:05:12 > 0:05:15because a lot of these themes are universal and watching The 39
0:05:15 > 0:05:19Steps, one thing that really struck me is the paranoia of the citizen
0:05:19 > 0:05:24getting caught up in this spy ring and who on earth do you go to?
0:05:24 > 0:05:26Where does this guy... Where's his outlet, who can he trust?
0:05:26 > 0:05:28And you just think, "What would I do?"
0:05:28 > 0:05:30All these human paranoias, even though
0:05:30 > 0:05:34so much of society has changed. our relationship with the security
0:05:34 > 0:05:38- services is still one of great distance and...- And mystery.
0:05:38 > 0:05:39Indeed, yeah.
0:05:39 > 0:05:42I mean, in a way, The 39 Steps pretty much contains
0:05:42 > 0:05:46everything that's in a Bourne movie. It hasn't aged a minute.
0:05:46 > 0:05:47That idea of velocity
0:05:47 > 0:05:51and the improvising hero is very brilliant too, isn't it?
0:05:51 > 0:05:55I mean, that's very attractive, that idea of the protagonist who is
0:05:55 > 0:05:59desperate but somehow can turn his hand to something in the moment.
0:05:59 > 0:06:01Yes, he's got all these hidden resources
0:06:01 > 0:06:02that come out and help him.
0:06:02 > 0:06:05Surely a real spy has to have something of that?
0:06:05 > 0:06:06Oh, yes, I think so, absolutely.
0:06:06 > 0:06:09But then that's the only thing that makes it unbelievable is
0:06:09 > 0:06:12how on earth would a member of the public be able to fool
0:06:12 > 0:06:14these spies that are going around killing each other
0:06:14 > 0:06:16and he can disguise himself as a milkman
0:06:16 > 0:06:19and give these two guys the slip? Would that be possible?
0:06:19 > 0:06:20Don't know, not if you looked like Donat.
0:06:20 > 0:06:23It's not a situation in which you found yourself in then, Stella?
0:06:23 > 0:06:25No, not exactly that, no.
0:06:25 > 0:06:27THEY LAUGH
0:06:27 > 0:06:29You're going to be saying things like this all the way through
0:06:29 > 0:06:33- this programme aren't you?- Well, that's what spying's all about.
0:06:33 > 0:06:36The thing is, we can't go on any further without addressing
0:06:36 > 0:06:39the elephant in the room, 007 the most popular
0:06:39 > 0:06:42and enduring spy in the world, James Bond.
0:06:42 > 0:06:44Who doesn't love a Bond movie?
0:06:44 > 0:06:46From his first appearance in 1962's Dr No,
0:06:46 > 0:06:50where he was suavely portrayed by a 30-year-old Sean Connery...
0:06:50 > 0:06:52Bond,
0:06:52 > 0:06:54James Bond.
0:06:54 > 0:06:57..007 has become synonymous with the British spy the world over.
0:06:57 > 0:07:00Everyone's got a favourite Bond, whether it's chiselled
0:07:00 > 0:07:04waxwork George Lazenby in On Her Majesty's Secret Service.
0:07:04 > 0:07:07Lounge lizard, Roger Moore who rocks the linens in Moonraker.
0:07:07 > 0:07:10Northern hard-nut Timothy Dalton who sweats
0:07:10 > 0:07:13and punches his way through the Living Daylights.
0:07:13 > 0:07:16Or more recent Bonds like the gritty Daniel Craig or post-modern
0:07:16 > 0:07:19irony Bond, Pierce Brosnan, whose underwater tie-straightening
0:07:19 > 0:07:21in The World Is Not Enough
0:07:21 > 0:07:24shows no-one's taking this entirely seriously.
0:07:24 > 0:07:27The faces change but the core elements of the series remain.
0:07:27 > 0:07:30The one-liners, like this killer quip from Thunderball.
0:07:30 > 0:07:31I think he got the point.
0:07:31 > 0:07:36The gadgets and girls, ingeniously combined here in Live And Let Die.
0:07:36 > 0:07:39And the questionable attitude to foreigners such as this
0:07:39 > 0:07:40exchange from Octopussy.
0:07:40 > 0:07:43Keep you in curry for a few weeks, wouldn't it?
0:07:43 > 0:07:45As his inexplicable Union Jack parachute
0:07:45 > 0:07:48from The Spy Who Loved Me shows, Bond loves his country.
0:07:48 > 0:07:50And Britain, like the rest of the world,
0:07:50 > 0:07:52it would appear, loves him back.
0:07:54 > 0:07:58Stella, you said earlier on and I'm going to have to pick this up,
0:07:58 > 0:08:01you don't even think he's a spy?
0:08:01 > 0:08:03No, he clearly isn't a spy.
0:08:03 > 0:08:05I mean, James Bond is a licensed killer
0:08:05 > 0:08:07and he works, in theory anyway,
0:08:07 > 0:08:12for some institution which represents itself as being MI6.
0:08:12 > 0:08:15But, when you think about it, does no spying, he does not find
0:08:15 > 0:08:18out intelligence which is what spies do and by the way,
0:08:18 > 0:08:21nobody in British intelligence is licensed to kill.
0:08:21 > 0:08:25- Well, you would say that. - Here's your first mistake.
0:08:25 > 0:08:29But basically he goes in to M and he's more or less
0:08:29 > 0:08:32told his target and he's given this thin file with a photograph,
0:08:32 > 0:08:35a gun and a gadget and he goes off to kill somebody.
0:08:35 > 0:08:37So he should have been in the SAS?
0:08:37 > 0:08:40Well, even the SAS has an organisational structure.
0:08:40 > 0:08:44You don't send one bloke out into the field to face the enemy.
0:08:44 > 0:08:48So the whole thing is misconceived, if it's supposed to be spying,
0:08:48 > 0:08:51but it's something else, isn't it? It's an adventure story basically.
0:08:51 > 0:08:54Yeah, one of the things he definitely is...is he's a very
0:08:54 > 0:08:59potent fellow when Britain is maybe feeling possibly impotent.
0:08:59 > 0:09:02And he has, in fact, put British intelligence on the map,
0:09:02 > 0:09:03one has to admit that.
0:09:03 > 0:09:06All over the world, people admire British intelligence
0:09:06 > 0:09:08and they say, "Ah, James Bond."
0:09:08 > 0:09:11Are people more likely to join the security services
0:09:11 > 0:09:13as a result of Bond films?
0:09:13 > 0:09:15I shouldn't think they're likely to be accepted.
0:09:15 > 0:09:16THEY LAUGH
0:09:16 > 0:09:19If they think they're going to be James Bond. No.
0:09:19 > 0:09:21But why have they survived?
0:09:21 > 0:09:23They're so popular because they are so bonkers.
0:09:23 > 0:09:26The last thing you want is a realistic film about spying
0:09:26 > 0:09:28because it would mostly be form-filling
0:09:28 > 0:09:31and I imagine, bureaucracy and, "Oh, you got my flights wrong.
0:09:31 > 0:09:34"I'm going to have to get the train now and I've missed the 13.05."
0:09:34 > 0:09:35Spies are still human beings,
0:09:35 > 0:09:38and I think that's something as an audience we don't want to accept.
0:09:38 > 0:09:41Yes, 007's not going to be, "I told you to book me
0:09:41 > 0:09:43- "that seat by the window." - THEY LAUGH
0:09:43 > 0:09:45"Excuse me, this is the quiet coach."
0:09:45 > 0:09:46THEY LAUGH
0:09:46 > 0:09:50It is peculiar though because you can watch a Bond film
0:09:50 > 0:09:52in the back of car with the sound down
0:09:52 > 0:09:55and know exactly what's happening.
0:09:55 > 0:09:57There are sequences and set pieces and some of them
0:09:57 > 0:10:00are actually constructed around a sort of shopping list of locations.
0:10:00 > 0:10:02They find one and say, "This looks good,
0:10:02 > 0:10:04"we could write this scene here."
0:10:04 > 0:10:08Erm, that's how it worked as time moved on.
0:10:08 > 0:10:10Matt, who's your favourite 007?
0:10:10 > 0:10:12- I think Pierce Brosnan.- Really?
0:10:12 > 0:10:14Yeah, I just think he's the only one for me
0:10:14 > 0:10:17who really looks the part because Bond is a superficial character
0:10:17 > 0:10:20and therefore I think he has to be enjoyed in a superficial way.
0:10:20 > 0:10:22So Pierce Brosnan is suitably superficial?
0:10:22 > 0:10:24I just think he looks the part, he talks the part.
0:10:24 > 0:10:27- Stella, who's your favourite 007? - Roger Moore...- Roger Moore.
0:10:27 > 0:10:29..cos he's got his tongue in his cheek all the way through
0:10:29 > 0:10:32and I think that's the only way to treat James Bond.
0:10:32 > 0:10:34Not just his own cheek, I don't think.
0:10:34 > 0:10:36Matthew?
0:10:36 > 0:10:38- I'm going to say Timothy Dalton. - Right, OK.
0:10:38 > 0:10:41Rugged Yorkshireman Timothy Dalton.
0:10:41 > 0:10:45I'm a big fan of Daniel Craig, myself, cos I think they've dragged
0:10:45 > 0:10:47it back into illusions of reality.
0:10:47 > 0:10:50Well, they've only brightened up when Judi Dench became M, of course.
0:10:50 > 0:10:53And why did Judi Dench become M do you think, Stella?
0:10:53 > 0:10:55SHE LAUGHS
0:10:55 > 0:10:57You can guess that.
0:10:58 > 0:11:00But Bond films are peculiar things as well
0:11:00 > 0:11:02because you can have a good Bond film
0:11:02 > 0:11:04that isn't objectively a good film.
0:11:04 > 0:11:07- Yeah.- They're such a micro-genre.
0:11:07 > 0:11:11I think Moonraker is my favourite Bond film above all others
0:11:11 > 0:11:13but I don't know if it's a good film.
0:11:13 > 0:11:17I think the design of these films is something that's maybe had
0:11:17 > 0:11:20much more influence than any other element in it.
0:11:20 > 0:11:22Look around the built environment of London, you're
0:11:22 > 0:11:26surrounded by buildings that were built by men that went to see these
0:11:26 > 0:11:31films in the early '60s and have reproduced them in the modern world.
0:11:31 > 0:11:34If you go to see Norman Foster, he's got this base by the river,
0:11:34 > 0:11:38it's a huge glass building. It seems to be full of identical young
0:11:38 > 0:11:42people working at desks and he sits there at a round table,
0:11:42 > 0:11:44a bald man in a roll neck sweater.
0:11:44 > 0:11:46All he needs is the cat.
0:11:46 > 0:11:49OK, well, that's enough James Bond.
0:11:49 > 0:11:51I want to now have a look at the antidote.
0:11:51 > 0:11:54The coolest British spy of all, Harry Palmer.
0:11:54 > 0:11:56Forget Bond,
0:11:56 > 0:11:59Harry Palmer's the spy you'd like to bump into down your local.
0:11:59 > 0:12:02Stylishly played by Michael Caine in The Ipcress File,
0:12:02 > 0:12:05Funeral In Berlin and Billion Dollar Brain
0:12:05 > 0:12:07plus a couple of '90s telly sequels,
0:12:07 > 0:12:10he's a 100%, solid gold, good bloke.
0:12:10 > 0:12:11Funny and likeable.
0:12:11 > 0:12:13Guten Abend.
0:12:13 > 0:12:14See ya later, love.
0:12:14 > 0:12:17He gets the girls by actually being charming and gentlemanly.
0:12:17 > 0:12:19I like England.
0:12:21 > 0:12:22England likes you.
0:12:22 > 0:12:25He does all the stuff you'd never see Bond doing.
0:12:25 > 0:12:28The Ipcress File shows him cooking and doing a supermarket shop,
0:12:28 > 0:12:30as well as showing off his taste in music.
0:12:30 > 0:12:33Why don't you put a record on?
0:12:33 > 0:12:34Mozart.
0:12:34 > 0:12:36He also seems to wear eye shadow and mascara,
0:12:36 > 0:12:38although this isn't ever mentioned.
0:12:38 > 0:12:41The location shooting roots these films in the real world,
0:12:41 > 0:12:44whether it's The Ipcress File's grotty, claustrophobic London,
0:12:44 > 0:12:47or the run-down East Germany of Funeral In Berlin.
0:12:47 > 0:12:49But if he's a more grounded character,
0:12:49 > 0:12:53the plots are still thrilling and fantastical, all brainwashing
0:12:53 > 0:12:56and madmen with super computers trying to kick off World War III.
0:12:56 > 0:12:58Based on the novels of Len Deighton,
0:12:58 > 0:13:01these films were made by Bond producer Harry Saltzman
0:13:01 > 0:13:04and for my money have aged a hell of a lot better than 007.
0:13:04 > 0:13:06Is Harry Palmer the best of British?
0:13:07 > 0:13:10These films are incredibly striking, aren't they? What I love about them
0:13:10 > 0:13:12- is how good they are. - I think it's all to do
0:13:12 > 0:13:14with the character, isn't it?
0:13:14 > 0:13:17I think that Harry Palmer is the first post-war spy.
0:13:17 > 0:13:20He's the first spy who's actually a young man rather than
0:13:20 > 0:13:23somebody who's a relic of a former conflict.
0:13:23 > 0:13:26He's within this world of figures who are older than him,
0:13:26 > 0:13:28who he despises mainly.
0:13:28 > 0:13:30He's got a very chilly attitude to them
0:13:30 > 0:13:34and he's very much the new man figure in the '60s as well.
0:13:34 > 0:13:35Which is a bit of getting used to.
0:13:35 > 0:13:37The first thing I saw him in was Alfie, Caine.
0:13:37 > 0:13:40Who's sort of this real sexist piece of work
0:13:40 > 0:13:43and it is quite odd, you constantly expected him
0:13:43 > 0:13:46to be far nastier to these women than he actually is.
0:13:46 > 0:13:49I think he's a very rounded and human character in this.
0:13:49 > 0:13:53But I think the thing I like about the Michael Caine films is
0:13:53 > 0:13:55the backgrounds, the setting.
0:13:55 > 0:13:58I think it's wonderful. East Berlin, for example,
0:13:58 > 0:14:02is the East Berlin that I can remember looking over the wall into
0:14:02 > 0:14:04in the 1970s.
0:14:04 > 0:14:06Did you ever go over the wall?
0:14:06 > 0:14:08I went through the wall when it was open.
0:14:08 > 0:14:10I never went over the wall, I think I would have been killed.
0:14:10 > 0:14:12THEY LAUGH
0:14:12 > 0:14:15Yeah, I did. I can remember more or less the day
0:14:15 > 0:14:17that the wall was breached,
0:14:17 > 0:14:21going through into East Berlin and it was, you know,
0:14:21 > 0:14:25it's exactly out of these Harry Palmer films.
0:14:25 > 0:14:29What's interesting in The Ipcress File is how grubby London is.
0:14:29 > 0:14:32The greyness really stands out in those films.
0:14:32 > 0:14:35Even when he's in popular tourist locations,
0:14:35 > 0:14:38his boss' office overlooks Trafalgar Square,
0:14:38 > 0:14:42but when you go into the office, it's very threadbare.
0:14:42 > 0:14:44Very of its period, absolutely.
0:14:44 > 0:14:49Which is what the offices were like in the 1960s when I went
0:14:49 > 0:14:53first into MI5's headquarters, it was a really grubby place.
0:14:53 > 0:14:57The top end of Curzon Street, full of cardboard partitions
0:14:57 > 0:15:01and dirty windows and all sorts of things like that.
0:15:01 > 0:15:03And a really rather horrible canteen.
0:15:03 > 0:15:05That's how it was and that is represented
0:15:05 > 0:15:06very well in those films.
0:15:06 > 0:15:09- No giant screens and maps of the world?- Nope, none of that.
0:15:09 > 0:15:11Red telephones? Tell me there were red telephones?
0:15:11 > 0:15:13No, none of that. Oh, I think we did have red telephones
0:15:13 > 0:15:16but we didn't have any computer screens or anything like that.
0:15:16 > 0:15:18Matt, why do you think these films stand out well?
0:15:18 > 0:15:21- Cos they do, don't they? - They do, I think there's definitely
0:15:21 > 0:15:23more depth to them. And for all I think people do want escapism
0:15:23 > 0:15:26and ridiculousness, equally people do like to sense
0:15:26 > 0:15:29the setting you're talking about, the real world in which they live
0:15:29 > 0:15:30reflected back towards them.
0:15:30 > 0:15:33They're the films that I find attractive, things that you go,
0:15:33 > 0:15:36"God, that's just like the place I grew up" or whatever.
0:15:36 > 0:15:39Harry Palmer's presented the more realistic kind of spy,
0:15:39 > 0:15:43but George Smiley, he's the real deal. Let's have a look.
0:15:43 > 0:15:47Let's be honest - Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is dense, whether
0:15:47 > 0:15:51you prefer the 1979 TV series, where Smiley was lugubriously
0:15:51 > 0:15:52played by Alec Guinness
0:15:52 > 0:15:54which went on for approximately three million years.
0:15:54 > 0:15:57The oldest question of all, George,
0:15:57 > 0:16:00who can spy on the spies?
0:16:00 > 0:16:05Get the security mob in. They'll do a job for you.
0:16:05 > 0:16:08Or the shorter, but still imposing movie from 2011
0:16:08 > 0:16:10where he was played by Gary Oldman
0:16:10 > 0:16:12as a sort of disappointed bloodhound.
0:16:12 > 0:16:15These aren't Smiley's only screen appearances.
0:16:15 > 0:16:18Rupert Davies played him as a sort of messy intellectual type
0:16:18 > 0:16:19you'd hate to get saddled with at a party
0:16:19 > 0:16:21in The Spy Who Came In From The Cold.
0:16:21 > 0:16:24And he's also in The Deadly Affair, renamed Charles Dobbs,
0:16:24 > 0:16:26played by James Mason, doing his best
0:16:26 > 0:16:29not to let us see his lips move.
0:16:29 > 0:16:32The issues seem clearer, so does my conscience.
0:16:32 > 0:16:35Stick with Tinker, Tailor though, and it becomes totally addictive.
0:16:35 > 0:16:39A slow-burning but devastating betrayal of not only the thoughtful,
0:16:39 > 0:16:43intellectual qualities needed to be a good spy, but its cost.
0:16:43 > 0:16:46Smiley is a hollowed out man whose wife's affair is public knowledge.
0:16:46 > 0:16:49Called out of retirement to investigate a traitor
0:16:49 > 0:16:51in the intelligence services, it becomes apparent
0:16:51 > 0:16:55that in this world you can't trust anyone, not even your friends.
0:16:55 > 0:16:57Is this the real face of spying?
0:16:57 > 0:17:00Don't you think it's time to recognise there is as little
0:17:00 > 0:17:03worth on your side as there is on mine.
0:17:06 > 0:17:11Well, first things first, TV series or the film of Tinker, Tailor?
0:17:11 > 0:17:13They're both very good, aren't they?
0:17:13 > 0:17:17I like both of them but I think the immersive experience,
0:17:17 > 0:17:20the length of the TV adaptation and hearing people
0:17:20 > 0:17:24say over and over again, "There's a mole in the circus."
0:17:24 > 0:17:26I think for me that's the one.
0:17:26 > 0:17:30Yeah, I have to say I find the TV series, the slow burn of it,
0:17:30 > 0:17:32incredibly satisfying.
0:17:32 > 0:17:35Smiley, Stella, is he a real spy?
0:17:35 > 0:17:38Yes, John le Carre, of course, knew what it was all about.
0:17:38 > 0:17:42Certainly, I think that the BBC production seemed to go on forever
0:17:42 > 0:17:44and I should think half the nation would have
0:17:44 > 0:17:47been completely confused about what was going on.
0:17:47 > 0:17:50You switched off at the end of one week and you couldn't remember
0:17:50 > 0:17:52for the life of you what had happened previously.
0:17:52 > 0:17:55So, you know, great confusion but nevertheless very gripping.
0:17:55 > 0:18:00I have to tell the truth and say that it's too subtle for my taste.
0:18:00 > 0:18:04THEY LAUGH
0:18:04 > 0:18:07Even in the film adaptation, which compared to the TV
0:18:07 > 0:18:10is a breeze, I was constantly getting lost.
0:18:10 > 0:18:12I find the twists of it very difficult to follow.
0:18:12 > 0:18:15Also, I never remember the end no matter how many times I watch it.
0:18:15 > 0:18:18I can never quite remember who the mole of the circus is.
0:18:18 > 0:18:22Le Carre is one of those writers who demonstrates to you that there
0:18:22 > 0:18:25might be something about this job that eats the soul.
0:18:25 > 0:18:29That's certainly the idea that's offered by the fictional
0:18:29 > 0:18:30presentations of it.
0:18:30 > 0:18:34And that's there very powerfully in the character of Smiley
0:18:34 > 0:18:35who is a sort of ruin.
0:18:35 > 0:18:38But it makes spy work look very, very lonely.
0:18:38 > 0:18:42I think it is true to say that if you work in a secret organisation,
0:18:42 > 0:18:46you can't have the same kind of easy social relationships
0:18:46 > 0:18:50that most people take for granted and that goes without saying because
0:18:50 > 0:18:54you can't talk about what you do and therefore that immediately cuts
0:18:54 > 0:18:57you off in a sense from the normal kind of converse that you have.
0:18:57 > 0:18:59If you go to your neighbours' Christmas drinks,
0:18:59 > 0:19:02when the first thing anybody says, "Is what do you do?"
0:19:02 > 0:19:04So, what do you say when they say what do you do?
0:19:04 > 0:19:07Well, you have to give some kind of cover story for the occasion
0:19:07 > 0:19:11and so Smiley is a man who has covered himself,
0:19:11 > 0:19:14covered his existence all the way through his career.
0:19:14 > 0:19:18The other thing that crops up in a lot of this is drink.
0:19:18 > 0:19:22Well, people did drink enormously in the '60s,
0:19:22 > 0:19:24even into the '70s. I mean, you would never go out for lunch
0:19:24 > 0:19:27without knocking back a bottle of wine or something.
0:19:27 > 0:19:30People just drank, the police drank like fish
0:19:30 > 0:19:33and it was just taken for granted.
0:19:33 > 0:19:39Well, that's how I'm told television used to be made, sadly not anymore.
0:19:39 > 0:19:42Alcohol, that brings so many difficult issues into it,
0:19:42 > 0:19:45doesn't it? Indiscretion, not just being drunk
0:19:45 > 0:19:50but being hung-over as a spy must be absolutely hell.
0:19:50 > 0:19:52Yeah, well, that's how it was.
0:19:52 > 0:19:54But they all do still seem hung-over, don't they?
0:19:54 > 0:19:57- Well, Smiley was hung-over. - Everyone in Smiley is hung-over.
0:19:57 > 0:20:00But then I suppose the other side were drunk as well
0:20:00 > 0:20:03so if both sides are drinking you're all right.
0:20:03 > 0:20:05THEY LAUGHS
0:20:05 > 0:20:08- Mutually assured devastation. - Who falls flat down first?
0:20:08 > 0:20:10Mutually assured drunkenness.
0:20:10 > 0:20:13Spy films were big business but wherever there are hit films,
0:20:13 > 0:20:16there are cash-ins, there are rip-offs, spoofs and pastiches.
0:20:16 > 0:20:19Let's have a look at some of the stuff that the British public
0:20:19 > 0:20:21were supposed to lap up.
0:20:21 > 0:20:23Spies were massive at the box office.
0:20:23 > 0:20:27One spy in particular, and so of course, everyone wanted a go.
0:20:27 > 0:20:311964's Hot Enough For June, directed by Ralph Thomas, starred a reluctant
0:20:31 > 0:20:34Dirk Bogart, appearing on the advice of his accountant,
0:20:34 > 0:20:37as the lawyer-baiting 008,
0:20:37 > 0:20:41drafted in by MI5 after 007 apparently meets his maker.
0:20:41 > 0:20:44This lousy film follows the well established formula of girls,
0:20:44 > 0:20:46glamour and thrills.
0:20:46 > 0:20:49As does Jack Cardiff's The Liquidator, released the following
0:20:49 > 0:20:53year, which really goes for broke with the theme tune, a full-throated
0:20:53 > 0:20:55warbler direct from the lungs of Shirley Bassey, herself.
0:20:55 > 0:20:58# The Liquidator! #
0:20:58 > 0:21:01Subtle(!) The king of the cruddy Bond knock-off
0:21:01 > 0:21:04was Canadian director Lindsay Shonteff who spent his whole career
0:21:04 > 0:21:06on making utterly threadbare films
0:21:06 > 0:21:09like 1977's No. 1 Of The Secret Service
0:21:09 > 0:21:11AKA Her Majesty's Top Gun.
0:21:11 > 0:21:15A film that aims big with stunts, sex and snappy dialogue...
0:21:15 > 0:21:20GUN FIRES AND LOUD EXPLOSION
0:21:20 > 0:21:21That's what I call a warm welcome.
0:21:21 > 0:21:23..but fails at all three.
0:21:23 > 0:21:26Two years later and we've got Andrew V McLaglen's
0:21:26 > 0:21:27brilliant North Sea Hijack,
0:21:27 > 0:21:30an attempt by Roger Moore to break the curse of typecasting
0:21:30 > 0:21:34by playing a character who tries so hard to be the opposite of Bond.
0:21:34 > 0:21:37Rufus Excalibur Ffolkes is a misanthropic recluse in a fetching
0:21:37 > 0:21:41yellow mac who lives alone with his cat and really, really hates women.
0:21:41 > 0:21:43This is Mary.
0:21:45 > 0:21:47I like cats
0:21:47 > 0:21:49and I don't like people who don't.
0:21:49 > 0:21:54But perhaps the most notable Bond cash-in was 1967's Casino Royale.
0:21:54 > 0:21:56Properly licensed from the Fleming novel,
0:21:56 > 0:21:58it was meant to come out before Dr No
0:21:58 > 0:22:01but delays lead to it being repositioned as a spoof.
0:22:01 > 0:22:04It's got an eye-poppingly good cast as the extravagant title
0:22:04 > 0:22:09sequence makes clear - Peter Sellers, Ursula Andress, David Niven
0:22:09 > 0:22:12and Orson Wells, who only appeared in the film on the condition
0:22:12 > 0:22:14that he could perform magic tricks in it.
0:22:14 > 0:22:16Now let's get this show off the ground.
0:22:16 > 0:22:18Of course, it's a total mess.
0:22:18 > 0:22:21Why was this sort of thing so hard to get right?
0:22:24 > 0:22:27So why is this light-hearted spy stuff, this spoof-stuff,
0:22:27 > 0:22:29why are they so difficult to get right?
0:22:29 > 0:22:33A lot of those films are essentially unwatchable.
0:22:33 > 0:22:35It seems you could go either two ways to get it wrong.
0:22:35 > 0:22:39You could make it too expensive like Casino Royale, which has all
0:22:39 > 0:22:43kinds of people and money and things thrown at it or you could do
0:22:43 > 0:22:49it incredibly, very much on the cheap and neither seems to work.
0:22:49 > 0:22:52They're almost impossible to parody aren't they, Bond films?
0:22:52 > 0:22:54Because they are so naff, so regressive in their values,
0:22:54 > 0:22:57the punch lines are so corny and the gadgets date so quickly.
0:22:57 > 0:23:00It's almost like when people try and spoof The X Factor.
0:23:00 > 0:23:02I mean, how do you make it more overblown than it already is?
0:23:02 > 0:23:04How do you keep up? I think one of the things
0:23:04 > 0:23:07that is really striking in that as well is that you could
0:23:07 > 0:23:10call a character 008, stick him in your own film
0:23:10 > 0:23:14and not hear from Fleming's lawyers, it's extraordinary.
0:23:14 > 0:23:18A lot of the knock-off ones by directors like Lindsay Shonteff
0:23:18 > 0:23:23who was the real auteur of the tuppenny-ha'penny James Bond film,
0:23:23 > 0:23:27filmed probably without permits on the streets of London, mainly.
0:23:27 > 0:23:30In those films, there are even scenes where you're told that
0:23:30 > 0:23:34James Bond is indisposed, so you'll get Charles Vine instead.
0:23:34 > 0:23:38They're all agents with rather similarly constructed names.
0:23:38 > 0:23:44So another way the world's changed, it's more litigious if nothing else.
0:23:44 > 0:23:47Gosh, how extraordinary. But they keep that ball in the air,
0:23:47 > 0:23:51don't they, of British espionage, of spies being thrilling and exciting
0:23:51 > 0:23:53and all that stuff.
0:23:53 > 0:23:56In a way, one of the cute things about them is the element of bathos
0:23:56 > 0:23:58that's there in the James Bond pictures.
0:23:58 > 0:24:03This is some how a wildly exaggerated view of Britain's political power
0:24:03 > 0:24:06in the world. That's even stronger in these films
0:24:06 > 0:24:09because they can't even get it together to produce a kind of
0:24:09 > 0:24:14convincing missile prop, never mind a blue streak.
0:24:14 > 0:24:18Which brings me to, Stella, I was born in 1968,
0:24:18 > 0:24:22I don't know how it felt to live in '60s Britain.
0:24:22 > 0:24:26Was there this feeling of decline that needed counteracting
0:24:26 > 0:24:28with these movies in popular culture?
0:24:28 > 0:24:32I think the world was a very scary place in the 1960s.
0:24:32 > 0:24:36I mean, we were all aware that it was divided into two halves
0:24:36 > 0:24:38and we had hideous missiles trained on each other
0:24:38 > 0:24:41and at any moment somebody might make a mistake.
0:24:41 > 0:24:45Coupled with which, it was austerity Britain in those days,
0:24:45 > 0:24:48so I think those were the things that people were looking for really.
0:24:48 > 0:24:51Colour, glamour, glitz, foreign places.
0:24:51 > 0:24:52People didn't travel very much.
0:24:52 > 0:24:55Cos in a sense, one of the things that's blunted the films
0:24:55 > 0:24:57is that we now all do go abroad.
0:24:57 > 0:25:00I mean, I've got GPS in my telephone,
0:25:00 > 0:25:02which means I know how to get from A to B.
0:25:02 > 0:25:04We're all James Bond.
0:25:04 > 0:25:06THEY LAUGH
0:25:06 > 0:25:08So if spies are our heroes in these films,
0:25:08 > 0:25:10obviously, we're going to need a villain or two.
0:25:10 > 0:25:13Let's have a look at some top notch bad guys.
0:25:13 > 0:25:15HE LAUGHS EVILLY
0:25:15 > 0:25:19The Cold War didn't really give us a set of uniformed bad guys to jeer at
0:25:19 > 0:25:21but luckily we always had the Russians.
0:25:21 > 0:25:251984's The Jigsaw Man gave us these vodka-swilling hardnuts,
0:25:25 > 0:25:28who properly deliver on all the cliches
0:25:28 > 0:25:30whilst Arturo Venegas in The Whistle Blower, two years later,
0:25:30 > 0:25:32really went to town on the dialect.
0:25:32 > 0:25:35VERY THICK RUSSIAN ACCENT: The woman will make you the bacon and eggs now.
0:25:35 > 0:25:38Try and resist imitating this line for yourself.
0:25:38 > 0:25:41Of course, there's also the diabolical masterminds.
0:25:41 > 0:25:44When Mike Myers gave us Dr Evil in 1999's Austin Powers,
0:25:44 > 0:25:47it worked brilliantly because we were all so familiar with
0:25:47 > 0:25:50the type of character he was spoofing.
0:25:50 > 0:25:531 million!
0:25:53 > 0:25:55THEY LAUGH
0:25:55 > 0:25:58The utterly deranged villains that James Bond squared off against
0:25:58 > 0:26:01like Diamonds Are Forever's bonkers, cross-dressing Blofeld,
0:26:01 > 0:26:05with his plan to control the balance of world power using nothing
0:26:05 > 0:26:07less than a giant laser satellite.
0:26:08 > 0:26:12In an era of mutually assured destruction at the mundane
0:26:12 > 0:26:15push of a button, isn't the idea of an insane supervillain
0:26:15 > 0:26:18somehow comforting when compared to real life?
0:26:20 > 0:26:23Matthew, who are your favourite villains?
0:26:23 > 0:26:26Blofeld, absolutely Blofeld, yes.
0:26:26 > 0:26:29The bald ones, the scarred ones, the ones with the cats.
0:26:29 > 0:26:34The ones that are essentially kind of Nietzschean supervillains.
0:26:34 > 0:26:37So there's a kind of philosophical backing to them, they are all
0:26:37 > 0:26:40people who want to either rule or destroy or eat the world.
0:26:40 > 0:26:44Cos as SPECTRE, they're a secret organisation who are freelance.
0:26:44 > 0:26:47The R and the E were 'revenge' and 'extortion', aren't they?
0:26:47 > 0:26:49I can never remember what the rest of the acronym stands for but the
0:26:49 > 0:26:51last two are 'revenge' and 'extortion.'
0:26:51 > 0:26:54- I'm sure they've all... - 'Terror, revenge and extortion.'
0:26:54 > 0:26:58They all get it drummed into them at the training sessions,
0:26:58 > 0:27:01the away-days, the get-to-know-you weekends.
0:27:01 > 0:27:06They work as propaganda, as a kid I was petrified of Russians
0:27:06 > 0:27:08and Rocky 4 as well, a lot of '80s American films
0:27:08 > 0:27:11and British films as well, the Russians were just seen
0:27:11 > 0:27:16as almost the coldest swines that had ever walked the earth.
0:27:16 > 0:27:20Well, I think it's because we expected to die in the '80s.
0:27:20 > 0:27:24I think we expected to die under a table during a nuclear attack.
0:27:24 > 0:27:27This is what the culture was telling me.
0:27:27 > 0:27:29I'm quite happy that it didn't happen.
0:27:29 > 0:27:32I have been since to the underground base near Crewe
0:27:32 > 0:27:34where my part of the country would've been
0:27:34 > 0:27:38administered from and seen the rows of desks rather like something from
0:27:38 > 0:27:43a Bond film with a toblerone-shaped badge of office on every desk.
0:27:43 > 0:27:45It was going to be Inland Revenue.
0:27:45 > 0:27:48Yes, but the sinister thing is how small those offices were.
0:27:48 > 0:27:49There were only going to be two people left
0:27:49 > 0:27:52- from the Inland Revenue...- Like the Ark.- ..who were going to run
0:27:52 > 0:27:55- the whole thing.- Like the Ark. - Yes, like the Ark.
0:27:55 > 0:27:58How do these films deal with the intangible nature of the Cold War
0:27:58 > 0:28:03because the Cold War was simultaneously real and imagined.
0:28:03 > 0:28:06I mean, it relied on people imagining
0:28:06 > 0:28:08the unimaginable would become real.
0:28:08 > 0:28:12Well, there are people who embody certain kinds of ideas
0:28:12 > 0:28:15and their roots are in the early 20th century
0:28:15 > 0:28:18where you get Fu Man Chu, where you get Dr Nikola,
0:28:18 > 0:28:21these early 20th-century supervillains
0:28:21 > 0:28:24and they provide a way of thinking about figures like this,
0:28:24 > 0:28:27that does seep through into the real world.
0:28:27 > 0:28:31I mean, the way that we talk about Osama bin Laden,
0:28:31 > 0:28:34had some of the same qualities that fictional characters.
0:28:34 > 0:28:37In a way, Vladimir Putin is somehow living up
0:28:37 > 0:28:39to our Russian bad guy expectations.
0:28:39 > 0:28:44I think he's exceeding it because he's added a homoeroticism to it.
0:28:44 > 0:28:47You've got these sort of topless horseback shots, rifle shots,
0:28:47 > 0:28:50hang-gliding with rare breeds of bird.
0:28:50 > 0:28:53He's clearly had plastic surgery as well which is a very odd element.
0:28:53 > 0:28:55He's sort of wearing it, isn't he?
0:28:55 > 0:28:58He must have a sort of lair with a big screen
0:28:58 > 0:29:00or he's letting everyone down.
0:29:00 > 0:29:04What he does have is that kind of slightly totalitarian bad taste,
0:29:04 > 0:29:07which is what the James Bond villain has
0:29:07 > 0:29:10and which is something that the designer Ken Adam took
0:29:10 > 0:29:14from his memories of Nazi aesthetics in 1930s Germany.
0:29:14 > 0:29:18So, yes, that combination of the shark tank
0:29:18 > 0:29:21but the ormolu clock, that's very Vladimir Putin.
0:29:21 > 0:29:25Gold taps, red telephone, leopard skin print sofas.
0:29:25 > 0:29:27Black, leather gloves.
0:29:27 > 0:29:29THEY LAUGH
0:29:29 > 0:29:32But there is a wonderful Russian in the Harry Palmer films who...
0:29:32 > 0:29:33Who wants to defect or not.
0:29:33 > 0:29:37Yeah, that's right and he's always laughing
0:29:37 > 0:29:40and saying, "Hello, English," to Michael Caine.
0:29:40 > 0:29:42I still think though,
0:29:42 > 0:29:45Goldfinger's plan is quite brilliant irradiate all of America's gold,
0:29:45 > 0:29:49render it worthless, cause a run on the dollar, the collapse of world
0:29:49 > 0:29:53capitalism, I think if Occupy could get their hands on the radioactive
0:29:53 > 0:29:57material to pull of Goldfinger's plan, they would, wouldn't they?
0:29:57 > 0:29:58Worth thinking about, you reckon?
0:29:58 > 0:30:01His plan was basically austerity.
0:30:01 > 0:30:04Well, we were talking about George Smiley earlier,
0:30:04 > 0:30:06he's probably the most famous creation of John le Carre
0:30:06 > 0:30:09but le Carre's work has been adapted into lots of films.
0:30:09 > 0:30:10Let's have a look.
0:30:10 > 0:30:12If you thought Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy was bleak,
0:30:12 > 0:30:15the other adaptation's of John le Carre's books
0:30:15 > 0:30:16are no walk in the park.
0:30:16 > 0:30:19Frank Pearson's 1969 film The Looking Glass War
0:30:19 > 0:30:21isn't exactly subtle.
0:30:21 > 0:30:24Anthony Hopkins chews his way through a 6th form-y script
0:30:24 > 0:30:27that bludgeons you round the head with its moral dilemmas.
0:30:27 > 0:30:28I happen to love my country.
0:30:32 > 0:30:34We're fighting a very lonely battle, we're in the dark.
0:30:34 > 0:30:39Nobody thanks us for it but my God, they sleep at night, don't they?
0:30:39 > 0:30:43Oh, he's so conflicted, but it makes its point.
0:30:43 > 0:30:45The establishment class couldn't give a toss about what
0:30:45 > 0:30:48happens to the rest of us, and we're all part of their game.
0:30:48 > 0:30:51It's a game to you,
0:30:51 > 0:30:52and you love it.
0:30:52 > 0:30:56Heavy. Angrier still is Martin Ritt's 1965 adaptation of
0:30:56 > 0:30:58The Spy Who Came In From The Cold,
0:30:58 > 0:31:01which is brilliant but Christ, it's gloomy.
0:31:01 > 0:31:04Richard Burton plays Alec Leamas, a washed-up,
0:31:04 > 0:31:06alcoholic spy who goes undercover to sow
0:31:06 > 0:31:09disinformation about an East German intelligence officer.
0:31:09 > 0:31:11A husk of a man, scarred by his job,
0:31:11 > 0:31:14he too is a pawn of the establishment. He becomes more
0:31:14 > 0:31:18and more isolated from everything and everyone, as seen here on the
0:31:18 > 0:31:21world's loneliest picnic, leading to a harrowing, downbeat conclusion.
0:31:21 > 0:31:23What the hell do you think spies are?
0:31:23 > 0:31:26Moral philosophers measuring everything they do
0:31:26 > 0:31:28against the word of God or Karl Marx?
0:31:28 > 0:31:32They're not. They're just a bunch of seedy, squalid bastards like me.
0:31:32 > 0:31:34Ritt was blacklisted by Hollywood at the time
0:31:34 > 0:31:37and his outrage at this is stamped through the film.
0:31:37 > 0:31:40By showing us the men on the front line, Ritt and le Carre ask
0:31:40 > 0:31:43the million-dollar question, "What has the Cold War turned us into?"
0:31:43 > 0:31:45It's the innocents who get slaughtered.
0:31:47 > 0:31:51They are furious stories and films, aren't they?
0:31:51 > 0:31:54They're bleak, they're shot through with anger.
0:31:54 > 0:31:57Well, that's the thesis, that there's something about this that
0:31:57 > 0:32:02destroys the soul, destroys the idea of a friendship, certainly.
0:32:02 > 0:32:07There's this speech towards the end of the film that is the most
0:32:07 > 0:32:10ferocious statement about the espionage world that's ever
0:32:10 > 0:32:14been made on film, certainly. It's absolutely savage.
0:32:14 > 0:32:18It says this is a world for queers and drunks and little men
0:32:18 > 0:32:22and hen-pecked husbands. It's absolutely ferocious.
0:32:22 > 0:32:24I think the film is a lot angrier than the book,
0:32:24 > 0:32:29even the book is stark and it's a wonderful film and it's so wonderful
0:32:29 > 0:32:32that it's very difficult to watch I think.
0:32:32 > 0:32:36But I think it expresses the anger of its maker
0:32:36 > 0:32:42rather than anything real about the intelligence world.
0:32:42 > 0:32:45It's a very powerful film, Richard Burton.
0:32:45 > 0:32:47I don't know how old he is in that
0:32:47 > 0:32:51because you never can quite locate how old Richard Burton is in a film.
0:32:51 > 0:32:56He's craggy, he looks defeated and broken.
0:32:56 > 0:33:00- It's a strong meat that movie. - It's good though, I think
0:33:00 > 0:33:02these films are really good for educating the public
0:33:02 > 0:33:05about what the reality of these things does cos it's very easy
0:33:05 > 0:33:08to see espionage as a distant land but it still involves human beings.
0:33:08 > 0:33:13He's operating on a level that most of us will never experience,
0:33:13 > 0:33:16but it's taken a toll on his normal, everyday life and he's flat.
0:33:16 > 0:33:18I find the le Carre stories, if they're done well,
0:33:18 > 0:33:22you don't have the speech we saw with Anthony Hopkins there
0:33:22 > 0:33:23saying, "It's all a game, isn't it."
0:33:23 > 0:33:26They tell you that anyway.
0:33:26 > 0:33:30You don't need a character to actually articulate that idea.
0:33:30 > 0:33:32It's so effective though when someone says it.
0:33:32 > 0:33:35I find myself, when watching it back, going,
0:33:35 > 0:33:37"Mm, yeah, these rotters."
0:33:37 > 0:33:39I'm so easily manipulated by stuff like that.
0:33:39 > 0:33:41Could you really not trust anybody?
0:33:41 > 0:33:43No, of course, I mean, that's nonsense.
0:33:43 > 0:33:46You can't work in an organisation where you can't trust anybody.
0:33:46 > 0:33:49- That's absolute nonsense.- I worked at the Labour Party for a while
0:33:49 > 0:33:50and I don't know how I managed it.
0:33:50 > 0:33:52THEY LAUGH
0:33:52 > 0:33:56Yeah, but political parties are very different.
0:33:56 > 0:33:59John le Carre isn't the only person to write supposedly realistic
0:33:59 > 0:34:04spy fiction. We also have the more amped up straight-to-video,
0:34:04 > 0:34:08bargain bucket version, maybe in the form of Frederick Forsyth.
0:34:08 > 0:34:10Frederick Forsyth's story is like the go large,
0:34:10 > 0:34:13Day-Glo versions of John le Carre's.
0:34:13 > 0:34:17Films like 1974's The Odessa File where Jon Voight plays a young
0:34:17 > 0:34:20German journalist on the trail of an organisation of ex-Nazis.
0:34:20 > 0:34:23A sort of spy meets 'man on a mission' thrillers
0:34:23 > 0:34:25that deliver action and excitement
0:34:26 > 0:34:29with a frisson of moral ambiguity for added spice.
0:34:29 > 0:34:34Look at yourself, strong and healthy, virile, blond, blue-eyed,
0:34:34 > 0:34:36that's who you're working for.
0:34:36 > 0:34:39Voight's German accent is pure Schwarzenegger here.
0:34:39 > 0:34:42I said, sit down.
0:34:42 > 0:34:46Forsyth loves mavericks, men who get things done their own way
0:34:46 > 0:34:49like Edward Fox's dapper title character in 1973's
0:34:49 > 0:34:50The Day Of The Jackal,
0:34:50 > 0:34:53who you sort of end up rooting for, even though his mission involves
0:34:53 > 0:34:56killing Charles de Gaulle, played here by a watermelon.
0:34:56 > 0:34:59Perhaps the most fun is 1987's The Fourth Protocol
0:34:59 > 0:35:02where everyone's a maverick.
0:35:02 > 0:35:06Michael Caine plays John Preston, a maverick MI5 agent on a mission to
0:35:06 > 0:35:10stop maverick KGB operative Valeri Petrofsky played by Pierce Brosnan -
0:35:10 > 0:35:12he got better cars in the Bond series -
0:35:12 > 0:35:14from detonating a nuclear weapon on a us airbase
0:35:14 > 0:35:18This is the ultimate man film. It's full of man dialogue.
0:35:18 > 0:35:22Nastrovia. That's Russky for 'up yours.'
0:35:22 > 0:35:23Oh, Max Headroom.
0:35:23 > 0:35:26And tortured man characters like Petrofsky
0:35:26 > 0:35:29who's such a bloody maverick he's even bisexual.
0:35:29 > 0:35:32It's hard to pick a favourite scene. How about when Pierce murders
0:35:32 > 0:35:34a man he seduces before kicking back
0:35:34 > 0:35:36with a scotch and watching the wrestling?
0:35:36 > 0:35:39Or the bafflingly erotic scene in which Pierce
0:35:39 > 0:35:43and Joanna Cassidy build a nuclear bomb in the kitchen,
0:35:43 > 0:35:47but amidst the testosterone, the Brookside Close-style locations,
0:35:47 > 0:35:49Russian agents who speak with American accents.
0:35:49 > 0:35:52IN AMERICAN ACCENT: How long have we known each other?
0:35:52 > 0:35:53Get to the point, Pavel Petrovic.
0:35:53 > 0:35:56Not to mention Pierce's wonderful stab at a Russian accent.
0:35:56 > 0:35:58IN BAD RUSSIAN ACCENT: Specialising in the design
0:35:58 > 0:36:01and construction of atomic shells. I know, Valerie Petrofsky.
0:36:01 > 0:36:03- How do you do?- How do you do?
0:36:03 > 0:36:05There's a distrust of the establishment that's pure le Carre.
0:36:05 > 0:36:07A sense that the powers that be are playing a game
0:36:07 > 0:36:10and whatever side you're on is irrelevant.
0:36:10 > 0:36:11Was Forsyth right to be so cynical?
0:36:11 > 0:36:15You could well become the next chairman of the KGB.
0:36:16 > 0:36:19Preston, you are out of your depth.
0:36:20 > 0:36:22It's all a game to you, isn't it?
0:36:24 > 0:36:27Did these films have anything to say or are they just entertainment?
0:36:27 > 0:36:29Is that, 'it's just a game,'
0:36:29 > 0:36:33is that grafted on because that's what we're meant to think?
0:36:33 > 0:36:35That's pretty dead and empty, isn't it?
0:36:35 > 0:36:41But there is a sort of despair that's present in these films
0:36:41 > 0:36:44that feels like something of its moment
0:36:44 > 0:36:46and that's there in le Carre too.
0:36:46 > 0:36:49You know, a sense that maybe the world hasn't got long left.
0:36:49 > 0:36:53And also there's that celebration of the absolute individual,
0:36:53 > 0:36:56in a way these people are more individual than James Bond,
0:36:56 > 0:36:57in their own way.
0:36:57 > 0:36:59But then The Fourth Protocol, the fate of the world hangs
0:36:59 > 0:37:03on a traffic jam on the A11, so it's quite realistic in that respect.
0:37:03 > 0:37:06And we also get to see Kim Philby executed
0:37:06 > 0:37:09and he's played by Penelope Heath's gardener from To The Manor Born.
0:37:11 > 0:37:13He presumably goes back there and nicks her hydrangeas.
0:37:13 > 0:37:17They're wishful films to an extent.
0:37:17 > 0:37:20You do get the feeling that Frederick Forsyth really didn't like
0:37:20 > 0:37:24Charles de Gaulle and wishes that the Jackal had managed
0:37:24 > 0:37:25to achieve his mission.
0:37:25 > 0:37:28You also feel that he might have wanted to point the gun
0:37:28 > 0:37:31at the protesters on the barricades in '68 as well as de Gaulle.
0:37:31 > 0:37:34They're also technique films, aren't they?
0:37:34 > 0:37:37There's an awful lot about putting the rifle together
0:37:37 > 0:37:41and putting the bomb together and all that sort of stuff.
0:37:41 > 0:37:43Cos his books are famously well researched,
0:37:43 > 0:37:46that was a thing that Forsyth made a big point of, wasn't it,
0:37:46 > 0:37:49that he'd done the homework and he's figured this stuff out.
0:37:49 > 0:37:52I think the interest is in the psychology of the characters
0:37:52 > 0:37:55involved. There's a fascinating scene in The Fourth Protocol where a guy
0:37:55 > 0:37:59working within the security services has been discovered to be slipping
0:37:59 > 0:38:02papers to the South African security services
0:38:02 > 0:38:05and weeps when he's discovered. And that strikes me...
0:38:05 > 0:38:07That's fascinating, that scene.
0:38:07 > 0:38:12And also...Pierce Brosnan as this Russian villain who is not
0:38:12 > 0:38:15only a murderer but worse than that, he's bisexual(!)
0:38:15 > 0:38:17THEY LAUGH
0:38:17 > 0:38:19And thus, presumably has to be... That's why he has to be shot.
0:38:19 > 0:38:23- Well, he's a double agent. - That's right. Yes, yes, he is.
0:38:23 > 0:38:26Of course, spies weren't just on the big screen, they were on the small
0:38:26 > 0:38:28screen as well and this is a lot of
0:38:28 > 0:38:30the kind of telly I grew up watching.
0:38:30 > 0:38:35If spy movies were wild, spy TV shows were deranged.
0:38:35 > 0:38:38In the '60s and '70s, the schedules were full of spy-fi series
0:38:38 > 0:38:42featuring no end of outlandish, weirded out espionage adventures.
0:38:42 > 0:38:45Best of the lot was The Prisoner, a completely inexplicable
0:38:45 > 0:38:48head-scratcher starring Patrick McGoohan as an ex-spy
0:38:48 > 0:38:51trying to escape the psychedelic, logic-defying Village
0:38:51 > 0:38:53in which he has been imprisoned.
0:38:53 > 0:38:56The Avengers started life as a pretty straight-laced spy
0:38:56 > 0:38:58series that got progressively odder.
0:38:58 > 0:39:00Leading to a series finale where John Steed
0:39:00 > 0:39:04and his pal Tara King are blasted into space in a home-made rocket.
0:39:04 > 0:39:07It also made stars of future Bond girls Diana Rigg
0:39:07 > 0:39:10and Honor Blackman, whose role in Goldfinger was cheekily referenced.
0:39:10 > 0:39:14Mrs Dale, how nice of her to remember me.
0:39:14 > 0:39:16What can she be doing in Fort Knox?
0:39:16 > 0:39:18Even Doctor Who got in on the act,
0:39:18 > 0:39:21ditching the space adventures in the early '70s for military-backed,
0:39:21 > 0:39:25gadget strewn, action stories, all set in the near future Britain.
0:39:25 > 0:39:27John Pertwee actually owned this hideous car
0:39:27 > 0:39:29and insisted it be included in the show.
0:39:29 > 0:39:34ITV revelled in this stuff, thanks to a string of virtually identical
0:39:34 > 0:39:37but fun shows from Lew Grade's ITC stable,
0:39:37 > 0:39:40including the likes of The Champions in which three intelligence
0:39:40 > 0:39:44operatives handily get powers of ESP after a plane crash in Tibet,
0:39:44 > 0:39:48enabling them not just to solve crimes but cheat at golf as well.
0:39:55 > 0:39:57These shows were phenomenally popular.
0:39:57 > 0:40:01Why do we like our spy stories cut with fantasy?
0:40:01 > 0:40:04Well, yes, why do we like our spy stories cut with fantasy?
0:40:04 > 0:40:08There's a formula here, isn't there? They're wearing the spy clothes,
0:40:08 > 0:40:11they've got '60s psychedelia in. This must be much to do with
0:40:11 > 0:40:13the advent of colour television as much as anything else.
0:40:13 > 0:40:16That you've got to have spectacular things to look at.
0:40:16 > 0:40:20You've got a wobbly British film industry
0:40:20 > 0:40:22that can't quite make the films it could
0:40:22 > 0:40:26and a lot of very talented directors who can't get jobs on big films
0:40:26 > 0:40:29so end up doing these production line series.
0:40:29 > 0:40:31So, that's why a lot of those ITV series look more expensive
0:40:31 > 0:40:35than they should because they're all made by proper film directors.
0:40:35 > 0:40:40The Prisoner is my favourite TV series probably of all time.
0:40:40 > 0:40:43It's the most extraordinary... Matt, are you a fan of The Prisoner?
0:40:43 > 0:40:46I watched it a couple of times as a kid and I couldn't understand it.
0:40:46 > 0:40:49- I don't know that you're supposed to.- I think you're worrying too much
0:40:49 > 0:40:52about not understanding things. Nobody understands The Prisoner.
0:40:52 > 0:40:54There was something very sinister about it.
0:40:54 > 0:40:56Children shouldn't be watching stuff like that.
0:40:56 > 0:40:59I had a maths teacher who used to wear 'I'm not a number'
0:40:59 > 0:41:00and we all asked him what it was
0:41:00 > 0:41:03and he said it was a thing called The Prisoner and he lent it to us
0:41:03 > 0:41:06on video and I took it back and said, "What you watching this for?"
0:41:06 > 0:41:09None of us could understand it.
0:41:09 > 0:41:12It's the most extraordinary cultural artefact because McGoohan had
0:41:12 > 0:41:18turned down being Bond so it's sort of about him resigning.
0:41:18 > 0:41:22It's about his former character, John Drake star of Danger Man,
0:41:22 > 0:41:26being sent to this strange, psychedelic island prison
0:41:26 > 0:41:28in Wales or somewhere.
0:41:28 > 0:41:32But I think it shows the counter-cultural influence as well.
0:41:32 > 0:41:35You know, there's LSD in the veins of some of these programmes
0:41:35 > 0:41:40and mainly that reflects something about the stories about brainwashing
0:41:40 > 0:41:43and the use of narcotics by intelligence people as well.
0:41:43 > 0:41:46This idea that you might not quite know where you are
0:41:46 > 0:41:48or what your own mind is.
0:41:48 > 0:41:51Is The Prisoner on an island somewhere,
0:41:51 > 0:41:55or is he locked up in a hotel room with a syringe in his arm
0:41:55 > 0:41:58and an interrogator standing around him and a wet towel over his head?
0:41:58 > 0:42:01We'll never know cos they only made the 17
0:42:01 > 0:42:04and they didn't get to answer that question.
0:42:04 > 0:42:07It wasn't just on telly that spying had become psychedelic,
0:42:07 > 0:42:09it was in the movies as well.
0:42:09 > 0:42:10Spies need the latest tech
0:42:10 > 0:42:12but in the '60s and '70s,
0:42:12 > 0:42:16modernity often went hand-in-hand with psychedelia and even paranoia.
0:42:16 > 0:42:18In The Ipcress File, the brainwashing sound effects
0:42:18 > 0:42:21were created using the very latest electronic music techniques,
0:42:21 > 0:42:24by the Radiophonic Workshop, to properly mind-expanding effect.
0:42:24 > 0:42:27ELECTRONIC SLIDE WHISTLE TONE PLAYS
0:42:27 > 0:42:29And as for the scene where Harry takes off his glasses,
0:42:29 > 0:42:33who knew short-sightedness could be so groovy?
0:42:33 > 0:42:37Modesty Blaise might be the most psychedelic spy film ever made.
0:42:37 > 0:42:39Not only does Dirk Bogarde's villainous Gabriel have some
0:42:39 > 0:42:42of the least practical eyewear in cinema history, he's also
0:42:42 > 0:42:45got truly headache-inducing taste in interior decorations.
0:42:45 > 0:42:48And the cellar in which he imprisons Monica Vitti's title character,
0:42:48 > 0:42:51warps and disorientates like a magic eye puzzle.
0:42:51 > 0:42:54"Oh, I think it's a dolphin, man."
0:42:54 > 0:42:57But it was also a good shorthand for alienation in the sense
0:42:57 > 0:43:00that events are taking place in a world you cannot understand
0:43:00 > 0:43:03or make sense of. Look at all this kit in Some Girls Do,
0:43:03 > 0:43:06do you know what all those knobs do? Would you want to?
0:43:06 > 0:43:08Bond, of course, would've died years ago
0:43:08 > 0:43:12if he didn't have a steady supply of gadgets at his disposal,
0:43:12 > 0:43:15such as the incredible jetpack from Thunderball, which propels him
0:43:15 > 0:43:18to safety in the most exciting way possible.
0:43:18 > 0:43:21This is techno-paranoia flipped on its head and made aspirational.
0:43:21 > 0:43:25It's it reassuring that Britain can rely on having the coolest stuff
0:43:25 > 0:43:26when we need it?
0:43:28 > 0:43:29Technology, obviously though, must be
0:43:29 > 0:43:32important to the intelligent services, Stella?
0:43:32 > 0:43:33Yes, it's always been important...
0:43:33 > 0:43:37I'm looking at your glasses now wondering what they do.
0:43:37 > 0:43:41And of course continues to be, you know, as technologies advance
0:43:41 > 0:43:44and particularly communications technology,
0:43:44 > 0:43:47then it's equally important and much, much more complicated.
0:43:47 > 0:43:50I mean, some of those gadgets... Do you think they reflect the fact
0:43:50 > 0:43:55that during the Cold War, we still thought that the Soviet Union was up
0:43:55 > 0:44:00on a level with us in technology? It was only when the Cold War finished
0:44:00 > 0:44:04that we realised that a lot of their technological basis was bust.
0:44:04 > 0:44:08It must do and it must in order for the Soviet Union to be a threat,
0:44:08 > 0:44:10it's got to have snazzy gadgets.
0:44:10 > 0:44:12Yeah. And it had certain snazzy gadgets
0:44:12 > 0:44:15but ultimately they didn't work as well as ours.
0:44:15 > 0:44:18Yeah, yeah. What's your favourite spy movie gadget, Stella?
0:44:18 > 0:44:21Here we have an array of possibilities.
0:44:21 > 0:44:25I mean, a car with an ejector seat and hubcaps that do stuff and guns
0:44:25 > 0:44:28that come out of the headlights, what more can you want really?
0:44:28 > 0:44:30I would never remember which of these buttons works what
0:44:30 > 0:44:33so I'd be ejecting myself all over the place.
0:44:33 > 0:44:35As long as it's got a parachute attached to it
0:44:35 > 0:44:38so you don't land in a field without any help.
0:44:38 > 0:44:41Well it's ejecting your passenger, isn't it? That's what it's for.
0:44:41 > 0:44:42Oh, I see.
0:44:42 > 0:44:44THEY LAUGH
0:44:44 > 0:44:48- Well, you see how useful... - What will they think of next?
0:44:48 > 0:44:50Let's not forget though that some of these films were
0:44:50 > 0:44:53made in the era of Strategic Defence Initiative
0:44:53 > 0:44:57when people were talking very seriously about blasting nuclear
0:44:57 > 0:44:59missiles out of space with laser beams.
0:44:59 > 0:45:02It's not that far from it, is it?
0:45:02 > 0:45:05I think the piece of technology I'd like most to experience is
0:45:05 > 0:45:09the Harry Palmer fake Albanian brainwashing room
0:45:09 > 0:45:12because there you get to, as we heard, you get to listen to the work
0:45:12 > 0:45:15of Desmond Briscoe of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop in your ears,
0:45:15 > 0:45:20and a light display that you'd have to go to the ICA, or The UFO Club
0:45:20 > 0:45:22in Notting Hill to experience in the mid-1960s.
0:45:22 > 0:45:26A bit like a night out with Andy Warhol.
0:45:26 > 0:45:30The car with ejector seat is the thing I'd want more than
0:45:30 > 0:45:36anything else, the odd long drive where you think, "Go on, hop it."
0:45:36 > 0:45:39I mean, we could talk about gadgets all day but another thing
0:45:39 > 0:45:42I'd really like to talk about is this distrust of the establishment.
0:45:42 > 0:45:44But this crops up in a lot of films.
0:45:44 > 0:45:46If all these spy films have one thing in common,
0:45:46 > 0:45:49it's that they all want to stick it to the man.
0:45:49 > 0:45:53This scene from 1966's The Quiller Memorandum crops up time and again.
0:45:53 > 0:45:55Two posh chaps having lunch,
0:45:55 > 0:45:58not giving a toss about the hell they're inflicting on everyone else.
0:45:58 > 0:46:02- Shame about KLJ.- Mm. - How was he killed?
0:46:02 > 0:46:04Shot.
0:46:04 > 0:46:05What gun?
0:46:05 > 0:46:09Long shot in spine, actually. 9.3, same as Metzler.
0:46:09 > 0:46:11Oh, really?
0:46:12 > 0:46:14- How's your lunch?- Rather good.
0:46:14 > 0:46:17By the time we get to Simon Langton's The Whistle Blower,
0:46:17 > 0:46:2020 years later, the establishment is the enemy.
0:46:20 > 0:46:22Michael Caine's attempts to find out how his son died
0:46:22 > 0:46:25from the intelligence services are thwarted at every turn,
0:46:25 > 0:46:28which means he gets to do his super wobbly emotional voice.
0:46:28 > 0:46:31VERY EMOTIONAL: You expect me to shut up about the fact that my son,
0:46:31 > 0:46:34among other innocents, were expendable in this charade?
0:46:34 > 0:46:37But the establishment were already having the piss royally taken
0:46:37 > 0:46:41out of them as early as 1959 with Carol Reed's hilarious
0:46:41 > 0:46:44Graham Greene adaptation Our Man In Havana.
0:46:44 > 0:46:47Alec Guinness plays a vacuum cleaner salesman recruited as a spy
0:46:47 > 0:46:50by Noel Coward, who couldn't go incognito if he tried,
0:46:50 > 0:46:51so doesn't bother.
0:46:51 > 0:46:54Not knowing where to start, he just makes up all his reports.
0:46:54 > 0:46:57Here the establishment aren't corrupt or secretive,
0:46:57 > 0:46:58they're idiots.
0:46:58 > 0:47:00All going well?
0:47:00 > 0:47:02I think we've got the Caribbean network sewn up.
0:47:02 > 0:47:03Just put me in the picture.
0:47:07 > 0:47:11I think you'll find the West Indies are over here, sir.
0:47:11 > 0:47:13I always mix up the East and the West Indies.
0:47:13 > 0:47:16Where does this distrust of our betters come from?
0:47:18 > 0:47:21- IMITATING NOEL COWARD:- Oh, yes, Noel Coward. Just marvellous.
0:47:21 > 0:47:24If Noel Coward's in it, I'll watch it, basically.
0:47:24 > 0:47:26Do these films reflect a sort of public scepticism
0:47:26 > 0:47:28about the Cold War do we think?
0:47:28 > 0:47:32I mean, Our Man In Havana is a profoundly cynical movie.
0:47:32 > 0:47:33But it reflected Graham Greene's scepticism
0:47:33 > 0:47:37about the intelligence services that he'd worked in
0:47:37 > 0:47:40and was getting his own back in a sense by sending them up.
0:47:40 > 0:47:44There's a mistrust of officialdom generally in that post-war period,
0:47:44 > 0:47:47so people were worried about what they called
0:47:47 > 0:47:49"the disease British amateurism,"
0:47:49 > 0:47:52the idea that important jobs were being done
0:47:52 > 0:47:55by just plausible types who weren't really very good at them,
0:47:55 > 0:47:58so the bosses we see in Our Man In Havana are kind of an embodiment
0:47:58 > 0:48:00- of that I think.- It was done in a comical way as well, isn't it,
0:48:00 > 0:48:03so the two fellas having lunch
0:48:03 > 0:48:06and then saying "How's your breakfast," after asking how
0:48:06 > 0:48:08he'd been shot and getting the East and the West Indies wrong.
0:48:08 > 0:48:11They're poking fun at them but there's also...
0:48:11 > 0:48:13They've still got the status. They're still laughing at the lot
0:48:13 > 0:48:15that the rest of us have to live.
0:48:15 > 0:48:18Stella, you lead a push to make the intelligence services more
0:48:18 > 0:48:21open about their work. I mean, these films,
0:48:21 > 0:48:23they're not doing that, are they?
0:48:23 > 0:48:26No, I mean, it wasn't a reaction to films I must say.
0:48:26 > 0:48:28It was really a reaction to the end of the Cold War and that was
0:48:28 > 0:48:31why when I was appointed director general and turned out to be
0:48:31 > 0:48:35a woman, not anything like these guys in these films,
0:48:35 > 0:48:38there was quite a sharp, amazed reaction
0:48:38 > 0:48:41and the tabloid newspapers all kicked off trying to take
0:48:41 > 0:48:45my photograph calling me a housewife super spy and suchlike,
0:48:45 > 0:48:49which I think reflects something that people had got
0:48:49 > 0:48:52- from all this stuff.- There are times though when I watch these films
0:48:52 > 0:48:58where I'm reassured that it's chaps and "chaps having lunch, I say."
0:48:58 > 0:49:02They're not sat there going, "Oh, Christ, the Russians have got
0:49:02 > 0:49:06"the jump on us." You know, they're "Pass the pepper, please."
0:49:06 > 0:49:08If they would have been the ones in the nuclear bunker, though,
0:49:08 > 0:49:12we would have been on the other side. THEY LAUGH
0:49:12 > 0:49:15So, a lot of the films we're talking about make a play at being
0:49:15 > 0:49:18realistic but some of them are actually based on real events
0:49:18 > 0:49:22in British spy history. Let's have a look at a few examples.
0:49:22 > 0:49:25The real world of spying creeps into the movies all the time.
0:49:25 > 0:49:28Infamous defector Kim Philby of Cambridge Spies fame
0:49:28 > 0:49:30turns up at the beginning of The Fourth Protocol.
0:49:30 > 0:49:33We can tell he's a wrong'un, he's got a folder with a skull on it.
0:49:33 > 0:49:38Before being unceremoniously bumped off. Pow. Take that, Philby.
0:49:38 > 0:49:42And 1984's The Jigsaw Man features the ingeniously named
0:49:42 > 0:49:46Phil Kimberley, a British defector to the KGB who receives plastic
0:49:46 > 0:49:48surgery to go undercover in Britain and steal some documents,
0:49:48 > 0:49:52cunningly disguised as popular British actor, Michael Caine.
0:49:52 > 0:49:53Christ!
0:49:53 > 0:49:561964's Ring Of Spies, on the other hand, is very closely
0:49:56 > 0:50:00based on the then incredibly recent Portland Spy Ring.
0:50:00 > 0:50:03It's got all your favourite spy movie bits - radio into Moscow,
0:50:03 > 0:50:07blonde, Russian temptresses, microdots hidden in books,
0:50:07 > 0:50:10secret handovers and it's got a terrifying opening
0:50:10 > 0:50:14and closing voiceover, presumably designed to obliterate any trust
0:50:14 > 0:50:16you might still have in your fellow man.
0:50:16 > 0:50:18'But there are still more in our midst,
0:50:18 > 0:50:22'looking and acting like ordinary citizens.
0:50:22 > 0:50:25'Who knows, there may be a spy willing or unwilling
0:50:25 > 0:50:28'in this very theatre, perhaps in the very row where you are sitting.'
0:50:28 > 0:50:32But its portrayal of Harry Houghton, the treacherous navy clerk
0:50:32 > 0:50:36who leaks military secrets to the Soviets, is incredibly even-handed,
0:50:36 > 0:50:39played by Bernard Lee, M from the Bond series, he's a lonely
0:50:39 > 0:50:43alcoholic sad sack, who earns our pity rather than our condemnation.
0:50:43 > 0:50:47He's ultimately undone by the way he gets a bit flashy in his local pub,
0:50:47 > 0:50:50thanks to his new-found importance in financial security.
0:50:50 > 0:50:51I mean, we're VIPs, aren't we?
0:50:52 > 0:50:54I mean we are, aren't we, Harry?
0:50:54 > 0:50:58He's busted in the end, but can we honestly say that in his shoes,
0:50:58 > 0:51:00we wouldn't be tempted to do the same?
0:51:03 > 0:51:07So Ring Of Spies ends there with lots of Special Branch or
0:51:07 > 0:51:09whatever, nabbing those people.
0:51:09 > 0:51:13How realistic is that film to the case?
0:51:13 > 0:51:16It's presented as kind of verite, really.
0:51:16 > 0:51:19Yes, that film was shown as a sort of training movie
0:51:19 > 0:51:22when I first joined.
0:51:22 > 0:51:25As an example of the kind of thing that went on.
0:51:25 > 0:51:28However, for me, there's a disappointment there in that very
0:51:28 > 0:51:30little of the real investigation is shown.
0:51:30 > 0:51:33It focuses a lot on Houghton and Gee and their relationship.
0:51:33 > 0:51:35It looks as though all that happened
0:51:35 > 0:51:38really was a load of Special Branch officers saw that he was spending
0:51:38 > 0:51:41a lot of money in a pub and then went out and arrested him,
0:51:41 > 0:51:44whereas an awful lot of investigation went on
0:51:44 > 0:51:45behind the scenes.
0:51:45 > 0:51:48I'm fascinated that you were shown it as a training film
0:51:48 > 0:51:49because it might show you how to be a spy,
0:51:49 > 0:51:51but it doesn't really show you how to catch one.
0:51:51 > 0:51:56No, well, that wasn't the point. I think it came after lectures
0:51:56 > 0:52:00about illegals and I suppose it was a kind of light relief after it.
0:52:00 > 0:52:03We weren't supposed to be learning from it.
0:52:03 > 0:52:07Well, they reflect the paranoia of the post-Cambridge Spy areas,
0:52:07 > 0:52:09don't they? James Bond's our elephant in the room
0:52:09 > 0:52:11with spy movies. The Cambridge Spies are the other thing
0:52:11 > 0:52:14- in the real world, aren't they? - Exactly, yes.
0:52:14 > 0:52:16And I mean, the Cambridge Spies existed.
0:52:16 > 0:52:19Many people in the service I joined had known them
0:52:19 > 0:52:23and there was this sense of really fundamental treachery
0:52:23 > 0:52:26and the fear of how easy it has been for the Russians
0:52:26 > 0:52:29to recruit the Cambridge Spies and how there might be many more
0:52:29 > 0:52:32- around that we didn't yet know. - There should be a sequel to this
0:52:32 > 0:52:36because I think when these guys got out of jail they married each other.
0:52:36 > 0:52:37It's a happy ending.
0:52:37 > 0:52:41But I don't know whether it's a happy ending or not.
0:52:41 > 0:52:43Well, we've talked about all the things these films do really,
0:52:43 > 0:52:46really well, but the one thing they're not so hot on
0:52:46 > 0:52:47is their attitude to women.
0:52:47 > 0:52:50Women's roles in spy films are really limited, aren't they?
0:52:51 > 0:52:53Can I help you?
0:52:53 > 0:52:56Yes, my name is Bond, James Bond, I'm looking for Dr Goodhead.
0:52:56 > 0:52:58You just found her.
0:52:59 > 0:53:00A woman?
0:53:00 > 0:53:03Yes, James, a woman with a professional qualification,
0:53:03 > 0:53:05how did she slip through the net?
0:53:05 > 0:53:08But Bond's surprise in Moonraker does reflect the fact that
0:53:08 > 0:53:11spying in these films is very much a man's world.
0:53:11 > 0:53:13There were outliers like a string of WW2 films,
0:53:13 > 0:53:17such as 1950s Odette which showed female SOE operatives bravely
0:53:17 > 0:53:19carrying out crucial resistance missions.
0:53:19 > 0:53:22You have a message from London for Milo.
0:53:22 > 0:53:24What about?
0:53:24 > 0:53:26About the RAF.
0:53:26 > 0:53:29Or 1966's tongue-in-cheek Modesty Blaise
0:53:29 > 0:53:33which starred Monica Vitti as a reformed femme fatale on a mission
0:53:33 > 0:53:36to prevent a diamond heist. But for the most part, the women in these
0:53:36 > 0:53:40films either accessorize the lives of male spies or complicate them
0:53:40 > 0:53:44like Harriet Andersson's Ann Dobbs in 1966's The Deadly Affair.
0:53:44 > 0:53:47Why don't you settle our own squalid, little mess
0:53:47 > 0:53:49by telling me I'm a nymphomaniac slut!
0:53:49 > 0:53:51Kick me out and let me do what I'm going to do,
0:53:51 > 0:53:54but without the feeling that I'm crucifying a saint!
0:53:54 > 0:53:57But most films took their lead from the Bond girl
0:53:57 > 0:54:00such as 1967's Deadlier Than The Male.
0:54:00 > 0:54:02This film rebooted the popular Bulldog Drummond character
0:54:02 > 0:54:05from the 1920s for a post-Bond audience.
0:54:05 > 0:54:06Complete with exploding cigars...
0:54:06 > 0:54:08CIGAR EXPLODES
0:54:08 > 0:54:11..but its sexual politics are rooted in an earlier age.
0:54:11 > 0:54:13The female characters here are purely decorative.
0:54:13 > 0:54:17Ooh, ask the young lady to come down again, will you?
0:54:17 > 0:54:20All there for our hero to kiss noisily.
0:54:21 > 0:54:25The film even got an X-certificate due to the censor's concerns over
0:54:25 > 0:54:28a scene where a woman actually tortures a man.
0:54:28 > 0:54:30HE GASPS Oh!
0:54:30 > 0:54:33In the real world, did women really get such a raw deal?
0:54:33 > 0:54:36'The cigars were bought from the old gate bomb specialist by a bird.
0:54:36 > 0:54:39'No information on the bird, except she was a looker.'
0:54:41 > 0:54:43Oh, dear.
0:54:44 > 0:54:48Well, I mean, Stella, here you are,
0:54:48 > 0:54:53a former director general of MI5, what do you make of all this?
0:54:53 > 0:54:56In these films, women don't have particularly strong roles,
0:54:56 > 0:54:59but surely they're crucial to espionage?
0:54:59 > 0:55:03When I joined MI5, which was in the late 1960s,
0:55:03 > 0:55:08women were in a sort of second...Moneypenny-type situation.
0:55:08 > 0:55:10There were two career structures
0:55:10 > 0:55:14and the Moneypennys looking after the papers, doing the analysis,
0:55:14 > 0:55:17if they thought you were quite bright, was what women did.
0:55:17 > 0:55:21The men went out and did the hard end of the intelligence work.
0:55:21 > 0:55:23That began to change during the '70s,
0:55:23 > 0:55:27and eventually women broke through with women's lib
0:55:27 > 0:55:29and sex discrimination legislation and all that stuff.
0:55:29 > 0:55:35So by the end of '70s, early '80s, women were on a par
0:55:35 > 0:55:38with men in the intelligence services, particularly in MI5.
0:55:38 > 0:55:41That's fascinating that it would have taken legislation
0:55:41 > 0:55:43and that kind of social change
0:55:43 > 0:55:46cos surely women are as good as spying as anybody else.
0:55:46 > 0:55:50Well, of course they are, but it was a mindset in the 1960s,
0:55:50 > 0:55:53you hardly worked after you got married and you certainly didn't
0:55:53 > 0:55:57work after you'd had children when I first started out in my career.
0:55:57 > 0:55:59So there was an expectation that women,
0:55:59 > 0:56:02particularly middle class women, were going to stay at home,
0:56:02 > 0:56:05look after the kids and do the flowers
0:56:05 > 0:56:07and that was the social expectation.
0:56:07 > 0:56:13And the intelligence services were behind in their social expectations.
0:56:13 > 0:56:18Vernon Kell, who ran the show in the war years
0:56:18 > 0:56:21and before, said that of the women who worked for him,
0:56:21 > 0:56:25he wanted them to come from good families and have good legs.
0:56:25 > 0:56:28"I like my gals to have good legs," he said.
0:56:28 > 0:56:30- Which I think was a bit hazardous... - But hang on a minute,
0:56:30 > 0:56:33men were supposed to be able to make notes on their shirt cuff
0:56:33 > 0:56:37while riding horseback, so you see, we're going back a long way now.
0:56:38 > 0:56:40That's quite a niche skill, isn't it?
0:56:40 > 0:56:45So how did you feel when in the Bond films art reflected reality
0:56:45 > 0:56:48and Judi Dench is M?
0:56:48 > 0:56:51I thought that was wonderful, I must say, and about time too.
0:56:51 > 0:56:56If you look at the early films in which she is M,
0:56:56 > 0:56:58she's quite glamorous, isn't she?
0:56:58 > 0:57:02She's a kind of half Bond girl, really.
0:57:02 > 0:57:06In the latest one, of course, she's really matured into a proper
0:57:06 > 0:57:09runner of an organisation and a giver of orders
0:57:09 > 0:57:11and suchlike which of course is what a DG does.
0:57:11 > 0:57:13And you can identify with her in the last film?
0:57:13 > 0:57:16I can identify, yes.
0:57:16 > 0:57:18Fantastic. That's about all we've got time for really
0:57:18 > 0:57:20but I can't leave it without asking you,
0:57:20 > 0:57:23what's your favourite spy movie and why?
0:57:23 > 0:57:24Matt?
0:57:24 > 0:57:29It's Skyfall, but I loved how raw and nasty and dirty it was.
0:57:29 > 0:57:33I thought it was a perfect modern spy film.
0:57:33 > 0:57:34Matthew?
0:57:34 > 0:57:37I think it's The Spy Who Came In From The Cold for its ferocity
0:57:37 > 0:57:41and its bleakness and its melancholy.
0:57:41 > 0:57:44And for the dark night of the soul that you're on with Richard Burton,
0:57:44 > 0:57:47whether it's accurate or not I don't know
0:57:47 > 0:57:49but it's certainly the kind of spy film
0:57:49 > 0:57:52that Dostoyevsky could have made.
0:57:52 > 0:57:56- Stella?- Our Man In Havana, without a doubt, for Noel Coward's
0:57:56 > 0:58:01representation of the MI6 operative in that era and particularly
0:58:01 > 0:58:04for Alec Guinness, early playing the spy man
0:58:04 > 0:58:07who absolutely fails to do it effectively
0:58:07 > 0:58:10and for all the sort of Havana scenes. I think it's wonderful.
0:58:10 > 0:58:13OK, I'm going Moonraker.
0:58:13 > 0:58:16Well, all that remains for me to say is to say thank you
0:58:16 > 0:58:20to my guests, Matt Forde, Stella Rimmington and Matthew Sweet
0:58:20 > 0:58:23and I'm off to radio our findings back to Moscow.
0:58:23 > 0:58:24Be seeing you.