Spy film

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Not to be confused with
spy camera
.

The spy film, also known as the spy thriller, is a

British Secret Service.[2]

Spy films show the espionage activities of

action comedy films
if they fall under that genre).

James Bond is the most famous of film spies, but there were also more serious, probing works like le Carré's

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold that also emerged from the Cold War. As the Cold War ended, the newest villain became terrorism and more often involved the Middle East.[3]

History

The spy film genre began in the

Houses of Parliament, and 1913's O.H.M.S.,[4] standing for "Our Helpless Millions Saved" as well as On His Majesty's Service
(and introducing for the first time a strong female character who helps the hero).

In 1928,

Hangmen Also Die
, deal with spies during World War II.

The Lady Vanishes (1938). These often involved innocent civilians being caught up in international conspiracies or webs of saboteurs on the home front, as in Saboteur (1942). Some, however, dealt with professional spies, as in Hitchcock's Secret Agent (1936), based on W. Somerset Maugham's Ashenden stories, or the Mr. Moto series, based on the books of John P. Marquand
.

In the 1940s and early 1950s, several films were made about the exploits of Allied agents in occupied Europe, which could be considered a subgenre.

Carve Her Name With Pride. A more recent fictional example is Charlotte Gray, based on the novel by Sebastian Faulks
.

Also during the period, there were many detective films (The Thin Man Goes Home and Charlie Chan in the Secret Service for example) in which the mystery involved who stole the secret blue-prints, or who kidnapped the famous scientist.

In the mid-1950s, Alfred Hitchcock returned to the spy genre with The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956 film), a remake of his 1934 film of the same name. He followed this up in 1959 with North by Northwest (1959), widely considered one of the most influential works within the spy genre.[5][6][7]

The peak of popularity of spy films is often considered to be the 1960s when

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965), The Deadly Affair (1966), Torn Curtain (1966), and the Harry Palmer series, based on the novels of Len Deighton
.

In another direction, the James Bond novels by Ian Fleming were adapted into an increasingly fantastical series of tongue-in-cheek adventure films by producers Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli, with Sean Connery as the star. They featured secretive and flamboyant supervillains, an archetype that would later become a staple of the explosion of spy movies in the mid-to-late 1960s. The phenomenal success of the Bond series leads to a deluge of imitators, such as the

The Man from U.N.C.L.E and I Spy in the U.S., and Danger Man and The Avengers in Britain. Spies have remained popular on TV to the present day with series such as Callan, Alias and Spooks
.

Spy films also enjoyed something of a revival in the late 1990s, although these were often action films with espionage elements or comedies like

Bourne film series and the James Bond films starring Daniel Craig since Casino Royale
(2006).

Films

Some of the most popular films include:

Movie series (franchises)

One-shots, sequels and remakes

Television series

Some of the most popular television series include:

Classic era

Modern era

See also

References

  1. ^ "The Spying Game: British Cinema and the Secret State", 2009 Cambridge Film Festival, pp. 54–57 of the festival brochure.
  2. ^ "Spy movies - The guys who came in from the cold". The Independent. October 2, 2009. Archived from the original on 2022-05-24.
  3. ^ "Spy Film Movies and Films - Find Spy Film Movie Recommendations, Casts, Reviews, and Summaries - AllRovi". Archived from the original on 2012-01-17. Retrieved 2012-01-21.
  4. IMDb Edit this at Wikidata
  5. ^ Foreman, Alison (24 August 2023). "The 20 Best Spy Movies, from 'Enemy of the State' to 'North by Northwest'". IndieWire. Retrieved 28 January 2024.
  6. ^ Allison, Mark (11 July 2019). "How North by Northwest Invented the Modern Action Movie". Den of Geek. Retrieved 28 January 2024.
  7. ^ Patterson, John (12 June 2009). "Hitching a ride with the Master of Suspense". The Guardian. Retrieved 28 January 2024.
  8. ^ The first four focused on illegal street racing and thus they were not spy films
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