Sunday, August 13, 2017

LAZY SUNDAY # 483: SPY VS SPY


On a hot, prairie afternoon in 1962, I was introduced to the world of espionage.

"Dr. No" was screening at Regina's classiest theatre, The Capitol. I'd never heard of Sean Connery or the film let alone the book from which it was adapted and knew nothing of a genre that would come to have a profound effect on my life.

"Dr. No" absolutely blew me away. After the movie, I stood staring at the lobby cards in the poster windows outside, enervated, reliving the scenes depicted. I then shot down the street to the nearest bookstore to buy a copy of the novel that the credits had indicated was written by some guy named Ian Fleming.


To my surprise, there was a whole shelf of Ian Fleming's Bond books. By Christmas, I'd read all of them. Maybe too young to fully understand all the finer points and certainly the sexy parts. But in addition to opening my eyes to an exciting adventure genre head and shoulders above Tarzan and Treasure Island, I suddenly started paying closer attention to the news, the cold war and the hotter one taking shape in Viet Nam.

James Bond had led me to wanting to know more about how the world really worked.

Of course, I saw every Bond film, usually on the day it was released and might've been Connery's biggest fan. Then, in 1965, a new spy arrived on the scene -- Alec Leamus, personified by Richard Burton in John LeCarre's "The Spy Who Came In From The Cold".


Despite Burton's consummate skills as an actor, "Spy" troubled me. Leamus didn't seem to enjoy his job as much as Bond and he had this guy named Smiley hanging over him as that boss who never tells you the whole story. I picked up Le Carre's novel too, but honestly found it hard going, depicting I world far darker than I imagined could really exist and with not a lot of charming characters or lighter moments.

Luckily around the same time, a new actor and a new spy entered my life -- Michael Caine as Harry Palmer in Len Deighton's "The Ipcress File". I was about 16 by then and Harry Palmer matched me to a T. He was working class like I was, wore exactly the same glasses I wore. More important, he had a healthy mistrust of authority -- the same one I was developing.


Somehow, in an era prior to entertainment magazine shows and social media, I learned that the director of "The Ipcress File" was Canadian -- Sidney Furie. Fifteen or twenty years later, while still an actor, but trying to learn to write, I got to meet Furie and peppered him with questions -- which mostly came down to why it had been his only espionage film.

For me, so much of that movie had been perfect for the genre, the moving masters in the corridors of power, the film noir touches, the grit of real spycraft combined with lighter moments that kept the story personal and engaging.

I think I was looking for something resembling hope for the genre, for we met not long after I'd seen "Moonraker", a film so egregious I was certain the Bond franchise had run its course. Like that unforgettable sunny afternoon in front of the Capitol theatre, I stood in front of an equally classy theatre in an equally sunny Los Angeles -- only this time holding back tears and angry at what a character and world I loved had been allowed to become.

A short time later, My careers of writing and acting at a tipping point, I was hired as the story editor on a new CBS series entitled "Adderly". Adderly had been a minor character in a novel by American writer Elliot Baker. But he was unique enough that the TV powers that be decided he'd be worthy of a television series.

And so for two seasons he was, with those of us responsible for creating his adventures constantly pulled between the more popular cultural icon of espionage created by Ian Fleming and the more realistic version provided by John LeCarre. Oddly, or maybe because of my own bias, the compromise usually ended up being somewhere in the Harry Palmer ballpark.

But still, a half century after all these characters entered the culture, the debate about which of the key creators, Fleming or LeCarre, was better at story telling and creating the world of spies still continues. To be honest, the more mature me likes them both but for far different reasons.

Check out the confrontation that follows to make your own choice.

And -- Enjoy Your Sunday...

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