A History of the Spy Film..

The spy film, or espionage film, deals with the subject of fictional espionage, either in a highly realistic way or more for fantasy. A common trait for spy films is the concept of the resourceful, witty and nigh-on invincible protagonist, who single-handedly saves the day, defeats the antagonist, and gets the girl. This trait can be most obviously seen in the popular spy film franchise the ‘James Bond’ series.

The spy genre began as a genre of film in the silent era, near the beginning of the First World War. Invasion Literature was big at the time and the paranoia associated with that caused the British to produce such films as the 1914 ‘The German Spy Peril’. In 1928, Fritz Lang made the film ‘Spies’ which contains many features that became popular in spy films many years on, including secret headquarters, an agent known by a number, and the beautiful foreign agent who comes to love the hero.

The Spy film was at its most popular in the 1960’s, when audiences Cold War fears were meshed with a desire to see new exciting and suspenseful films. At this point the spy film went in two different directions. One direction of the spy film was the realistic, serious direction. Realistic novels by espionage fiction writers were developed into serious Cold War thrillers, which dealt with some of the realities within the espionage world. At the same time, Albert R. Broccoli was adapting Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels into an increasingly farfetched series of tongue-in-cheek action/adventure/spy films, with Sean Connery as the star. These films dealt less with the reality of espionage and were largely fictitious.

Spy films had a slight revival in the late 1990’s, although these were mostly action films with espionage elements, or comedies like Austin Powers. Nowadays the spy films have moved away from fantasy espionage in favour of realism. This can be seen in the Bourne film series, and the more recent James Bond incarnations ‘Casino Royale’ and ‘Quantum of Solace’.

T.F.