S*P*Y*S

[Eddie Love]

In 1974, Elliot Gould and Donald Sutherland reteamed in the comedy S*P*Y*S. This send-up of the U.S. intelligence agencies in the wake of Watergate meant to do for the CIA what the pair’s instant classic M*A*S*H had done for the army. Lightning didn’t strike twice, even if some curiously unnecessary asterisks did.

The breakneck, episodic plot involves two Company men – earnest Sutherland, and hip, cynical Gould – stationed in Paris and juggling anarchist girlfriends, defecting Russian gymnasts, hidden microfilm and even a cute little dog while trying to avoid being killed by their own bureaucratic bosses. The idea of savaging the C.I.A. may have been daring at the time of this picture’s release, these days the goings on seems fairly tame, and certainly don’t have much satirical bite.

The opening scenes of the movie have lots of gritty 70s, Parisian atmosphere – it looks like it could pass for a real espionage thriller. It almost feels like someone might have pulled a ...TIGER LILLY and dubbed a serious picture, a theory made more plausible by the film’s prodigious amount of overdubbing. But, alas, the funny business is in earnest, and things turn tedious fairly quickly. The film is less than 90 minutes long, but by God, it sure feels a lot longer



None of which is really the fault of our hard-working leads. For me, what’s most interesting about this movie is the very nature of the stars’ work. This is back from a time, a golden age really, of the late 60s early 70s, when actors were expected to be versatile. They were easily able to go from serious fare to broad comedies – and what’s more the audience went with them! Stars like the two here as well as Peter Falk, Alan Arkin and Walter Matthau, (to name a few) all had hits in farces as well as serious drama. Today we either have comic stars who ostentatiously take stabs at dramatic parts, or straight film stars who largely stay away from comedies. Today, the only guy I can think of who fits this old-school style of iron man play (pun intended) is Robert Downey Jr. (Maybe Johnny Depp, ‘cause he does so many fanciful roles, but I wouldn’t really call them comedies. Erstwhile comic actor Jaime Foxx is essentially a dramatic star.).

If you like the two leads (and seriously – who doesn’t?) you may find a few things to like in this fitfully amusing, if exhausting effort. I’m not sure how this movie was received, but if the goal was to turn the boys into a counter-culture Hope and Crosby, it didn’t pan out. (Incidentally, this was the team’s third collaboration as Sutherland had a truly brilliant and hilarious cameo in the pitch-black comic Gould vehicle LITTLE MURDERS.)

[Derrick]

Eddie,

You make an excellent point about how actors in the 60's/70's would make a comedy then turn around and make a serious dramatic film and nobody gave it any extra attention like what happens now when a comedian acts in a drama. I think people either have forgotten or don't know that Walter Matthau started out in dramas and it was a while before he made comedies. He actually was the heavy in a lot of his early films such as KING CREOLE, one of the few Elvis Presley movies I've watched more than once. And there's Jack Lemmon who I consider The Master of switching between comedy and drama and being equally accomplished at both.

S*P*Y*S was a flop during it's original theatrical run. You hit it right on the head when you say that it could have passed for a actual thriller as my understanding was that audiences were confused that the movie seemed to switch gears from a thriller ot a comedy. I've seen it twice on The Fox Movie Channel and my feeling is that it doesn't have enough funny to be a true comedy and not enough thrills to be a thriller.

[james]

Matthau also starred in a run of great crime films in the 70s, including Charley Varrick and The Taking of Pelham 1, 2, 3.

The writer of S*P*Y*S, Malcolm Marmorstein, later scripted and directed a zombie movie, Dead Men Don't Die, also starring Gould. I've been curious to see this thing, for the car-crash thrill, after reading about it in Glenn Kay's book Zombie Movies. Kay's description suggests the movie is an abysmal wreck, and one of the few reviews on IMDB is from someone who worked on the production, and writes that he knew it was going to be awful before it was finished. I can't find a copy, though.


James

[Derrick]

My favorite Walter Matthau movie from the 70's is the underrated HOPSCOTCH. Matthau plays a CIA agent who is forcibly retired. In retaliation he writes a tell-all book embarrassing the CIA. He has to keep on the move traveling all over the world staying one step ahead of Ned Beatty who wants him dead and Sam Waterston who wants Matthau to turn himself in.

[Eddie Love]

I'd posit the notion that the actors we mentioned (for the most part, though possibly not Sutherland) and other similar ones besides (Gene Wilder, George Segal, Charles Grodin, Alan Alda) all came from the New York stage, and thus had the training it took to glide across genres and styles.

THE LAUGHING POLICEMAN completes the curious, hard-boiled side of Matthau's filmography.

The interesting thing to me about HOPSCOTCH when seen today, is how perverse it now seems that there were mainstream, romantic capers pitched to middle-aged audiences. With stars who look like real people and not preternaturally gorgeous beings. Also, if you look at the Criterion (?!?) edition of that on DVD Ronald Neame, the director talks about how Matthau refused to shoot the locations scenes at the Oktoberfest in Berlin, his hatred for Germans was so intense. Neame had to goad him step by step for the shots that are in the picture.