11 replies to this topic

[chrisno1]

JOHN SMITH - by Jimmy Sangster

 

Private I

(1967)

 

Jimmy Sangster’s hero John Smith is, I guess, meant to be as anonymous as his name suggests. That he isn’t is testament to Sangster’s neat prose which draws you into his protagonist’s ever decreasing world, one where spies and spy-masters vie for the upper hand against the opposition and one another. Smith isn’t in fact a spy; he’s quit the service after a disastrous operation in Algiers and is eking out a living as a private investigator specializing in marital infidelity. From one shoddy line of business to another, you might say. Curiously that is one of the comparisons Sangster chooses not to bite and the lack of obvious cliché should be applauded.

 

PRIVATE I was first published in 1967 and proved successful enough to launch a TV movie (under a new title ‘The Spy Killer’) and it inhabits much the same territory as those glum everyday trench coat wearers Le Carré loved so much. Smith is a good foil for his one-time boss Max, a mustachioed sleek deceptive streak of evil and true villain of the piece. He shows some humour, dislikes the cut and thrust of physical violence and is repulsed by the inhumanity of the spy game. He yearns for nothing more than a closer relationship with his regular roll Mary and a slightly healthier bank balance.

 

A chance meeting with his ex-wife, Danielle, leads Smith into a web of intrigue chasing a missing notebook crammed full of vital names and addresses which the Chinese are eager to discover and the British are eager to cover up. Throw in a murdered attaché, the local constabulary, the Albanian lone-wolf Igor Berat and a host of contacts from Smith’s past and you have a fairly tight if episodic thriller whose action is mostly tete-a-tetes between its main characters interspersed with the occasional bout of oblique action.

 

I couldn’t help but be reminded of Sangster’s later spy tales starring Katy Touchfeather, not only because the story is told in the first person, but also because the main character seems so helplessly lost all the time. Every little scheme goes wrong for John Smith, every person is out to betray him and every little good moment turns into a big bad situation. The story is quite bleak during its early pages and I didn’t initially warm to our hero, who is a poor man’s Philip Marlow, but his character grows on you. His remorse over the deaths he causes, his rejection of the Secret Service ethic and an apparent total amorality over money and sexual matters are quite refreshing, but we don’t see this from the outset.

 

In fact the opening of the novel is part of problem: “The slamming of the door sounded like the last crack of doom… I might as well have been embalmed, placed in a coffin, and buried a hundred miles deep.” Sangster rather telegraphs the outcome of his tale. We know Smith is looking back and we know he’s considering “the stupid, idiotic, bloody fool way I managed to get myself into this” so there is no surprise in the eventual outcome. Along the way there are plenty of quirks, twists and turns that prove diverting: a break-in to a crime scene, a picturesque but violent sojourn to the south of France, a Bourne-like visit to a Swiss bank and a tense night spent in the company of a deadly assassin – the latter a particularly good chapter that reveals Sangster’s ability with dialogue and framing; fully expected from a screenwriter but not always in evidence. However there is inevitability to the tale which erases most of the tension. Sadly it just doesn’t grip you enough.

 

I’m intrigued to know what the movie-makers did with it. I prefer the alternative title and also consider both examples of the cover art to be a bit ropy, bearing only a minor resemblance to anything within the book’s pages.

 

 

[Jim]

Fascinating; never heard of these, probably should have.

 

That cover, a grimy photo with an underdressed young lady standing on a lavatory, next to an undergroomed man - I wonder if anything could be more late 60s / early 70s? It would be especially thrilling if that has absolutely nothing to do with the story. The artistic decision-making there is immense.

[Dustin]

Re the cover: I faintly remember having come across (no pun) a late 60s/early 70s 'publication' of a private nature when I was about twelve, sporting a very similar cover. In fact I suspect it could have been this very photograph. Though in that case the cover was definitely related to the contents...

[chrisno1]

It would be especially thrilling if that has absolutely nothing to do with the story.

 

It has absolutely nothing to do with the story.

[Jim]

 

It would be especially thrilling if that has absolutely nothing to do with the story.

 

It has absolutely nothing to do with the story.

 

Consider me especially thrilled.

[chrisno1]

The Spy Killer

(1968)

 

Jimmy Sangster wrote and produced THE SPY KILLLER, an adaptation of ‘Private I’, for ABC TV a few months after the novel was published. The director is his old Hammer pal Roy Ward Baker [here minus the ‘Ward’] and between them they make a fair stab at producing a sanitized version of the source novel.

 

It’s a short film which covers the basic plot of John Smith’s debut in a little over seventy minutes. There are a couple of notable, but not damaging changes. Two of them take place during Smith’s trip to France – in reality the roads surrounding Pinewood and the backlot – others are mostly cosmetic character alterations.

 

To capture the lucrative US market, John Smith is played by an American, Robert Horton, best known for Wagon Train. Sangster has constructed a neat scene to explain why an ex-CIA agent is holed up doing sordid private detective work in London. It is also one of the rare times in the narrative that Smith is allowed to reveal his inner monologue, his fears and regrets. The scene has him waking from a nightmare and having to explain himself to his girlfriend. It works fairly well, but condensing the original soliloquy so much rather takes away its impact. It doesn’t help that Horton barely looks ruffled. Throughout the movie his tone and delivery hardly changes. Occasionally he gets a tad riled, or thumps a stage prop onto a table, but that’s about it. He’s a very bland hero, much more like an anonymous John Smith, I expect. Generally his dialogue is lifted direct from the book’s pages and is used merely to sign post the plot.

 

Jill St. John plays Mary, his girlfriend. It’s never explained why she is American. Her character is much more sympathetic towards Smith than in the novel, where she gives him a tough time; here that independent streak has vanished. Mary is little more than window dressing. I could say the same for almost the complete cast list, which includes Barbara Shelley, as nobody hangs around for very long; the action is too compressed for any worthwhile character development.

 

Other than John Smith, and he’s pulled up short by Horton’s dull interpretation, the best realized character is Sebastian Cabot’s Max, an urbane svelte secret service boss, who betrays more with a lowered eyelid than Horton can with a scowl. Cabot’s calm assuredness plays very well, the tiny moments have huge implications. While he doesn’t look or talk in a remotely sinister fashion, his straightforward delivery of an order or a threat has authority and gravitas. So when Smith / Horton accuses him of sacrificing 15 foreign agents on a whim, his minimal reaction has maximum impact.

 

Cabot’s the most enjoyable thing about the movie, that and the low key jazzy incidental music from Philip Martell which accompanies Smith on his wanderings through London’s muggy streets. There’s a sixties sounding theme song (‘Born Beneath a Star’) which feels like it belongs to a bigger picture. The movie is photographed in dull colours – even Mary’s extravagant apartment looks grey – and this probably fits in with the overclouded scenario on view.

 

I wasn’t expecting much from THE SPY KILLER. It passed an hour or so without any upsets; it isn’t particularly violent, it has a smattering of humour and a hefty dose of cynicism. The movie John Smith has some of his literary cousin’s maverick tendencies, but he struggles to be wholly successful, partly due to Robert Horton’s unattractive leading man and partly due to the lack of a decent climax. The one we have is tensionless in the extreme. There’s a much better coda to end the movie which sees Max’s authority finally gaining the upper hand, but only just, while not realizing that John Smith too has some cause to celebrate.

 

THE SPY KILLER can be viewed on You Tube.

 

 

[chrisno1]

Foreign Exchange

(1968)

 

Jimmy Sangster’s second novel to feature the ex-spy turned private investigator John Smith isn’t as immediate as its predecessor. This is probably because the novel follows exactly the same framework as the first, only this time with decidedly less excitement. In fact the author spends the first thirty pages merely setting the scene on Smith’s private life, some of which becomes relevant, much of it does not. Overall the slow pacing and awkward humour falls flat. 

 

This time, Smith’s one time boss Max wants to use him to provoke a false defection; he’s been feeding an ex-Russian spy minor secrets hoping to exchange him back for John Smith, only he needs Smith in Russia on trumped up charges to do so. That this isn’t the be-all and end-all of the saga will come as no surprise, but the lackluster telling suggests the John Smith character didn’t have long legs: another TV adaptation followed two years after the publication of this novel and that was the end of the afore named ‘Private I’.

 

So, what entails within the pages of FOREIGN EXCHANGE? Well, not a great deal. Smith eulogises about the pitfalls of life, he drinks an awful lot, he prowls effectively around London and ineffectually around Moscow, he gets slammed in a Soviet prison, he espouses constant wry observations and it all makes for a burdensome read.

 

Sangster really hasn’t grasped the mettle with this one. Smith doesn’t like violence, we know that, and the lack of it doesn’t spoil a story already lacking tension, but if a thriller is going to succeed it at least ought to have some intrigue and this book fails in that regard too. Once again Sangster telegraphs what is to occur with a brief prologue, mapping out the basic path of the novel from early on, and lets it unfold until the inevitable climatic twist or three. Indeed it is only in the final chapter that, Agatha Christie like, Smith uncovers the true aim of Max’s plans. The end becomes all at once swift and dull and impossibly convoluted. I wasn’t sure all this double agent / double speak / doubtful secrets malarkey wasn’t being pushed a little too far.

 

Perhaps where the novel really falters is in its locations. London is fine. Sangster describes it in an off-hand sleazy vein which fits well with Smith’s down at heel private eye. These scenes, even if they lack suspense, do have a certain grimy sparkle. Some areas of the city still have restaurants, pubs and council estates populated with the kind of people resembling those he describes. It feels exceptionally real.

 

The stuff in Moscow meanwhile inhabits a totally different world. While impersonating a tractor salesman for a Union Trade Delegation, Smith stays permanently drunk and it’s unbelievable he’s be able to conduct his spying mission so thoroughly before he’s caught. The descriptions of Soviet era Russia read as if they were culled from a reference book: trains, dachas, theatres and bleak single cells manned uniformly by bear-like prison guards. There’s a passable villain in Colonel Borensko, but he’s only window dressing, like the places Smith is shifted endlessly to and from. There’s no atmosphere to these passages and with only the hero’s slovenly attitude to propel the narrative a short story becomes a very long read.

 

FOREIGN EXCHANGE is something of a disappointment. Retreading the familiar so quickly doesn’t always work and as if to demonstrate Sangster rather foolishly replays a whole scene from ‘Private I’ where Smith procures a gun from a Jewish gangster. This kind of writing isn’t an oversight, so much as sheer laziness. A year later, Sangster changed tack and created that sexy stewardess Katy Touchfeather. I’m half tempted to re-read her adventures to get over this somewhat dismal display.

 

Edited by chrisno1, 01 June 2015 - 04:34 PM.

[chrisno1]

Foreign Exchange

(1969)

 

The same team that made ‘The Spy Killer’ resumed business a year later to make FOREIGN EXCHANGE, also for ABC television. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to source a complete copy of this movie and there is only a brief thirteen minute clip on You Tube,

so I can’t make any assumptions.

 

I will say that it appears in much the same grimy mode as the first film and the main players stay in their persona's without so much as a missed pulse. It’s as if nothing in John Smith’s world changes. He even keeps the same theme song.

 

What I saw intrigued me a little more than ‘The Spy Killer’ for several reasons. First, John Smith’s private life is more developed; his apartment is untidy, he’s settled into an uneasy relationship with Mary, he drinks and gets hangovers. None of this was on view in the first movie, which seemed to take the knowledge for granted and therefore missed out huge chunks of the novel’s character development. Second, the intriguing friendship with a young chanteuse, Anne Ballard, is completely written out. While this wouldn’t necessarily be a problem, it surely must reduce the impact of Smith’s soul searching for in the novel he dreamily pieces together a future with her, while his relationship with Mary teeters on the edge of destruction. Lastly, like the book, there is a short prelude which takes place in a Russian prison and adds a nervous tension to the proceedings; the audience want to know what’s happening and why. This extended suspense was totally missing from ‘The Spy Killer’, which was very conventional.

 

Overall it looks a decent enough movie which, in reverse to ‘Private I’ & ‘The Spy Killer’, might be better than the book it’s based on.

 

This clip is available on You Tube:

 

 

 

[Blofeld's Cat]

 

 

Interesting to find out that both of these movies were an ABC "Movie of the Week" in the US.

 

https://en.wikipedia...vie_of_the_Week

 

I need to track down better and complete versions of these.

 

Many thanks for the reviews and info.   

[Major Tallon]

I recall seeing both of these back in the day, but I really don't recall much about them (apart from Jill St. John, of course).

[Blofeld's Cat]

Actually, I have the book "The ABC Movie of the Week: Big Movies for the Small Screen" by Michael McKenna and the entries for both of these movies states.....

 

 

The Spy Killer, Tuesday, November 11, 1969:

This complex espionage drama features John Smith, a former CIA officer who is now working in London as a private investigator. Smith is approached by his ex-wife to collect evidence for her pending divorce. In the process of collecting information, Smith is accused of killing the ex-wife’s husband. Smith’s former spymaster offers to erase the murder charge if he will find a mysterious notebook that contains the names of fifteen U.S. agents working in Red China. The pursuit of the notebook reveals a duplicitous and dangerous world of international espionage.

 

 

 

Foreign Exchange, Tuesday, January 13, 1970:

A sequel to an earlier MOW, The Spy Killer , with largely the same cast of characters. In this episode, super spy John Smith is compelled to go to the Soviet Union and allow himself to be captured by communist authorities. The plan is that, once in custody, Smith will become part of a prisoner exchange in which a Soviet spy will be traded for Smith. In reality, the Soviet will be a Western plant, who will then be well positioned to send information back to the West. The problem is that before the swap can be made, the prospective double agent dies, leaving Smith trapped in the Soviet Union.

 

 

Whether in TV or feature film, the most conventional of the Cold War genre films is the espionage tale. Season one featured two pure spy movies with a continuing narrative and recurring characters. The first of these films was The Spy Killer (November 11, 1969), starring Robert Horton as John Smith, a former British Secret Service agent who retired to a quiet life as a private investigator in London. His placid life is upended when Smith’s ex-wife asks him to investigate and document her current husband’s alleged homosexual affair. Smith enters the man’s apartment to gather evidence, only to find him murdered. Almost simultaneously, the police arrive to find Smith and the dead man, resulting in Smith’s arrest for murder. While in custody, Smith is contacted by the head of the British Intelligence Service who offers him a deal. If Smith will help procure a missing notebook containing the names of Western agents in communist China, he will be cleared of the murder charge. With the help of his girlfriend, Mary (Jill St. John), Smith navigates a labyrinth of twists and deceptions as he competes with communist agents who want the notebook as well. The resolution finds Smith battered and bruised, but successful.

 

Two months later, on January 13, 1970, the MOW aired a sequel to the Spy Killer, titled Foreign Exchange. The major actors and their characters return for a second complex spy tale. In this episode, Smith has returned to his career as a private investigator and his private life with his girlfriend Mary. His life will be upended once more when the head of the British Intelligence Service again comes calling; this time Mary is threatened with deportation from England unless Smith will take another espionage mission. In this sequel the British have turned a Soviet spy into a double agent who is willing to return to Moscow to acquire information for the Western powers. To add credibility to their double agent, the British have arrested the man as a Soviet spy, with a plan to exchange him for a Western spy. This is where Smith enters; he has agreed to go to Moscow and be arrested as the Western spy, so that he can be exchanged for the British double agent. Unfortunately, before the spy swap can be made, the British double agent dies, leaving them with no one to trade for Smith, who has already been arrested in Moscow. The head of British Intelligence refuses to help Smith, leaving him to escape from a Siberian prison camp on his own. While Smith does survive once again, this is the last installment of the spy saga.

[chrisno1]

Thanks for that extra detail, Bloefeld's Cat.

The summaries are fairly accurate. The one for 'Foreign Exchange' mentions an escape form a Siberian prison camp. This is intriguing as that sequence doesn't feature in the novel - Smith is about to be sent to Siberia but never gets there - so perhaps the second movie veers further from the original source than just excluding Anne Ballard.

Interesting they don't mention the novel's they are based on, even though the credits quote 'screenplay and novel by Jimmy Sangster' but I guess that wasn't really the point of the review.