'The Assassination Bureau' is a very interesting British movie from 1968, with ties to Jack London, Joseph Conrad, and even James Bond. A light and frothy movie with a delightful art nouveau style, it was made just as the English film industry was about to fall apart. Some of that it is reflected in the movie; more on that later. While a dark comedy, it concerns a very important part of history from which the contemporary world might learn important lessons. Bottom line, we have a very entertaining movie with an interesting back story that represents a fascinating bit of world history.
Political action world wide took a violent turn starting in 1881, with the assassination of US President Garfield and Russian Tsar Alexander II. For the next thirty to forty years, random violence of the type that we have become immune to in the modern world racked both the US and Europe. Italy, France, and especially Spain seemed to be prone to political violence, often by anarchists. In 1901, President McKinley was shot to death by a self-proclaimed anarchist in Buffalo, NY.
The first major work of literary merit written in response to the proliferation of violence was written by Joseph Conrad. Conrad was Polish by birth, learning to read and write English as an adult. His early work, such as 'Heart of Darkness' and 'Lord Jim' are highly thought of but didn't sell. Later works, like 'The Arrow of Gold' and The Rescue', sold like hot cakes but don't have much of a reputation today. Between those periods, Conrad wrote a couple of political novels, 'The Secret Agent' and 'Under Western Eyes'.
'The Secret Agent' from 1906 coined the tern 'secret agent', although the person involved is a far cry from the debonair version of the 1960s and beyond. The plot of the novel is about an agent provocateur planted in a cell of anarchists who is urged to blow up the Greenwich Observatory. Things don't go as planned. The outcome is grim; that seems to be the point of the book, to made violent political action unappealing. It was made into a successful British film in 1936 by Alfred Hitchcock called 'Sabotage' (to confuse things, there is a Hitchcock movie called 'Secret Agent' but it is completely different).
Jack London was the most successful American author immediately after the death of Mark Twain. A rags to riches story, London was known mostly as a masculine outdoorsman, writer of 'Call of the Wild' and 'White Fang'. London was much more complicated than that, writing everything from science fiction to political muckraking non-fiction. Part of the San Francisco Bohemian group, he was also into wife swapping, massive quantities of alcohol, and taking drugs, particularly morphine and strychnine. Getting high from strychnine is like getting drunk on gasoline; you might accomplish the task, but the side effects are horrific.
Before committing suicide - or dying of alcoholism - or dying of strychnine poisoning (take your pick, there's a controversy here), London bought a plot idea from his good friend and fellow socialist, Upton Sinclair. Starting on the novel, he abandoned it after 20,000 words, having trouble with the ending. Many years after his death, the book was finished in a more humorous way by Robert L. Fish in 1963. It is minor London but still interesting, especially in relations to the politics of London's times.
The plot of the novel concerns a group who will commit assassinations for money, but only if the subject is corrupt and worthy of execution. The organization itself has been corrupted, and the leader is contracted to kill himself. The entire plot takes place in America among the Captains of Industry and other wealthy people. Considering the Haymaker Riots and other strings of Anarchist events shocking the nation at the time, it seems to be a way of making sense of chaos by creating a superstructure responsible for the chaos.
Shortly after it's very belated appearance, it was made into a major motion picture by producer Michael Relph, with Basil Dearden, a distinguished director, at the helm. Shortened to 'The Assassination Bureau', it improves upon the plot, moving the action to the same time period but in Europe, where intra-country intrigue and espionage add excitement, while changing the character of the journalist into a woman. Both greatly enhance the story, but the real strength in the film is definitely the casting.
Diana Riggs is at her most attractive, right after her stint in 'The Avengers, immediately before 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service'. The man who played the villain in the later, Telly Savalas, the best Blofeld by far, also has a major part. The male lead is Oliver Reed at his smirking best, dangerous but attractive, before he disappeared into alcoholism. After all, this was a man who publicly stated that his goal in life was to drain every bar dry that he ever set foot in.
The movie is a quality production most of the time, a steam punk version of James Bond, art Nouveau hi jinx running across turn-of-the-century Europe. True, Telly Savalas is completely unconvincing as a Lord, not even trying for an English accent. But he is so charming, in command of the role, that it doesn't matter. Reed strikes the perfect balance between seductive and deadly as the head of the Bureau, a man who must be dangerous yet still alluring. There is also a cast of quality actors and actresses assuming every European nationality in the most non-politically correct way.
The movie sets up the complicated politics of a powder keg Europe quickly and amusingly, then jumps right into the dilemma of the plot. This is not a movie that goes in a straight line; it is up to the charm and acting skills of the cast. Diana Riggs in particular, to sell it to the audience. Miss Riggs must be sexy still Victorian, prim but progressive. She is more than up to the task as a woman suffragette trying to make it as a journalist.
This is a post-Bond film, so the writers add another layer of intrigue, with Telly Savalas as the real mastermind, both seizing on the opportunity and ramping it up. He wants to use the organization to control European politics through a rein of terror, not just kill corrupt leaders. The main body of the movie is the duel of wits between Reed, running around various cities on the continent trying to avoid being murdered, and Savalas, working behind the scenes through the other members of the Bureau to achieve his own goals. This gives Reed plenty of opportunity for physical action when needed.
The delightful fly in the ointment is Diana Riggs, playing a suffragette reporter perhaps borrowed from Natalie Wood's role in Blake Edwards' 'The Great Race'. She is not as physical here as in 'The Avengers', with her karate moves in tight leather outfits, or as the doomed Countess in 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service'. Instead, she insists on getting into the thick of the action, then finding herself both physically and morally incapable of dealing with the situation. This is best done during the first of the set pieces, which takes place in a Paris Bordello.
The deadpan black humor of the movie is established right there; slightly sexual, casually violent, deeply amoral. In trying to expose the Assassination Bureau, she becomes the agent of change, turning it from a relatively benevolent group who insist on justification for their murders to a terrorist organization using death to consolidate power. Reed protects her in his own way, making her suffer enough to understand the situation that she has put him in. Along the way, there is room for some great comedy.
My favorite actor in the piece is Curt Jurgens, who plays his part so broadly that he takes it into Monty Python territory. The attempted assassination with a giant sausage in Vienna is hysterical, bodies flying back and forth through doors, people dancing madly in the restaurant while Jurgens, in a ludicrous disguise, tries to deliver the deadly bratwurst. Again, it is the deadpan nature of everyone else that makes it so damned funny. Jurgens could act in eight different languages and an accomplished stage actor, but for this role he threw caution to the wind.
The long set piece in Venice is where some of the financial cracks start to show in the movie. Most of the scenes are stages built in England combined with blue screened actors. This was common practice back then, but the special effects are not done very well; Hitchcock was famous for his obvious rear projection scenes. Even the early James Bond films use that technique in all the driving close ups. It was a common practice that was acceptable back them but sticks out like a sore thumb today.
The James Bond comparisons are most evident in 'The Assassination Bureau', and it does a better job of doing a spy/action film in an earlier time period than 'Wild, Wild West'. However, Bond films usually have hundreds of miniature shots in them; every big set has a corresponding smaller version, every explosion is done with a miniature car, plane, or boat on a miniature set. "The Assassination Bureau' does have a miniature zeppelin, which is featured prominently in the climax of the movie, but they superimpose it in the sky over a real castle instead of building a smaller version. This looks very unconvincing today and is a distraction.
The special effects guru who worked for the Bond films - over a dozen - was Derek Meddings. He learned his trade on the super-campy television series 'Thunderbirds', done entirely with puppets, skillfully parodied in 'Team America; World Police'. Everything was a scaled down set. His miniatures are flawless enough to be invisible, the secret of great special effects before CGI. They only worked when you don't notice them, thinking it a visual continuation of the story flow.
The British film industry after the Second World War increasingly became, except at the lowest 'Carry On' level, a subset of Hollywood. There was always American money and usually American producers for anything with a decent budget. Even the Bond films were produced by an American, Cubby Broccoli, and a Canadian, Harry Salzman. In 'The Assassination Bureau', with prominent roles for Austrian and French actors, it looks like the money was raised on the Continent. Unfortunately, they ran out of sufficient funds to make the conclusion work, despite the fine acting and intelligent script. A miniature castle would have made all the difference here.
This movie was produced at a very important juncture in the Bond franchise; Sean Connery had finished his initial run of five pictures, declining to continue. Panicked, the producers went on a well-publicized search for a replacement, choosing a male model from Australia, George Lazenby. Not being an actor, they surrounded him with an exceptionally fine cast, including Diana Riggs as his love interest and Telly Savalas as the most charming villain. This unbalanced the film away from the protagonist; when Lazenby found that his line readings were being dubbed by another actor, he revolted and left the franchise.
What if, instead of going for a clothes horse out of his depth, the Bond franchise had gone with a more dangerous choice and used Oliver Reed? He has the brooding physicality and inert danger that the young Sean Connery possessed, years away from meeting Keith Moon on the set of 'Tommy' and drowning himself in a sea of booze. There would have been no use for the effective but bland Roger Moore to step in and save the franchise in the 1970s, steering the spy pictures into middle-of-the-road territory. It could have been a Bond for the changing times instead of an old school spy.
The idea is not as crazy as it sounds; decades later, Daniel Craig, a similarly unconventional leading man, was brought in to rebuild the Bond brand. In the original Ian Fleming novels, Bond is a very different protagonist, often in despair, alcoholic, full of self-doubt. Only recently has the franchise gone anywhere near that emotional territory. Oliver Reed could have been a cutting edge Cold Warrior during the turbulent cultural shift of the late 1960s / early 1970s.
There are even more Bond references in this story. Ian Fleming built upon ideas first brought to the public's attention by Joseph Conrad in 'The Secret Agent', but with more flair, style, and sadism. Fleming had been in the British spy service during the Second World War, basing his character largely on the exploits of one man, Sydney Reilly, the famous Ace of Spies. Reilly's story is too complicated to go into here; I would recommend a quick reading of his Wikipedia page. It is frankly unbelievable but true. Reilly was exactly the type of agent provocateur who would have fit in with the Assassination Bureau.
There is an excellent 1983 British television series, 'Reilly: Ace of Spies' that outlines his exploits. It stars Sam Neill, good as always, who was in serious contention for the role of James Bond when Roger Moore died. You can even see his screen test in the special features of 'The Living Daylights', although the role went to Timothy Dalton. Again, who knows where the franchise might have shifted if another actor had been chosen?
James Bond was an amalgamation of cultural trends, including Conrad's secret agent and the fiendish plots (and racism) of Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu. The difference between the books and the movies is typical of the difference between those mediums, the later jettisoning the subtleties of the former. The Bond film was based on the Alfred Hitchcock model, specifically the wrong man being chased across the landscape that first appeared in 'The 39 Steps', refined in 'Foreign Correspondent' and 'Saboteur', and perfected in 'North By Northwest'. In fact, the original pitch for the first Bond film was for Hitchcock to direct and Cary Grant to star, but proven way too expensive.
Hitchcock did not invent the spy film; that honor would go to Fritz Lang, especially in the Dr. Mabuse films, but also in the 1928 German silent film simply titled 'Spies'. Most Americans don't know about Dr. Mabuse, who appeared in a series of German films starting in 1922. The most famous one, 'The Testament of Dr. Mabuse' from 1933, was a powerful enough anti-Nazi statement to cause Lang to flee Germany after a sit down with Goebbels. Returning to Germany after a quarter century exile in Hollywood, Lang's last picture was another Mabuse film that kicked off a series that predated the Bond pictures while curiously mirroring their content.
Lang retired after the 1960's 'The Thousand Eyes of Dr. Mabuse' but the character lived on. He was born out of the same desperate attempt to make sense of the seemingly out-of-control current events by creating a master plan that spawned 'The Assassination Bureau'. That same desire can be seen constantly on the internet; a sprawling, never ending collection of conspiracy theories about the Illuminati, the Zionists, the New World Order, or whatever floats your boat today. Events can't ber random; there must be a central intelligence behind it all.
An astute observer might have noticed that some of the plot points behind 'The Assassination Bureau' turned up in the second Robert Downey Jr ' Jude Law Sherlock Holmes vehicle, 'Game of Shadows'. Moriarty, Conan Doyle's 'Napoleon of Crime', is now using his powers to influence politics. Specifically, he wants the European countries to erupt into war, where he will profit from the arm sales. That is the exact reasoning behind Telly Savalas' action.
The original novel was aborted by Jack London, then resuscitated half a century later. The movie improved on the plot, had a great script and cast, but fell short in production values to be a real classic. It was part of the James Bond craze of the 1960s, yet reflected the origins of the character and the secret agent craze in ways that I suspect the writers, producers, and directors did not realize. Of all the James Bond knock-off - and there were zillions, especially from Italy and Japan - this one is the most intelligent and challenging, full of black humor and insight into the economics of death.
In America, the media has kept the general population ignorant of the difference between an anarchist, a communist, or a socialist. The important point for the media moguls of today, as it was for the media moguls in the period between 1881 and 1920 ,when the last anarchist atrocity, the bombing of Wall Street, occurred, its that anything but capitalism is a deterrent from their profit centers. Thus, all must be considered un-American. In fact, starting in 1920, there was a Red Scare, with an even more serious one after World War Two, both designed to drive out any 'alternate' thinking from both the government and the entertainment industry. Curiously, it is only in lightweight entertainment like 'The Assassination Bureau' that one finds traces of subversive thought; it is probably there completely by accident.
Today, anarchy is just another commodity on the open market, a word to be bandied around when some young person of intelligence wants to be edgy. The last gasp of real anarchy was the Unabomber; since then, we have lone nuts galore in a gun happy nation willing to commit atrocities simply for fifteen minutes of fame. Sometimes not even that much thought goes into these horrible acts. You can even buy an Anarchy hoodie at Walmart and make a fashion statement, if you so wished. We live in strange times.
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