User reviews

A light and completely inoffensive spy spoof, To Catch A Spy is not the kind of film that demands high calibre acting talent. Yet for reasons best known to themselves, established stars like Kirk Douglas, Trevor Howard, Marlene Jobert and Tom Courtenay lend their skills to this 1971 potboiler, making it seem a bigger and better picture than it really is. The first three quarters of the movie are virtually a total loss, with dispirited plotting and pacing, but it perks up into something resembling life during the final quarter as the action shifts to a secluded, deserted Scottish hotel. By this time, most viewers will have given up the ghost - but for the handful still watching these climactic scenes are actually quite amusing.

Married couple Fabienne (Marlene Jobert) and John (Patrick Mower) are honeymooning in Bucharest when the latter is arrested by the secret police. The anxious Fabienne is forced to return to Britain without him. Meanwhile, it is revealed to the viewers that John is actually a spy working for the Russians, and that his arrest was just an elaborate deception created so that they could contact him. Fabienne is duped into believing that John is now a hostage, his only hope of release being that the British secret service might release one of their Russian prisoners in exchange for him. Still unaware of the double-cross, Fabienne works tirelessly with her uncle Sir Trevor (Trevor Howard) - a foreign office diplomat - to get the British government to trade a Russian spy for her husband. Just when it seems that a deal has been struck, the spy they choose to bargain with is accidentally killed. Fabienne instead sets her sights on Romanian spy Andrej (Kirk Douglas), but as she tries desperately to trap him in order to use him in the exchange, she discovers herself to be falling in love with him. All is resolved in a last-minute revelation at an exchange-rendezvous-point near the Iron Curtain.

To Catch A Spy was penned by the expert comedy script duo Ian La Frenais and Dick Clement (the latter also directed), but they seem to be having an off-day. The film looks terribly dated, with a storyline that resurrects all the clichés of the spy movies and caper movies that were popular at the time. Of the main actors, Tom Courtenay registers best, providing some mirth as an inept agent. The others don't disgrace themselves, but they're stuck with nothing roles and can't really get across characterisations worth caring about. The film is occasionally pleasing to the eye, with some interesting locations, but on the whole it is a rather uninspired and unremarkable time killer. Everyone involved has certainly done much better.

In one scene where French starlet Marlène Jobert plugs her nose for a mousy-sounding voice to thwart cat-and-mouse counterpart Kirk Douglas, it's actually less annoying than her real one...

But she's super cute, probably all that mattered to director Dick Clement in his spy-spoof followup to the spy-spoof OTLEY that starred Tom Courtenay in his penultimate big-screen role until THE DRESSER...

Herein Tom's a bumbling spy trying to follow before befriending Jobert; the latter (whose pop Trevor Howard is vastly underused) on a honeymoon interrupted by her enigmatic husband's arrest, connected to Douglas's vain attempts to retrieve Russian microfilm from the couple's luggage...

And while Kirk's not bad doing lightweight action/comedy, his role should have gone to Courtenay, not only befitting the slapdash pace but with far better chemistry with Jobert, who Douglas seems to be babysitting (as opposed to parenthetically romancing) throughout this semi-entertaining yet entirely-uneven cold war romp.

This terrible little film is clearly among the worst Kirk Douglas ever made. It's not as bad as "Saturn 3"...but what is?!

When the film begins, a couple in honeymooning in Bucharest (???). What they don't realize is that the guy working in the hotel is NOT an employee but a smuggler (Kirk Douglas). Because of his actions, the husband is arrested and his wife (Marlène Jobert) is left wondering what happened. Even though it makes no sense at all, she later ends up handcuffed with the smuggler and then on the run with him...and it's all supposed to be kooky and romantic. Well, to me it just comes off as annoying and nonsensical...and Jobert's voice often grated on me. The smuggler says at one point "...you are such a child"...and her voice does sometimes sound like one. Poorly written, poorly acted and boring.

When the Citadel Film Series book The Films Of Kirk Douglas was first issued, To Catch A Spy had been released in Europe, but not in America. It seems to have had very limited showings on this side of the pond.

The film is a lightweight spoof of the Cold War with Marlene Joubet a French girl married to a British subject trying desperately hard to get her husband back who has been arrested for espionage. Turns out he's made a deal with the Soviets and was deliberately arrested so they could affect a prisoner exchange. When the original exchange doesn't work out due to the most hilarious sequence in the film, Joubet looks to affect her own exchange and settles on Kirk Douglas, a most mysterious Romanian who keeps showing up all the time. She has to because her uncle, a member of Parliament played by Trevor Howard can't seem to close the deal.

Some nice location shooting in several spots in Europe is the best thing this film. The players look truly bored with this project and just phone in the performances.

To Catch A Spy will never make anyone's top 10 list of best Kirk Douglas films.

You wouldn't guess from this film that the writers were amongst the most talented in the UK.Also come to it what is Kirk Douglas doing.Was he that desperate for work.Robert comes across best though it is not much of a contest.Avoid this.

: Kirk Douglas is wandering around the diplomatic parties looking for something. As spies are arrested -- including Marlène Jobert's husband, Patrick Mower -- Douglas approaches the lady and asks her how much she wants for 'the goods'. Soon, they are captured by Soviet agents and fleeing.

This is a comedy starring Kirk Douglas. Director Dick Clement said

Kirk Douglas requested a meeting before filming started. "Being an American, Douglas got straight to the point. He said I can't play comedy. And do you know what - he couldn't.".

I confirm that. Douglas was a fine dramatic actor, but his few attempts at comedy are astonishingly dull. As is this movie, which steals heavily. In one sequence clearly lifted from The 39 Steps, Douglas and MlleJobert are fleeing from the bad guys and hole up at an abandoned hotel in Scotland, where they fall in love. Douglas is not in the least entertaining.

As is the rest of this movie. Trevor Howard, who could play comedy, has a rant about homosexuals. It all ends in a chase which is frantic, rather than funny.

There is some lovely location shooting by DP Christopher Challis. But if you're looking for a comedy, look elsewhere.

Jobert's Gallic charm radiates through her voice, eyes and mannerisms. Kirk Douglas seems to look disheartened at his role. He appears flat and strained at times. He does have his moments. Douglas tells a very funny joke to Fabièn (Jobert) about Russian researchers determining the age of a mummy.

A few scenes seem stolen from Jobert's Rider On the Rain (of particular note hiding in the closet and being discovered, peering through a shop window). Jobert's comedic talent comes easily and properly dovetails into the serious aspects of the plot. Sir Trevor's scene stealing butler is absolutely hilarious and rivals Tom Courteny's role as the bungling spy. While the plot may seem a tad contrived, it comes across quite well, if one takes the time to relax and be entertained. The ending does leave you with the feeling that there should have been a sequel. Like "Rider On the Rain", her on-screen husband comes across unappreciative of having a loyal and dedicated beauty such as Jobert for a wife. Also reflecting the cold war times , you have lies, counter-lies and disinformation battering the truth.

Overall, you may find yourself watching this movie a few times for the sheer fun of it!

In general, I don't usually go in for Cold War dramas. It's just not my generation, so I can't get into the mindset of those who took it desperately seriously, just as I'm sure those in the next generation won't be able to understand movies taking place in the "old '90s". With that disclaimer, I was fully prepared to dislike Catch Me a Spy, and to stick it through for the sake of Kirk Douglas. Boy, was I wrong! It's now one of my favorite of his movies!

First off, it may take place during the Cold War, but this movie is not a drama. It's a delightful, hilarious spoof on the very tired dramatic genre. Dick Clement, co-writer and director, must have known audiences were tired of the same old "Russians are bad, secret spying" movie. I was especially impressed by the humor of this movie, because I would have expected it to rely on silly 60s gags, like John Goldfarb, Please Come Home. Instead, it's a thoroughly planned, adorable situational comedy.

The comic timing and chemistry between the cast is fantastic. He's been paired up with many leading ladies, but I've never seen Kirk Douglas as vibrant and all-around cute as he is with Marlène Jobert in Catch Me a Spy. They are so darling together! I could write out every sweet and sizzling scene they share together, but that would take up too much room. Just watch it for yourself and get ready to giggle.

Obviously, I highly recommend this movie. It'll cheer you up when you're blue, give you a laugh on a sunny afternoon, and make a great atmosphere for date night. Plus, if it won me over and I don't even like these types of movies, you know it's great!

An amusing and adventurous espionage caper from the early-'70s. I like some of the imagery - the scenes filmed at Loch Leven, Perth & Kinross and Oban (?) are evocative and show the bleak beauty of Scotland. The adventure film ''Kidnapped'' was filmed nearby at roughly the same time at Stirling and Loch Fyne faeturing cockney actor Michael Caine. Those years '71-72 had a strangely ''Caledonian-ish'' feel. Auburn-haired, steely-eyed, lantern-jawed US actor, Kirk Douglas as ''Andrej'' a Rumanian spy is very good and is adept at comedy. He had recently been in the compelling adventure film ''The Light at the Edge of the World'' which was produced in Spain in the autumn of 1970. Some of the comedy scenes have a Python-esque sense of slapstick. Patrick Mower (''Emmerdale Farm'') is good. The writers, Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais are famous for brilliant '70s tv comedies ''Porridge'' and ''Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads''. Gaunt, darkhaired Swiss-born White-Russian actor Sascha Pitoeff is very good too.