The Spies

In 1957 the Cold War was in full swing, "The Bomb" was a thing of terror, the arms race was still a brand new concept and international paranoia was running rampant. It was the perfect atmosphere for Henri-Georges Clouzot to release LES ESPIONS (THE SPIES) upon the world. A less celebrated film than the director's other films of the period, THE SPIES nevertheless wages a war of nerves upon a level equal to that in THE WAGES OF FEAR or DIABOLIQUE, and keeps its sense of humour as well.

Running out of patients, money and hope, psychiatrist Dr. Malik (Gérard Séty) makes a deal with the devil. In this case the devil presents himself as an American Intelligence Officer (Paul Carpenter) who offers five million francs if Malik will keep a special guest, identified only as "Alex", for a few days at his rundown sanitarium. Malik is told that this person is of interest to foreign powers and that there may be strangers looking for him. The desperate Malik accepts one million francs as a deposit, a bundle of bills that grows increasingly heavy as he awakes the next morning to find that his staff has been enigmatically replaced during the night and that the strangers he was forewarned of have begun popping up even before the arrival of the mysterious "Alex".

From this point on neither Malik, nor the audience, know what is true or who to believe. Both the friendly American, Mr. Cooper, (Sam Jaffe) and the affable Eastern European, Kiminsky, (Peter Ustinov) ooze menace from the chinks in their veneer of civility, and nothing and no one can be trusted - not the child playing in the road, the bartender across the street and certainly not the mysterious Alex (Curd Jürgens) hiding his identity behind dark glasses and leather gloves. Yet, for everyone involved except Malik, all of this is business as usual, and the sheer ridiculousness of this contrast brings a dark humour to the proceedings.

In fact the greatest weakness of THE SPIES comes in the film's last fifteen minutes, when Clouzot unwisely lifts the veil of uncertainty and makes all clear. There is no great revelation that stuns the audience, only explanation which washes away the wonderfully absurd grays that have fuelled the film up to this point, in favour of a black and white clarity that weakens the film. Clouzot attempts in the film's final two scenes to recover what he imprudently surrendered a dozen minutes earlier, but THE SPIES would have been a far finer film if the last reel had never existed.

Less easily seen than some of Clouzot's other work, THE SPIES has been given a respectable release on DVD in the UK.

Les Espions or "Spies" as it was released here in the US in '58 is both a crazy film and a crazily efficient film. Its one of these movies that somehow manages to work as both a genre spy film AND a parody of the genre spy film at the same time. Oh don't get me wrong--it is NOT a comedy, but again both a straightforward and at times (especially in the second half) circular ride about the various secret agents, double agent spies, and possibly murderous triple agents that suddenly start to wreck havoc on the everyday life of this doctor/manager of a local mental hospital. This poor guy is getting drunk in his local pub one night and rather groggily moaning about how local politics are ruining the lives of his honest poor working countrymen but nobody's got enough common sense to either set the politicians straight or are too corrupt themselves to do anything for anyone else---somehow this is enough for this one other guy there to make the drunk doctor an offer he can't refuse---see he's a secret agent with a secret division and he will pay the good doctor a million dollars to shelter this east German defector who's got some sort of nuclear secret weapon or something that will change the fate of their country, blah, blah, blah but he's got to protect him from everyone who will come after him--the doctor more or less agrees when he sees the million dollars stuffed into his pocket and more or less stops listening, goes home, passes out, and wakes up to find....his staff has been replaced by two henchmen and a very intimidating woman who all insist they're working for the secret agent.

Doctor soon finds patients who all insist they're working for the secret agent, barflies in his favorite bar who all insist they're working for the secret agent, neighboors wandering around the grounds of the hospital who all insist they're working for the secret agent...and well an entire community seemingly made out of nothing but professional "spies" all set on inserting themselves into the life of this good doctor. Before too long the actual German guy himself turns up and who of course will turn out to be...well i'm not going to say.

Who can the poor doctor trust? Nobody but the mute woman who seems to have a rather large crush on our good doctor and the heavily sedated gastric patient who were both there before the night the secret agent made him this million dollar propisition it seems. This doesn't stop hefty, overly friendly, and creepily passive aggressive Russian Peter Ustinov--and a constantly rationalizing and fear mongering older professor from constantly turning up and explaining to the good doctor just what is what and whom is whom, and generally causing confusion. When the German man does turn up and the doctor does do his best to shelter him amidst the serious chaos. (even tho the German man can very much take care of himself--way way better then the well meaning but completely over his head good doctor can) and well things just spiral more and more out of control plot wise from there. Suffice it to say that the three people i just mentioned in addition to the fake receptionist are all serving cross purposes and are constantly leaving red herrings and massive doublespeak in their wake causing the good doctor to have a hard time trying to keep up with what the latest info is that he needs to know.

This is all actually fun for a good hour or so but then the film more or less descends into a little bit of confusion as too many things the various people are telling the good doctor are taken to be the truth or taken to be lies. I realize the fun is supposed to be in figuring out the truth alongside the good doctor but when he eventually does and tries to do everything he can about it---it all starts to seem rather pointless. Also the longer this goes on the more you want to ask yourself exactly why is he still trying to get this all straight again? the money is already in your pocket bro--just take it and run! (which is of course exactly why the first secet agent picked him in the bar back in the beginning) Questions about motivation aside--the ending leaves you with a good nasty jolt, and that queasy expression you see on the good doctor's face will definitely mirror your own as the deeper implications of the doctor's position at the end of the movie sink in. Of course I don't actually know if that will be as true for you as it was for me, i thought it was a really effective ending---but I also really like ironic Twilight Zone style endings in which the hero doesn't exactly get what he wants but sort of achieves his goals even if they're far different then the way he'd imagined it to be. Its not exactly a realistic ending cause i doubt anything in this movie is realistic but i feel like its a smarter ending then most of the espionage movies of this era usually get, its an ending that's actually quite worthy of the best of Hitchcock himself (of whose work this movie truly and seriously resembles) (on a side note this movie also more or less reminds me as a whole of the long forgotten 1980's Donald Sutherland spy caper "The Trouble With Spies" which while played for laughs does in fact echo this plot in several key ways.)

The head doctor of a failing sanatorium accepts a million francs from a mysterious government agent to harbour a new fake patient. This new inmate is said to be an inventor of a new devastating nuclear device, as a consequence, a swarm of international spies are drawn to the hospital.

Les Espions is a film directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot who was tagged as the French Hitchcock before that term was applied later to Claude Chabrol. He rose to prominence with films such as the suspense classic Les Diaboliques (1955). Les Espions is a much less well-known film, in fairness this is probably partially as a result of it being a less successful end product. It has a much more ambiguous tone to it, with it starting out for the most part as a black comedy, which by the end turns deadly serious. It's an unusual combination and one which I'm not sure entirely works, with the sillier story elements working against the more serious undertones. I actually thought the ending was very good and the darker aspects more successful but I felt they were lessened a little by the more light-hearted comic tone that made up much of the earlier part of the film, which was a sort of spies vs. spies scenario with the hapless doctor in the middle constantly wondering who can be trusted? I think this is one of those movies which would be improved on a re-watch, given that once you know what it isn't as much as what it is, I expect it will be much easier to get into its rhythm and get on board with its unusual tone. On first viewing I found this to be somewhat uneven, yet aspects of it definitely left me intrigued. Even if the whole doesn't fit together perfectly, this is still certainly a film with a bit of originality.

Master Clouzot strikes again as in le Corbeau, another master piece which is invisible today. During some good old days French TV was showing these master pieces. Now, these master pieces are worth of a sacrifice from the all mighty editing firms and should be availiable to connoisseurs!

Following the commercial failure of 'Mystere Picasso', director Henri-Georges Clouzot turned to a cold war thriller by Czech writer Egon Hoskovsky. I have not read the novel so cannot judge just how loose an adaptation it is. According to Stanislas Steeman with whom he worked twice, Clouzot ''would build something having demolished any resemblance to the original.''

This is not great Clouzot to be sure but still has touches of a master film-maker with his grasp of 'light' and pacing. There is of course the blacker-than-black humour and the usual collection of colourful but morally vacuous characters played here by some of the best in the business.

Into Dr. Malic's delapidated psychiatric clinic come Peter Ustinov as Kaminsky and Sam Jaffe as Cooper, both of them spies posing as patients and Martita Hunt, another spy, posing as a replacement nurse. There are two genuine patients in residence one of whom is a morphine addict and the other a deaf-mute. Curd Jurgens turns up as Alex but he might actually be Vogel, a nuclear scientist whose dreadful new formula is the 'Macguffin' everyone is after. The real Vogel turns up towards the end in the person of the excellent 0. E. Hasse.

I am impressed with the excellent French of Sam Jaffe and Martita Hunt who are mercifully not 'dubbed'. Miss Hunt's portrayal is outrageous and utterly riveting. The performance that lingers longest is that of Clouzot's then wife Vera who is simply stunning as Lucie the deaf-mute.

One does not really know whether the changes of tone from satire to dark drama here are intentional or accidental and although they can be somewhat disorientating, this bizarre film still succeeds as a piece of entertainment.

Following the excellent 'La Verité' nothing would ever be the same for Clouzot after the sudden death of Vera in 1960 and the totally unjustified criticisms of his work from the arrogant New Ripple brigade.

It is said that a work of art reflects its creator. What that says about Henri-Georges Clouzot the man I shudder to think but let us be grateful for the films this complex individual has given us.