Spy Story (film)
| Spy Story | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Lindsay Shonteff |
| Based on | Spy Story (1974) by Len Deighton |
| Produced by | Lindsay Shonteff |
| Starring |
|
| Edited by | John Gibson |
| Music by | Roger Wootton |
Production company | Lindsay Shonteff Film Productions |
Release date |
|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
Spy Story is a 1976 British espionage film directed by Lindsay Shonteff and starring Michael Petrovitch, Philip Latham and Don Fellows.[1][2] It is based on the 1974 novel of the same name by Len Deighton.
Plot
Cast
- Michael Petrovitch as Patrick Armstrong
- Philip Latham as Ferdy Foxwell
- Don Fellows as Colonel Schlegel
- Michael Gwynn as Dawlish
- Nicholas Parsons as Ben Toliver
- Toby Robins as Helen Schlegel
- Tessa Wyatt as Sara Shaw
- Derren Nesbitt as Colonel Stok
- Nigel Plaskitt as Mason
- Ciaran Madden as Marjorie
- Bernard Kay as Commander Wheeler
- Paul Maxwell as submarine Captain
- Andrew Downie as MacGregor
- John Forgeham as security guard
- Michael Knowles as milkman
Reception
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Many viewers are ... going to feel cheated by the realist style, the bright colour and the naturalistic sound. At every point where a conventional sequence development seems about to be realised it is abruptly arrested, most obviously in the use of the traditional 'flight into Scotland' trope (cf. The Thirty-Nine Steps) which is abandoned as inexplicably as it begins. Spy Story is, in fact, is the supreme anti-Hitchcock, naturalising the Master's most celebrated and most familiar formal devices so that they are neutralised and exist as figures in a pattern from which emotion, and above all suspense, has been eliminated."[3]
David McGillivray wrote in Screen International: "One way to boost the business of Spy Story would be to offer prizes to those who could prove they understood it. It is, to my mind, incomprehensible from beginning to end. ... This would be unimportant, of course, had the plot been a hook on which to hang the sex and violence usually associated with espionage thilers. But there is none. Author Len Deighton's intention (to which Lindsay Shonteff has adhered slavishly) was to point up the childishness and futility of Secret Services by detailing page upon page of exchanged pleasantries and political shop talk. Much of this is well observed (apparently there is no screenplay credit because Shanteff got his secretary to copy the dialogue direct from the novel), and much is well played, particularly by Don Fellows and the late Michael Gwynn. But unfortunately does not mak for very compulsive viewing."[4]
References
- ^ "Spy Story". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 24 October 2025.
- ^ "BFI | Film & TV Database | Spy Story (1976)". ftvdb.bfi.org.uk. Archived from the original on 5 February 2009. Retrieved 24 October 2025.
- ^ "Spy Story". The Monthly Film Bulletin. 43 (504): 174. 1 January 1976. ProQuest 1305845496.
- ^ McGillivray, David (10 July 1976). "Spy Story". Screen International (44): 16 – via ProQuest.
External links