Lists

Picture of a movie: Across the Pacific
Picture of a movie: Billion Dollar Brain
Picture of a movie: Foreign Intrigue
Picture of a movie: Three Days of the Condor
Picture of a movie: 5 Fingers
Picture of a movie: Ronin
Picture of a movie: The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

7 Movies

SPY Movies

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Picture of a movie: The Whistle Blower
movies

The Whistle Blower

1987
Twenty-eight-year-old idealist Bob Jones is contemplating leaving his position as a Russian translator at Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) as those at the top have issued a new whistle blowing policy, encouraging employees to report any suspicious behavior, in light of the highly publicized case of Ramsay Dodgson, a Soviet spy who was working undetected in the organization for ten years before being caught. Bob does not like the idea of being at the mercy of work colleagues, most, like Dodgson, who he did and does not know. In private, he confides to his father, widowed businessman and retired Navy officer Frank Jones, that part of his want to leave the job, which also entails eavesdropping on private conversations between Soviet officials on a multitude of everyday topics, is that he believes the British, and by association Americans, are just as corrupt as the Russians in how they infiltrate institutions most of the public see as commonplace, this belief to which conservative, patriotic Frank takes offense. After a specific incident, Bob wants to use that whistle blowing policy to report against the operations of the GCHQ, but not knowing to whom. Shortly thereafter, Frank learns that Bob has died from an apparent fall off of his building roof. Frank begins to think that Bob's death was not an accident, but has something to do with whatever Bob was planning on exposing. Knowing no one in high places, Frank, with Bob's girlfriend Cynthia Goodburn helping, goes on a mission of discovery, at his own peril, to find out why his son was killed, which may forever change his view of what he has believed in all his life.
Picture of a movie: Harper
movies

Harper

1966
Lew Harper is a Los Angeles based private investigator whose marriage to Susan Harper, who he still loves, is ending in imminent divorce since she can't stand being second fiddle to his work, which is always taking him away at the most inopportune of times. His latest client is tough talking and physically disabled Elaine Sampson, who wants him to find her wealthy husband, Ralph Sampson, missing now for twenty-four hours, ever since he disappeared at Van Nuys Airport after having just arrived from Vegas. No one seems to like Ralph, Elaine included. She believes he is cavorting with another woman. Harper got the case on the recommendation of the Sampsons' lawyer and Harper's personal friend, milquetoast Albert Graves, who is unrequitedly in love with Sampson's seductive daughter, Miranda Sampson. Miranda, whom Harper later states throws herself at anything "pretty in pants", also has a decidedly cold relationship with her stepmother, Elaine. As Harper begins his investigation, he is often joined by one or two new sidekicks, Miranda, and/or Allan Taggert, Ralph Sampson's private pilot who was the last person to see him before his disappearance. Living on the Sampson estate, Taggert is also Miranda's casual boyfriend, although his heart lies elsewhere. (Harper nicknames Taggert "Beauty" for the latter's preppy good looks.) It is finally confirmed that Sampson has been kidnapped after a ransom note is received. As Harper follows leads, he ends up in the underbelly of Los Angeles, which includes encounters with Betty Fraley (a junkie lounge singer), Fay Estabrook (an ex-movie ingénue now an overweight alcoholic), and Claude (a religious cult leader). At each of Harper's stops, people seem to want to beat him up and/or kill him. The case takes a turn after they decide to pay the $500,000 ransom to see where it leads.
Picture of a movie: 23 Paces to Baker Street
movies

23 Paces to Baker Street

1956
Famed American playwright Phillip Hannon is in London making revisions to his play currently running in the West End. He is doing this mundane work rather than write a new play since he has retreated from life following the recent and permanent loss of his sight. That retreat from life includes breaking off his engagement to his former secretary, Jean Lennox, who still loves him. One evening at his local pub, he overhears a conversation between a man and a woman that he knows involves criminal activity, what he surmises to be the kidnapping plot of a child in exactly one week's time. The local police patronizingly dismiss his report as the overactive imagination of a blind writer. With Jean and his faithful manservant Bob Matthews by his side - the former with some reluctance on Phil's part - Phil goes on a search to uncover the plot using what little pieces of information he has at hand, which includes the man's name being Evans, the woman, who is involved under duress, working as a nanny for a family whose head is formally a lady, that lady having attended a concert that evening, the family living along a certain bus route, and the nanny herself wearing an expensive perfume well beyond her means. His physical disability is an obvious disadvantage. But what may be working to Phil's advantage is his keen sense of dialogue and its subtext in deciphering the conversation, using his other senses which people with sight take for granted, and people, including the criminals, underestimating him because he's blind.