The strange story of the submerged spy film ....

Unlike Funeral in Berlin, Spy Story barely surfaced in the
public's imagination

I've just purchased a DVD from eBay.

Nothing unusual in that. But what I bought was described by the seller as a "super super rare collectable."

This was, the seller said, "the only copy I've seen in 25 years." He exaggerates rather, but the point is valid.

It was a DVD copy - not even an original - of the film adaptation of Len Deighton's Spy Story. Released in 1976, the film barely troubled the film charts and went into DVD oblivion, never being commercially released.

The Australian seller - from whom I also purchased the Game, Set and Match TV series, similarly "super rare" - made a point in saying the film's copyright was never renewed, so it is out of Copyright control and can be copied.

[Separately, I have also, in recent years, purchased a Betamax copy of said film. I don't own a Betamax player so the only reason for purchasing is it's sheer rarity, and oddness.]

At a time when fans of Len Deighton's fiction can look forward to SS-GB later this year, and an adaption of all nine volumes of the Bernard Samson books by Clerkenwell Films (when they can pull their finger out) as well as a new film based on Bomber, I thought about this film based on Len's books which rather disappeared beneath the surface, and wondered why.

Spy Story is, in the end, not unlike 1988's Game, Set and Match. Both adaptations had fantastic source material to work but through odd casting choices never really struck home; both also then disappeared from the face of the cinematic earth, only to appear periodically on pirate DVDs.

I summarise the film's plot on the main Deighton Dossier website, here.

Just like the denouement in Spy Story - sub crashes through the arctic ice ...

This is a fascinating video released by the US Navy of one if its submarines, the USS Hartford, emerging from underneath the flat Arctic ice.

The Deighton connection of course is that this sort of manoeuvre is exactly that which happens at the end of Spy Story, although in the case of the book it's a Soviet underwater submarine, rather than a US one.

In the book, Patrick Armstrong is a specialist in Soviet nuclear submarine tactics, employed at the Studies Centre in London. It's the book which has always created discussion among readers, as to whether it's one of the 'spy with no name' original series written by Deighton.

There are clues that suggest he might be the same man: he meets Dawlish with whom he worked previously. Dawlish says: "New name, new job, the past gone forever...But you can't wipe the slate clean. You can't forget half your life." The character is described as in his late thirties.

However, in the introduction to the Jubilee edition, Deighton confirms that: "Patrick Armstrong is not the man from The Ipcress File, although he's obviously a close relative."

The story involves possible scenarios of Soviet agression involving their Arctic submarine fleet and the deliberate discrediting of a Soviet submarine commander. Colonel Stok, Soviet colonel from the first Harry Palmer books, makes a reappearance, which has no doubt contributed to the believe that Patrick Armstrong 'is' Harry Palmer.

The final scene plays out on the Arctic ice, when the planned mission does not turn out as everyone on the US and UK sides was hoping. The 1976 film of the story - not altogether one of the best adaptations of Deighton's works - includes this famous surfacing scene, and its reproduction in the film (check out the images on this page) aren't totally unlike the images scene in the US video. Amazing to see how the sub's conning tower in the video breaks through without disturbing the integrity of the ice cap.

Spies, 1970s style ....

A wonderful copy of a rare trailer for the 1976 film by Lindsay Shonteff of Len Deighton's Spy Story novel:



The narrator is fabulous - he has the sort of advertising voice that could sell a three piece sofa at two-hundreds yards. The film - which is pretty average, truth be told, given that the budget was limited (no submarine shots in the Arctic) - is nevertheless replete with 1970s charm. Its look and feel - even such things as the colours and the cars - seem so dated, yet it's only 36 years ago.

It's no Quantum of Solace, clearly, but I can see definite stylistic looks back to The Ipcress File and Funeral in Berlin, even though Patrick Armstrong - the hero - is only a 'cousin', shall we say, of Harry Palmer.

Relax in your favourite armchair and read a Romantic story ...

Is Harry Palmer a Romantic hero? A Romantic with a capital 'R', a part of the literary tradition of Rousseau and Wordsworth?

Well, that wasn't my first reaction when reading the novels, but it was what Fred Erisman read into his reading of Deighton's first six novels. And he shared this idea with other fans in the April 1977 edition of Armchair Detective.

Life before the Internet was an innocent age

I'd never seen a copy of this American magazine, but I made a serendipitous find on, where else, eBay! The Armchair Detective was a quarterly journal devoted to the appreciation of mystery, detective and suspense fiction. I write 'was', as it's now longer a going concern, having grown from simple fanzine produced on a mimeograph (Ed - there's one for the teenagers!) to a quarterly journal matching in quality the output of many of the more established literary papers. And then, sadly, gone. The reviews are scholarly, intensely researched and backed up by references (as this article is) and often - as in the case of the front cover - innovative in design.

Now, of course, fans of any genre of fiction or the arts are connected by the Internet, and everyone's a critic and a reviewer - we're spoilt for choice. This blog for example is a true antecedent of the cut-and-paste efforts of yesteryear and supports the tradition in the digital age.

Back to the article. Erisman's initial thesis approaching Deighton's novels is interesting: the spy as 'romantic', linked to the ideal of Romantic thought derived from Rousseau and Wordsworth. His thoughts are personal, intellectual, and he displays emotional individualism. He acts from personal principle rather than from expediency.

The first six novels, Erisman writes: "convey a sense of the aimless intricacy of an intrigue-ridden society, pervaded by obscurity and betryal." Within this world, the unnamed spy (Palmer) is, he says, "Deighton's answer to the problems posed to the individual by contemporary life." This is a spy seeking personal satisfaction and freedom, while doing his job; he is dissatisfied with the world. Palmer, Erisman guesses, is "a Thoureauvian questing after inward reality in a twentieth-century setting." That's a deep analysis one rarely sees in connection with Deighton's novels. The writer goes on to critically deconstruct Deighton's texts, looking at notions of friendship, love and deception within the novels and for the most part, what he presents are ways of viewing the characters that I for one hadn't considered before.

He quotes a lovely perspective by another critic, James D'Anna on how the character epitomised the moral duplicity and uncertainty at the heart of the Cold War: 

"the dominant colour of the Cold War is neither black nor white, but grey ... the issues in the East-West conflict are as blurred as a defective television tube."

Overall, this review provides something new by placing Deighton's hero within the pantheon of Romantic heros. One wonder if that was what Len had at the back of his mind when he developed the character?

Update

The cover design was at first a puzzle for me as I wrote on this blog. As eagle-eyed readers have commented - and thanks for their input - the car is a Jensen, and therefore it's clearly a reference to a line by Harvey Newbegin, 'Harry Palmer's' old spy pal in Billion-Dollar Brain, on the day the former met the latter:

'The first time I ever saw him was in Frankfurt. He was sitting in a new white Jensen sports car covered in mud, with a sensational blond, sensational. He was wearing very old clothes, smoking a Gauloises cigarette and listening to Beethoven on the car radio and I thought, "Oh boy, just how many ways can you be a snob simultaneously".'

I didn't spot it, as it's been a while since I've read Billion-Dollar Brain all the way through, and the image didn't look much like Frankfurt, but that clearly seems to be the reference and I should have spotted it. My bad! Well done to the blog readers who pointed out my error 

The full article is available as a .pdf on the main Deighton Dossier website. Click the link on the front page.

A Spy Story mystery....solved?

The American edition of Spy Story which I've just purchased, says this on the dust jacket cover:

"He is back after five years' long absence, the insubordinate, decent, bespectacled English spy who fought, fumbled, outwitted and survived his outrageous way through the best-selling Horse Under Water, Funeral in Berlin and the rest of those marvelous, [sic] celebrated Len Deighton spy thrillers. One again, he finds himself a reluctant habitué of that nightmare world of espionage where a triple cross is as commonplace and regular as the daily paper at the breakfast table. Nothing's changed!"

On a first reading  - and this was the case with me first-off - it's easy to think that this is the same no-nonsense, anti-authority tough-guy spy who took on the Gehlen network and Colonel Stok in the 'sixties thrillers which initially brought Deighton to the public's attention.

There are textual clues that he's the same man: he works for W.O.O.C.(P)., the same department as 'Palmer'. He narrates the story. He's something of a ladies' man. Early on he meets Dawlish, the boss from the earlier stories; Dawlish tells him, "New name, new job, the past gone forever...But you can't wipe the slate clean. You can't forget half your life." The character is described as in his late thirties, which fits with what we know of the unnamed spy. So, all pretty clear cut.

However, despite what publishers Harcourt Brace Jovanovich chose to put on their dustcover, something had changed.  The character of Patrick Armstrong in the book was not the same unnamed spy who had appeared in Deighton's first spy novels. In the introduction to the Jubilee edition, Len Deighton confirms that, despite much speculation at the time, it is not the same unnamed spy:

"Patrick Armstrong is not the man from The Ipcress File, although he's obviously a close relative."

Edward Milward-Oliver, Deighton's sometime biographer, in his book The Len Deighton Companion, also writes:

Armstrong, Patrick. Work name of the narrator of Spy Story, who if not our overweight friend from The Ipcress File, is certainly a close relative.

So, why is the reader teased in the text to a different conclusion? And why do the US publishers present quite the opposite? Even in their efforts to address ambiguity, Deighton and Milward-Oliver leave open the hint that it might be the original hero. What does "close relative" mean? Is that literal or figurative, i.e. he's derived from the same character? What is a 'work name'? Deep cover, perhaps, for his role?

A number of answers suggest themselves.

First, ambiguity helped the characterisation. In having the hero as the narrator, we understand his character from what he says and does and how others interact. Without a third person narrator giving context, there is ambiguity; the reader is asked to question whether the character is all he seems to be, and if everything he reveals about himself is true.

This was true with Deighton's character Bernard Samson, who is revealed in Spy Sinker - narrated in the third person, not by Samson - to be not as clued-up and as expert a judge of character as he himself thought. So, in having the 'Patrick Armstrong' character draw some dotted lines back to the first hero, without explicitly demonstrating he is that character, Deighton is able to draw on the best dramatic aspects of the former character but adapt it for a new story and a new milieu.

Second, marketing purposes. The 'Harry Palmer' character was a huge hit, both in the book and film markets. He broke Deighton in the US market and would have been regarded as a banker. By playing on the character's ambiguity in the text, the publishers could be assured that - directed that way - readers would assume it was the same successful character, and give sales a boost. After all, would the market that lapped up the first five books be up for the introduction of a new character?

Third, simple screw-up. I've no information about the contract for the US rights for the book or the marketing plan, but certainly there's nothing in the UK marketing which plays up the 'is he, isn't he?' aspect of the main character as blatantly as the US version. The dust-jacked of the UK first edition says nothing other than presenting review quotes from earlier books. It might well be that on reading the book, the marketing people at HBJ thought, 'hey, let's give the public more of the same,' and ran with it.

Of course, thirty five years or more after the event nothing's absolutely certain; but, we should probably take the author at his word and conclude that it's not .... exactly the same character. But plenty of journalists, reviewers and bloggers have been taken in nonetheless.

So, mystery solved? I'd be interested what readers of this blog think.

Ambiguity overcome - new additions to the Deighton Dossier main website

Today's been an afternoon of autumn spring cleaning of the Deighton Dossier site, adding more information, cleaning up a few menu anomalies and altogether making the site even better and more comprehensive than before. So what's changed?

Yesterday's Spy and Spy Story have now moved into the novels category in the book section. They'd previously been in the 'unnamed spy novels' category, linked to the original five 'Harry Palmer' novels running from The Ipcress File through to An Expensive Place to Die. I consulted the Jubilee editions of Spy Story and Yesterday's Spy - Grafton had issued paperbacks in1987 of all of Deighton's 19 books up to that point, each with a new introduction by Deighton, and I've just got hold of a pristine collection of all 19. In the introductions to these two books, he confirms that - despite textual references to the contrary, which have tripped up a number of reviewers and readers in the past (include me until recently) the character of Patrick Armstrong in Spy Story is not the 'unnamed spy' of Deighton's first novels, despite working for W.O.O.C.P. and possessing similar character links, not least a close working relationship with Dawlish.

Similarly, the unnamed narrator in Yesterday's Spy is not Patrick Armstrong, even though he maintains the same close working relationship with the US Colonel Schlegel character who appeared first in Spy Story. To some extent, I think this ambiguity was deliberate by Deighton, as it suits the murky, uncertain world of espionage and also from a marketing perspective allowed readers to maintain links with earlier stories. For example, on the US first edition of Spy Story, there is an explicit link in the blurb to the fact that the spy character from the first five novels 'returns'. I suspect this was a little over-enthusiasm on the part of the marketing department.

I've also added three new books to the book section. The Special Branch is an interesting, not widely available critical and literary analysis of 17 British spy novelists (with one chapter on Deighton) by a US english professor. Writers covered include John Le Carré, Eric Ambler, Graham Greene and of course Ian Fleming. The author is rather dismissive of Fleming's work as a writer, calling him "a minor writer who did little to advance the form." I'm sure many Fleming fans would disagree. Secondly, in the 'forewords' section of the site I've added information about The French Foreign Legion, a history written by Deighton's friend the photojournalist John Robert Young to which he provided an introduction. Finally, you may remember the writer Peter Mayle, famous for A Year in Provence. Back in 1979, he wrote a self-help book for soon-to-be-fathers, called How to be a pregnant father. Len Deighton provided 12 pages on cooking for such men, with comically simple recipes including how to make a sandwich, all illustrated in the strip style made famous in Action Cook Book. An interesting diversion.

Finally, I managed to get hold through eBay of a copy of the rare Commodore 64 computer game Len Deighton's Blitzkrieg. There's no other obvious from the design that there's a connection to the book of the same name from 1979. So, I contacted one of the designers of the game - John Lambshead - who confirmed that the publication of the deal was part of a deal with Deighton's publisher. John was a pioneer in the early period of computer gaming, and designed the first icon-driven game The Fourth Protocol, which I remember playing on my Commodore 64 in the 80s!

Like The Professionals with submarines: Lindsay Shonteff's Spy Story film

I've just found online two websites created in tribute to the late film director Lindsay Shonteff, who died in 2006. The first is a general primer to his career as a (not altogether successful) film director of what would now be termed 'straight to DVD' movies; the second is a commercial site run by - one assumes - his son or daughter, where all his movies are available to download in .divx format for a small price.

Why this interest in an obscure Canadian filmsman? Well, because he was the - surprising, given his record - director chosen for the film adaptation of Len Deighton's Spy Story, often regarded as the fifth in the 'Spy with no name' series of films, starting with The Ipcress File in the sixties; however, despite the similarities in the characters - and the lack of definitive statements either way - it's clear that 'Patrick Armstrong' is not 'Harry Palmer'. Deighton describes him as a "close relative", presumably metaphorical. This film has never been made available on DVD in the UK before; indeed, my only copy is a Betamax tape! That's how rare - how unpopular - this adaptation was.

The lead character, Patrick Armstrong, is no longer at W.O.O.C.(P) but at the Studies Centre with his pal Ferdy Foxwell, programming war simulations and running them to test NATO strategies. He is forced to work with his new, abrasive american boss Colonel Schlegel. Upon finding his flat has been ransacked, and photos with his face replaced by another man's left behind, he starts to untangle a web of intrigue that takes him north to Scotland, where a group of conspirators is arranging the defection of leading Soviet general Remoziva, with the secret aim of ultimately discrediting him, as his sister is leading efforts to reunite a divided Germany.

The book has a complex plot which is challenging to follow at the best of times, and this is amplified in the movie treatment where little time is given to character development and plot twists are introduced with little explanation or effective joining of the different elements. Under Shonteff's direction, gone is the stylish shot design of the Harry Palmer movies directed by Sidney Furie and Guy Hamilton, with the sumptuous backdrops and stylish composition of the frame around Caine's character. Here, it's a lot of dreary (cheap to film) shots of London and the Scottish countryside, shot at a fast action pace with little real dramatic tension built in.

The acting is pretty ropy, let's be honest: Michael Petrovich as Patrick Armstrong is more Timothy Dalton than Daniel Craig; Don Fellows as Colonel Schlegel hams it up, and Philip Latham's portray of Ferdy Foxwell is notable for little other than an excellent pair of sideburns. My goodness, even TV's very own Nicholas Parsons steps into the picture, signifying instantly that this is now big-budget Hollywood adaptation; more a cheap and cheerful London effort.

But, it is a serviceable film and pretty faithful to the book; watching it again tonight, I discovered a certain surprising charm to it. The lack of a real budget - perhaps leading to its subsequent poor show at the box office - is shown up in the lack of impressive location, special effects and multi-camera shots. There are instead a lot of simple panning shots up and down busy London streets. It has the feel of an episode of The Professionals, shown in a made-for-TV film format which lacks a lot of the depth and detail of a properly cinematic format. It does capture well in seventies colour (or lack thereof) the grubby, shabby streets of seventies London, with their British Leyland cars with chrome bumpers, smartly dressed Bobbies and surly black cab drivers. So the film is, in this respect, a touching reminder of London in the seventies when the city had a slightly more down-at-heel sensibility, but much more zest and honest charm.

Which begs the question: what prompted the producers to think that the Canadian director of such lamentable films as Curse of Simba, The Second Best Secret Agent in the Whole World and Licensed to Love and Kill would produce a BAFTA winner? Who knows?!