THE SPY WITH A COLD NOSE
UK, 1966, 93 minutes, Colour.
Laurence Harvey, Dalia Lahvi, Lionel Jeffries, Eric Sykes, Eric Portman, Denholm Elliot, Colin Blakely, Robert Flemyng, Robin Bailey, Paul Ford, Michael Trubshawe.
Directed by Daniel Petrie.
The Spy With A Cold Nose boasts a very strong cast led by Laurence Harvey, many British character actors and comedians. The film was written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, prolific writers for television for Tony Hancock, Steptoe and Son, Frankie Howerd and of such films as The Wrong Arm of the Law and the Frankie Howerd films, Up Pompeii and Up the Chastity Belt.
This is obviously a James Bond spoof, coming after several of the James Bond films like Doctor No and From Russia with Love in the early 1960s.
The Spy With A Cold Nose is of course a dog, a British bulldog with a tracker in its nose. Sent to Russia, it is taken everywhere by one of the Russian officials so that information comes back to England and Russian spies are rounded up. However, to counteract the influence of the dog, the Russians send a glamorous spy, Dahlia Lavi, to wreak havoc with the mild-mannered Lionel Jeffries.
Not a particularly startling film – but, in retrospect, a chance to see the reaction to the James Bond films, the spoofs, as well as a number of very popular actors doing their thing.
1. The indication of the title and its tone? The humour? The pre-credits sequences?
2. How succesful a comedy was this? How enjoyable? What were its major comic qualities? Situations, dialogue, parody, farce, perfoinances?
3. How successful a spoof of spy films was this? The parody of detail and style? The irony of the ordinariness compared with the spectacular spies? This as a highlight of film making in the 1960s? How well has it worn?
4. How enjoyable was the mocking of the spy genre? The pointing up of the popular beliefs of spying ? Some of the realities? The comic overtones of spying? She expectations of audiences for spy entertainment? How these were mocked by the spy being bumbling? How serious the the use of politics and its portrayal in spying? (The acid in the humour?)
5. How was this typical British satire? The English types that were mocked? The world of the English and their love for animals? Especially medical attention for animals? How were the Russians mocked in comparison with the British?
6. How enjoyable was the character of Farquar? Lionel Jeffrey’s style, his flair for comedy and parody? The satire in hie own self importance and ambitions? In the lack of glamour? the details of his home, life, wife and children? His office his deaf secretary? The details of his bumbling and the irony of the ending? What comment was being made on human nature and ambitions?
7. The satire on Trevelyan? Laurence Harvey's flair for comedy?The satire on the womaniser, his humble origins and his snobbery? wanting to be knighted? What satire was most effective in the portrait of this character?
8. Princess as a Russian spy? How conventional? how much more might have been made of this character?
9. Comment on the incidental satire on the British and their attitudes? The office, the decisions, the morality of the detector in the dog? The ambassador in Russia and their being locked in the conference, the dying?
10. How sharp was the observation? Did this make it an ordinary spy comedy or was it much better than average? Why?
