WHERE THE SPIES ARE (1966)

A British spy named Rosser vanishes in Beirut and MI6 needs to send someone to find him. MacGillivray, the big boss, learns of a medical conference being held there and tries to recruit a real doctor who would not seem suspicious. He approaches Jason Love (David Niven), who had done some intelligence gathering in the past. Love is reluctant, but when MacGillivray offers him an expensive, antique LeBaron car, he agrees. He is given a handful of spy gadgets which don't seem particularly useful to Love, and in fact he is told that they are more for psychological comfort than practical use. At a Paris stopover to switch planes, he fumbles his initial attempt at using a password to contact an agent, but finally meets up with Vikki (Françoise Dorleac), a lovely fashion model. As they seem to strike a spark, he dawdles at her apartment and misses his plane which promptly blows up in the air at takeoff. Vikki stays in Paris while Love makes it to Beirut where he proves himself a decent hand-to-hand fighter with an intruder in his hotel room who turns out to be Parkington (Nigel Davenport), another British agent. They discover that Rosser is dead (which we've known from the beginning) and that he knew details about a Russian assassination plot against an Arabian ruler. Suddenly instead of just being a contact, Love is in the dangerous thick of things. When Vikki shows up in Beirut, we wonder exactly whose side she's on. We find out.

Most review sources call this a spy spoof or a comedy-adventure. Though there is overall a light tone to the proceedings, I wouldn't quite call it a spoof or a comedy. It's more like the early James Bond movies, played mostly straight with a jokey reference here and there. This is no brooding Le Carre story but it's not a Dean Martin 'Matt Helm' movie either. The fact that Niven's character is an amateur is the occasion for some humor but it's fairly restrained. Niven, in his mid-50s at the time, is fine but maybe a bit too old for Dorleac, his leading lady, who was half his age (both pictured at left). At least it's not as creepy as Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face. Doreleac is good, as is Davenport (though he drops out halfway through). Cyril Cusack has what amounts to a cameo in the beginning as Rosser, and John Le Mesurier is fine as MacGillivray. There's a nifty helicopter rescue scene, and at 110 minutes, it does start to wear out its welcome by the climax. [TCM]