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Secret-agent homme

By Robert Hunt, Special to the Beacon

Last Updated ( Friday, 06 June 2008 )

Sometime around 1964 or '65, after the success of the first James Bond films, movie screens - especially drive-ins and neighborhood houses - were besieged by the Attack of the Pseudo-Bonds. From America's Robert Vaughn, (whose TV series "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." was recycled for theatrical release) to Sean Connery's brother , any leading man who could part his hair, hold a gun and look presentable in a dinner jacket had a shot at temporary stardom.

Producers in America and England quickly skimmed the paperback racks to find such pretenders to the espionage throne as Matt Helm, Derek Flint and Harry Palmer , but in France the favorite son in the Bond-alike stakes was a secret agent with the name Hubert Bonisseur de Bath , better known as OSS 117, hero of more than 200 novels and seven films.

Never heard of him? That's not really a detriment to enjoying "OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies," a new film that lovingly re-creates the culture-blind exoticism and genteel macho of the Bond pretenders and the '60s knockoffs. It's not a broad spoof like the Austin Powers films or a too-hip-for-the-room pastiche like the odious "Grindhouse"; its comic spirit falls somewhere in between, something like "Police Squad" or Blake Edwards' 1963 "The Pink Panther," a genre film that plays more or less by the rules, as if unaware of the blissful goofiness of its bumbling hero.

L'agent dangereux

Music Box Films

Berenice Bejo and Jean Dujardin star in "OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies."

Reviving a character last seen on screen in 1970, the new film, directed by Michel Hazanavicius, takes place in 1955, when tensions in Egypt challenged Western notions of the Middle East as a primitive yet exotic region. When a French agent is murdered, his friend and successor Hubert/117, played with sublime self-satisfaction by Jean Dujardin (think of a cross between Jean-Paul Belmondo and Sacha Baron Cohen), steps in to find the killer, put the lid on civil unrest and uncover a handful of local conspiracies.

Remarkably, Dujardin lets us see the hero's wrong-headedness without himself becoming the subject of ridicule. The core of the film's humor is 117's assumption of his natural superiority in everything from diplomacy to love, and the joke, of course, is that the secret-agent hero is the last remnant of arrogant Cold War values that have lost their appeal not only to modern audiences but to history. He's a dinosaur, as much a part of the past as the slightly faded colors, rear-projection photography and ethnic stereotypes that come with his genre.

Don't get me wrong. "OSS 117" is more about the cultural resonances of the secret-agent genre than it is about the ideological positions of post-colonial France. And it's also a very funny and at times just plain silly film (one of the central set-pieces, after all, involves characters throwing chickens at each other).

I suppose there may be younger audiences - anyone who thinks of Timothy Dalton as the "old" James Bond - that don't quite get it, but if you've ever wasted two hours of your life on the likes of "Where the Spies Are," "Kiss the Girls and Make them Die" or "The Second Best Secret Agent in the World," "OSS 117" is very sweet revenge.

"OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies," which premiered locally at the 2007 St. Louis International Film Festival, opens June 6 at the Tivoli Theatre .

Robert Hunt has been writing about film and the arts -- mostly film for more than 25 years. He is a frequent contributor to The Lens , a blog about all things cinematic.

Editors' Picks

Books
- Hopes that the demise of the book is greatly exaggerated. The phone book, dictionaries and encyclopedia are over. But beautiful works of art, printing that provides words into which a person can sink, should remain. | James Gleick, The New York Times
- "To Kill a Mockingbird" is the selection for the upcoming St. Louis Big Read, which is organized by Washington University. Dozens of events, including a staging of the play at the Edison Theater, will take place throughout January and February 2009.
- Author Michael Crichton dies at age 66: The creator of "Jurassic Park" and "Andromeda Strain" had been battling cancer, his family said. | New York Times
- Roger Ebert: To Studs: With Love and Memories. | The Huffington Post
Theater/Dance
- Ballet Eclectica’s “The Little Dancer Goes Around the World!” will be presented by the COCA Family Theatre Series for four shows at 7 p.m. Dec. 12, 11 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Dec. 13, and 1:30 Dec. 14 AT COCA, 524 Trinity Avenue. Tickets are $14 and $18 and are available through MetroTix and COCA Box Office (314-725-1834 x124).
- Come to the Union Avenue Christian Church, 733 Union Avenue, from noon to 1 p.m. Dec. 10 as students from nine St. Louis Public Schools perform international dances. The program is sponsored by Springboard to Learning & Young Audiences of St. Louis.
- The New Jewish Theater presents "The Last Seder" Dec. 3-21. Four daughters, each with a respective partner, have gathered to say goodbye to a loved who is already gone - patriarch Marvin who suffers from Alzheimer’s.
- "9 Parts of Desire" opens Nov. 7 at the St. Louis Actors' Studio. The play runs through Nov. 23 (Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. Sundays at 2 p.m.) at The Gaslight Theater 358 N. Boyle Ave. For tickets, Ticketmaster.com or 314-421-4400.
Music
- Come to the Touhill Center at UMSL from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Dec. 3 for the third annual “Warren Bellis Clarinet and Saxophone Festival,” a daylong series of clinics and performances. For information, call 314-516-2263.
- Jason Braun has a new project called Jason and the Beast part hip hop retelling of classics from Homer to Shakespeare. The album will be released in the spring, but you can check Jason and the Beast out at 8 p.m. Dec. 17 at the Focal Point in Mapelwood. It's an all ages show and it's $5 at the door.
- The UMSL Community Chorus, University Singers, University Orchestra and Vocal Point will put on a holiday concert at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 9 at the Blanche M. Touhill Performing Arts Center. For information about the free concert call 314-516-5980 or go to www.umsl.edu/~umslmusic/ The concert will include "Christmas Oratorio," "Carol of the Bells," traditional carols, Trumpet Concerto by Felix Mendelssohn and "O Magnum Mysterium."
- UMSL will present "Soul of the Season with Brian Owens and faculty and students from the Department of Music at UMSL at 7 p.m. Dec. 11 at the Blanche M. Touhill Performing Arts Center. Tickets are $5. For information, call 314-516-4949. Proceeds will benefit the Office of Multicultural Relations at UMSL.

Neighborhoods
- "Gorillas in Her Midst" is the topic of a lecture by Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka, African conservationist, at the St. Louis Zoo on Dec. 9. Doors will open at the Living World building at 6:30 p.m., with the lecture starting at 7 p.m. Reservations are encouraged 314-646-4771.
- Alice S. Handelman, president of The Press Club of Metropolitan St. Louis,has been honored as a 25 year member of National Federation of Press Women.The recognition was presented in Idaho Falls, Idaho, at the annual nationalcommunications conference of NFPW. Handelman was community relations director at Jewish Center for Aged for 18 years.
- Come to the Missouri Botanical Garden from 9 am. to 5 p,m. the Best of Missouri Market where you can find more than 120 artisans from throughout the state.
- Come to the Sophia M. Sachs Butterfly House from 5:30-7 P.m. on Oct. 3 and 10 for OctoberOwl Outings. Reservations, which are required, can be made online or at 636-733-2339. The "owls" are owl butterflies, which get their name from the underside of their wings, which resemble a bright yellow owl eye surrounded by rich, chocolate-colored feathers. These creatures are also most active in the evening.
Visual Arts
- Come to COCA, 524 Trinity Ave., from 6-8 p.m. Dec. 5 for the opening reception for Jill Evans Petzall: In-Different Light. The images were taken while Petzall was on sabbatical in northern India. The exhibit continues through Jan. 18, 2009. Free. For information, call 314-725-6555.
- Mark Douglas, Bob Reuter and Antje Umstaetter have their photography on view at the Gallery at the Regional Arts Commission until Dec. 21. For info, visit www.art-stl.com
- Get Out the Vote - an installation of 22 posters - is on view now through 2008 in the Arthur and Helen Baer Visual Arts Galleries in the Centene Center for Arts and Education, 3547 Olive Street in Grand Center. The galleries are open Monday-Friday from 10 a.m.-4 p.m.
- Too often elitism is linked with being snobbish and condescending when in fact for many people it is a commitment to quality in various, if not all parts, of our lives. The Atlantic reports on the affecting elitism of Phillippe de Montebello , soon to retire as director of one of the world's greatest museums, the Metropolitan in New York City.
Movies/TV
- Project Runway: Bravo won't accept Heidi's "auf wiedersehen." The Weinstein Co. sold the rights to the series to Lifetime, but NBC Universal sued, saying it had a right of first refusal (Bravo is owned by NBC.) A judge has issued a preliminary injunction preventing Lifetime from promoting or broadcasting "Runway." | The New York Times
- "City of Lost Children" La Cité des enfants perdus plays at 8 p.m. Dec. 3 at Schlafly Bottleworks, 7260 Southwest Avenue, Maplewood, as part of the Webster Film Series. $4.
- Eating St. Louis, hour-long program based on the book of the same title by Patricia Corrigan, will be broadcast at 7 p.m. Dec. 1 on KETC/Channel 9 . The show explores five aspects of food culture in the area, from farming to how St. Louisans like pizza prepared.
- Co-writer of movie "Meet Me in St. Louis" dies at age 94: Irving Brecher was nominated for an Oscar for his work on the 1944 Judy Garland film. | Los Angeles Times

Firecracker Press

To read the story about the upcoming Community Cinema showing of "Helvetica," which will include a demonstration by Eric Woods and Matty Kleinberg of the Firecracker Press, click here .

Voices

Cartoons for Nov. 30, 2008
Editorial Cartoons

Shopping and bailouts and Christmas wishes - it's all economy all the time. Check out the work of Marshall Ramsey, John Sherffius, Bruce Beattie and Gary Markstein.
Food for all: a tough order, but a noble goal
In the News

At a time of economic problems and of thanksgiving, Dr. William H. Danforth looks with hope on the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center and the National Institute for Food and Agriculture as vehicles that can bring about an evergreen agricultural revolution.
A Journalist's Thanksgiving
Editor's Hotseat
The headline is not mine, nor are the words that follow. They belong to the late William F. Woo, longtime editor of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, columnist well-known to St. Louis readers, friend and mentor to many of us at the Beacon. I can think of no better way to mark Thanksgiving - the Beacon's first - than by sharing his thoughts about journalism.
If this turkey hadn't been chicken, he 'cudda been a contenda'
Beacon Columnists
Posted: 5 a.m. Wed. Nov. 26 - Columnist M.W. Guzy looks back on the time the police department boxing coach asked him to join the team. Even though he declined, "reasoning that if training would minimize my chances of getting hit, staying out of the ring entirely should pretty much neutralize the threat," he still recommends supporting and attending the annual "Guns 'N Hoses" event, which supports the Backstoppers organization.

The Lens

SLIFF didn't whiff

Looking back at the St. Louis International Film Festival, this committed movie watcher says the vast majority of offerings were well done.

Giving Back

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