Movies and TV series about the early cold war and decolonization (not Bond)
Number24
NorwayPosts: 22,364MI6 Agent
I friend of mine asked for movies any movies TV series about roughly 1945-60 about decolonization and the early cold war. He was particularely interested in the British experience and the perspective of those people on the ground who do secret things such as inteligence agents and special forces, It's certainly an important topic and perhaps not one that's given the attention it deserves. I think he wasn't thinking about Bond movies, but more serious examples that handled real situations and conflicts. I'm not necessarely looking for "based on real events", but the themes should be real.
Right now I can think of "The quiet American" from 2002 about the war in Vietnam in the fifties and the involvement of the CIA. There is also the British mini-series "The Hour" that covered the Suez crisis from the perspective of BBC journalists.
Can you think of other examples?
Comments
you mean films and tv series made in that era? or more recent films set in that era?
the Spielberg film about the building of the Berlin Wall and the exchange of spies to retrieve Gary Powers is a relatively recent one, I cant remember the title
but as for films and teevee made in the era, its almost a trick question. Theres lots of Cold War spy stories, usually talking about a vaguely referenced "Opposition", maybe with a bad guy who walks and talks like Kruschev but is never identified as Soviet. Very different from the propaganda films of WWII that explicitly named and ridiculed Hitler. I wonder why? something to do with the aftermath of McCarthy's Red Scare and the Hollywood blacklistings? I cant imagine studios were worried about lost ticket sales in the USSR the way they worry about offending the Chinese market today.
for example, in North by NorthWest I think its implied James Mason is selling secrets to the Soviets, but never stated. Kiss Me Deadly has an apocalyptic Cold War vibe also about selling secrets to foreign enemies, but I dont think these enemies are ever named. in that film the emphasis is more on the existential threat of atomic weapons, and theres a few films of the era like that.
Earlier postwar films like Notorious or the Third Man are about the aftermath of WWII, I would think fairly realistic. They predate the Cold War proper, and the villains are escaped Nazis and black marketeers respectively, not soviet spies.
actually how about Dr Strangelove?
North by NorthWest may have been a romanticized fantasy version of Cold War espionage, but Hitchcock's next two spy films from a decade later were both ripped-from-the-headlines stuff: Topaz is about the Cuban revolution, and Torn Curtain is Paul Newman appearing to defect in East Germany without telling his wife what he's really up to.
which reminds me, the Spy Who Came in from the Cold with its scenes of spies trying to cross Checkpoint Charlie, and the sympathetic portrait of Leamas's girlfriend, a leftleaning Westerner with a sincere social conscious who is inadvertently drawn into the realities of the Cold War.
I think the paranoid early 70s conspiracy thrillers generally got a little more realistic in naming the players
No, I'm not thinking of movies made in the fifties where the oppositon is vaguely Soviet-like. "Bridge of spies" ( that's the movie you were thinking of, CP) is far closer. The movies can be made in that time, but the point is that it's about that time. It should also say something about that time. The characters don't have to be real, even the plot doesn't have to be real. But the imediate backdrop should be real. My friend mentioned the Biafra conflict as an example. Another example is the mysterious death of UN General Secretary Dag Hammarsköld in Rhodesia. I haven't heard of movies or TV about it, and if there isn't there should be.
I've recomended "The spy who came in from the cold", "Battle of Algiers", "The quiet American" and the German "Der Tunnel" to my friend.
Exodus and The High Wide Sun deal with the Jewish experience and the Cyprus debacle, two issues which heralded the swift end of Britain's colonial future post WW2. Also, I suppose, Gandhi. Dirk Bogarde starred in a terrible movie called Simba about the Mau Mau rebellion in British Kenya. There's a documentary called Mau Mau which might give a more nuanced view of the uprising. Alistair MacLean's The Secret Ways is a Cold War thriller set before the Wall went up, but it's not based on any kind of 'real' experience, that was never MacLean's strong point.