OSS-177: QoS antidote

Napoleon Plural · October 2008

One week after Quantum is released in the UK, there's this wonderful looking 1960s spy film spoof. I've only just heard about this, you can find it on

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0464913/

It's called OSS-117 Cairo Nest of Spies. If QoS is too violent for yer mum, this one might do!

Seahawk · October 2008

In design terms this film is closer to Fleming's world than any Bond film since FRWL. I am severely tempted to go and see it for that reason alone.B-)

John Drake · October 2008

Where you been NP?

http://www.ajb007.co.uk/index.php?topic=27943

Please see it. It is wonderful and I liked it more than I did CR. The good news is they are currently filming a sequel in Rio. :007) I'll post some pictures later when I got the time. Because right now, I don't got the time.

John Drake · October 2008

I got the time. I skimmed your post before I went to work and I didn't realise that the film is finally getting a UK release. {[] Here's a couple of pics from the sequel. OSS 117 Rio ne Repond Plus

I like the look of the girl in the first picture.

Willie Garvin · November 2008

John Drake wrote:

I got the time. I skimmed your post before I went to work and I didn't realise that the film is finally getting a UK release. {[] Here's a couple of pics from the sequel. OSS 117 Rio ne Repond Plus

I like the look of the girl in the first picture.

So do I

.I thought the first film was just fantastic.Here's hoping the sequel will be as good! {[]

PoorMansJB · November 2008

There was a post to one of the boards (may even have been AJB) about a year or so ago linking to the trailer. I thought it looked terrific but doubted I'd ever see it as it was clearly made for the French language market.

Is the version being released in the UK dubbed? Hoping it makes it to the US but expect it will be an arthouse release if it does!

superado · November 2008

Thanks for the reminder. I've been after a copy of this at my public library for over a year now and they finally have 4, and there are no other hold requests ahead of mine!

Strangeways · November 2008

But this is in French with English subtitles!
Aaaggghhh!

)

Napoleon Plural · November 2008

Well QoS had enough subtitles, SW!

John Drake · November 2008

Here's Empire's review. It's short, but 3 stars.

http://www.empireonline.com/reviews/reviewcomplete.asp?FID=135781

Napoleon Plural · November 2008

Empire really suck, don't they? 'Infinitely superior to Get Smart' - except Get Smart got three stars from them on its release, as everything new gets bumped up a notch to tie in with their consumer mag attitude.

John Drake · November 2008

Napoleon Plural wrote:

Empire really suck, don't they? 'Infinitely superior to Get Smart' - except Get Smart got three stars from them on its release, as everything new gets bumped up a notch to tie in with their consumer mag attitude.

I imagine it's quite difficult to write for them, because you have to consider the audience and write the review on their behalf. So some films get five star reviews they don't deserve, Phantom Menace, Braveheart, and the relentlessly miserable The Dark Knight, because the hype around them is so high and they become unmissable, which is how I think Empire awards a five star review. Still, if they offered me a job.

John Drake · November 2008

Nice review from Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2008/nov/07/french-bond-film-review

The Sunday Times also gave it a three-star review and said it was better than QoS. It wasn't Cosmo the clown though. Think it was Edward Porter. Philip French in The Observer didn't find it funny, but I'm not sure he's laughed since 1964.

superado · November 2008

superado wrote:

Thanks for the reminder. I've been after a copy of this at my public library for over a year now and they finally have 4, and there are no other hold requests ahead of mine!

I finally got to watch this and it is funny. You don't quite know if it's making fun of itself by showing "this is how backwards Bond would be if he were French," or if it's directly mocking "what's really behind" the 60's spy culture of macho chauvanism. Unlike the Bond films, 0SS 117 makes very frank political, racial, religious and sexist expressions as a reflection of the European colonial mindset of that time, or even now?

Loved the overall 60's look and feel with the cars, hairdos and wardrobe, esp. on the leading lady, Berenice Bejo, who reminded me of Claudine Auger at times.

BTW, Poorman, it has English subtitles and the DVD itself is packaged for the American audience. Can't wait for the sequel, which looks like it will be rememicent of "That Man From Rio" staring Jean Paul Belumundo and Francios Dorleac, another late show gem that I rediscovered through my local library.

John Drake · December 2008

The website for OSS 117: Rio Ne Repond Plus is up and running. There are some wonderful production stills. The girl is a strawberry blonde, just beautiful. Some of Dujardin's outfits are great. Some are just funny. Link below.

http://www.oss117.fr/

HowardB · December 2008

OSS-177 had a short art house run in the US this past year. It's out on DVD now and I watched it last week. Very funny satire of the Bond films, but it also takes aim at all the 60's spy films (especially some of the more trashy European Bond take-offs). The widescreen cinematography and color saturation look just like a Bond film from the 60's. Jean Dujardin is terrific and hilarious in the lead. He looks and acts like a dopey French version of Sean Connery. Kind of what you would get if you crossed Connery's Bond with Inspector Clouseou. Ironically the film is a spoof of 60's spy films, but it takes place in 1955. Looking forward to the sequel.

Napoleon Plural · December 2008

Londoners may want to know that the film is showing a bit at the Prince Charles cinema; next showing is around 6.30pm on Thursday.

A great venue for this fun film.

youknowmyname · December 2008

I am definitely going to look this one up...it looks great. I read a couple of reviews and it sounds right up my alley. Great stuff guys.

John Drake · December 2008

Here's a teaser trailer. This one's set in 1967.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=EJnMAjV3JxI

John Drake · February 2009

Here's a leaked trailer. The quality isn't that great. This looks more like a Roger Moore film than the Terence Young flicks the first film borrowed from. Maybe it's using Rio as a location that makes me feel that way. It looks great though. And there's a Nazi singing Bossa Nova in a cabaret.

)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_WjzAT5tRs

John Drake · February 2009

John Drake wrote:

The website for OSS 117: Rio Ne Repond Plus is up and running. There are some wonderful production stills. The girl is a strawberry blonde, just beautiful. Some of Dujardin's outfits are great. Some are just funny. Link below.

http://www.oss117.fr/

The website has also updated. There's a clip in which OSS 117 tries to cook a crocodile.

)

John Drake · April 2009

Here's the full trailer. Oh my, that's one lovely redhead.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klBLJlrqJVg&feature=PlayList&p=E50BFB5DF0501475&index=0&playnext=1

And there's Mexican wrestling Nazi's.

)

Napoleon Plural · April 2009

Hmm, they maybe missed out on a satirical thing here: Jean Dujardin's hair is receding a fair bit, so maybe he should have had that side parting toupee Connery had in the same year in YOLT.

John Drake · January 2010

OSS 117: Lost in Rio opens on Friday. I'm not sure if this is a nationwide release or whether it will be playing in London only.

Napoleon Plural · January 2010

Thanks JD will look out for that.

John Drake · January 2010

It's playing in Glasgow next week, which means I may have to got to Glasgow.

John Drake · January 2010

I saw OSS 117: Lost in Rio at the GFT. It doesn't quite match the original, but there were moments that had me in stitches, particularly OSS 117's choice of disguise for infiltrating a meeting of Nazi's. As for Bond references, one shot in particular is a direct reprise of a scene from DN and using Rio as a location reminded me a little of MR, but other than that Lost in Rio has more of it's own identity. Dujardin is even better here. There's even a hint of pathos this time. It's the late 60's so an establishment guy wandering around in a suit looks a little out of place, something the Bond films have always ignored.

Napoleon Plural · January 2010

It's on at London's ICA for the next week or so too. I'm seeing it tonight.

Napoleon Plural · January 2010

Well, I saw it. John Drake was equivocal in his praise and I think he was overgenerous.

Large stretches of it were terminally unfunny and the best thing about the film is its poster.

To be fair, at the ICA it did generate a few laughs, mainly among women, the sort who'll titter at anything and the saviour of many a lame standup's act. But there were also deep sighs, a lot of bored slouching in seats and even murmurings of disgust.

I liked the first film, Cairo: Nest of Spies. It had novelty value, a zany, likeable hero and for a Bond fan, its send-up of early Connery Bond films were uncannily accurate. It was also a masterstroke to send the suave French hero, de la Bath, a colonialist and sexist, to the Middle East to mix with dignified locals, Arab nationalists and religious zealots. It's one brand of chauvinism meeting another, a comedy clash of cultures.

I guess I don't have to explain why it's not so funny to have de la Bath make comments about Jews to Mossad agents, refering to their beaky noses and tightness with money. But okay, I will: the former was more of a culture clash with a dash of imperialist condescension, the latter usually comes from a far nastier place. Plus there's also that thing called the holocaust. I know we're meant to be laughing at the guy, but even so.

What's more, Jean Dujardin lacks that innocent sparkle that made his offensiveness less obnoxious in the original film.

It doesn't help that a fair number of the gags, especially at the beginning, are based on wordplay and puns that don't travel well, despite the best efforts of the translators. Why is his code name Flantier so hilarious?

In the first film, the hero was an appealing counter to today's PC behaviour. Here, becauise he's such a boor, you start to realise why such attitudes went out of fashion and you sympathise with the Jewish heroine who rolls her eyes.

There's some lovely scenery and the climax on Christ the Redeemer is worthy of a real Bond film. But for long stretches it's not spoofing Bond films rather the awful Bond spoofs that dogged the 1960s. But the jokes are so lame that the thin line between spoofing awful Bond spoofs and being an awful Bond spoof is virtually non-existent. As for the hippie culture clash, well I didn't much take to it anymore than I would if Lazenby's Bond had to hang out with hippie chicks in OHMSS and the whole thing is a bit Austin Powers.

My advice is wait for the DVD if you must see this, it's not £9 well spent.

John Drake · February 2010

Sorry to hear you didn't like the film NP. I felt the main target for most of the humour was General De Gaulle's France and his insistence that the entire country resisted the Nazi's. The anti-semitic stuff may have been near the knuckle but it was more of a reflection of OSS 117's ignorance and French attitudes of the time. I must admit I was pretty much the only person at the GFT who seemed to be enjoying Lost in Rio, but the I was in amongst Glaswegians and their ways are strange to me. Surely the

Robin Hood costume

must have raised a smile? And Bill Trumendous is the best name for a CIA agent ever.

7289 · February 2010

Watched the trailer for "Cairo, Nest of Spies"..... I am going to order it this week.

OSS-177: QoS antidote

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