Where the Spies Are is in every way far superior, and despite its jokey title, the premise of its story, Niven's presence, and the film's advertising campaign, it's not really a comedy at all, even though it's almost always pegged as one. Rather, it's an unusually intelligent and logical straight spy film that's sometimes quite humorous. Most of the over-the-top Bond-wannabes like In Like Flint and The Ambushers exhaust themselves straining for hipster laughs. Where the Spies Are is consistently, effectively amusing because the humor flows subtly and naturally out of its logical story and from its eccentric but believable characters.

Filmed in Panavision and originally released in Metrocolor, Where the Spies Are arrives on DVD via Warner Archive. Though in 16:9 enhanced widescreen, the transfer is notably blah and on the dark side, so much so I adjusted the brightness control to bring a bit more life to this rather tepid transfer.

Adapted from James Leasor's novel Passport to Oblivion, the movie opens with an intriguing scene featuring a former MI6 agent (Geoffrey Bayldon) lecturing to an audience of Soviet spies-in-training. During the lecture he describes hidden transmitting devices and other spy gear found on various British agents, including the body of one stationed in Beirut, Rosser (Cyril Cusack). In flashbacks a long sequence shows how two Soviet agents (George Pravda and Gábor Baraker) captured and murdered Rosser as he attempted to send an urgent telegram to MI6.

As in Len Deighton's Harry Palmer novels and the films with Michael Caine, MI6 is depicted as an underfinanced intelligence gathering organization. When Rosser goes missing no one is available to go looking for him. MacGillivray (John Le Mesurier), the "M" equivalent, learns of a Malaria conference in Beirut that week, and decides to recruit respected physician Dr. Jason Love (David Niven) who, during the war, provided minor assistance on a single case.

Love, leaving for a holiday in France, is reluctant to accept their offer to have him work undercover, but MacGillivray has already pinpointed Love's Achilles' heel, a passion for classic cars. (He owns a rare Cord convertible.) For simply looking into Rosser's disappearance MacGillivray promises Love an even more rare vintage LeBaron.

En route to Lebanon Love makes contact with fashion model Vikki (gorgeous Françoise Dorléac), also working on behalf of British Intelligence. They flirt with one another to the point where Love reschedules his connecting flight to Beirut. A short time later, Love's original flight explodes just as it's taking off.

Finally in Beirut, Love pokes around the city, searching for signs of Rosser while accidentally encountering another British agent, Parkington (Nigel Davenport), passing through the city in hopes of visiting with Rosser. Together they quickly realize Rosser's murder is connected to a major Soviet assassination plot with huge international ramifications.

Director Val Guest and writer Wolf Mankowitz had previously collaborated on Expresso Bongo (1959) and the superb The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961), the latter an extremely intelligent and adult science fiction drama notable especially for its realistic daily newspaper setting. Soon after, Mankowitz helped bring together Albert R. "Cubby" Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, the eventual co-producers of the James Bond films, and for a time Mankowitz himself developed the screenplay for the first 007 movie, Dr. No (1962).

The screenplay he and Guest wrote for Where the Spies Are is unusually good, even unique in some respects. Love is not a professional spy but, as it turns out, a believably talented amateur. He's inexperienced but intelligent and quick-witted. A funny early scene has him stumbling at an airport, misidentifying several times his contact there. And, in an earlier scene, it's fun to watch Love amusedly observe the skullduggery as agents try to brief him about the (mostly feasible) high-tech gadgets they want to arm him with. (More to provide psychological reassurance than for practical application, one explains.)

When Love's investigation becomes more dangerous than anyone had anticipated, he proves up to the task. The film's several fight scenes are believably staged: they're violent but not ridiculous, and at a level in which the audience can accept Love holding his own. Later in the film, Love is captured and tortured by Soviet spies; this too is more realistically dramatized than most spy films of the period. Additionally, the clever script has Love's medical background and encyclopedic knowledge of classic cars coming in handy in unexpected but logical ways.

The movie is delightful in other respects, too, especially Love's interaction with various characters. Love's and Vikki's flirtations generate genuine sexual suspense. The dialogue is so terrific (after Love explains the convoluted circumstances that brought him there she replies, "It's such a stupid story it must be true.") and their amorous chemistry so good that the audience barely notices the huge age difference between the two actors. (She was 23, he 55.)

Gruff, wall-eyed Nigel Davenport is likewise excellent as the heavy-drinking British agent Love befriends in Beirut. Parkington recognizes Love's amateur talent for spy work, how Love's inexperience has the advantage of unpredictability, and at the same time he freely provides Love invaluable practical advice with which Love is obviously unfamiliar. Indeed, so good is Davenport in this one realizes that he would have made an excellent James Bond himself.

Another fine vignette has Love enlisting the help of a fellow car fanatic, Farouk (Eric Pohlmann, the original voice of 007's arch-nemesis, Blofeld), to search for the old car used to kidnap Rosser. When Parkington questions Farouk's trustworthiness, Love vouches for him implicitly because they happen to belong to the same classic car club. Parkington finds this reasoning strangely logical.

The picture has many other fine qualities, such as Mario Nascimbene's sprightly score, and a few minor problems, such as the overuse of process shots and barely acceptable miniatures, much of this related to a third act that's on a larger scale than the film's budget can truly afford. These are minor quibbles, however.

Video & Audio

Where the Spies Are is exactly the kind of movie suited for Blu-ray's finite but loyal market. If Warner Home Video is reluctant to release movies like these themselves on Blu-ray, one wishes they were more willing to let third parties such as Twilight Time, Olive, and Kino Lorber pick up the slack. Instead, what we get is an enhanced widescreen but tepid transfer. Sharpness, contrast, and color are all pretty mediocre, though perhaps less noticeable on smaller monitors. The mono audio, English only with no alternate audio options or subtitles, is okay, and the disc is all-region.

Extra Features

The lone supplement is a full-frame trailer that, as noted above, somewhat misrepresents the film as a full-on comedy. It's not.

Parting Thoughts

A real surprise, Where the Spies Are is a winner all the way, an atypically smart, character-rich, and believable spy movie made when few spy films had any of these qualities. Highly Recommended, despite the disappointing video transfer.

Stuart Galbraith IV is the Kyoto-based film historian and publisher-editor of World Cinema Paradise. His credits include film history books, DVD and Blu-ray audio commentaries and special features.