I watched 008 Operanzio Sterminio, Umberto Lenzi’s 1965 Eurospy caper. This is a fantastic film for one reason: Agent 008 herself, played by Ingrid Schoeller, who I had never heard of before watching this, primarily because she only made a handful of films, none of which I’d seen. I know who she is now.
This is set in Egypt, and we first meet 008 standing in front of the Sphinx and Pyramids, dressed in white and gold and wearing a bold pair of square sunglasses. The first time we see her in action she is sitting at a gambling table in Cairo, spectacular cleavage falling out of a plunging red dress with deadly blue eye shadow weighing down her big lids and platinum blonde hairdo set hard and glowing - strong look for a female secret agent in Egypt, even in 1965. Her cover is as a nightclub singer at a popular Cairo bar, where she appears to specialise in appalling Marlene Dietrich impersonations.
And yet, you should see her at full force, taking out enemy agents in a secret female gym and beauty salon down a Cairo backstreet with lipstick set to stun and shotgun in her garters. Or watch the way she runs rings around agent 006 (aka, uh, “Frank”) who, once more and as ever in these movies, is thick as fuck, a lantern-jawed lunk who stumbles around shooting at walls whenever he gets in trouble. At one point, after he has stated the obvious, she replies: “Pretty clever of you, I’d say. I can see you went to Oxford.” (He takes it quite well, to be fair, although there is a reason why.) The leaden tone of sarcasm in this exchange sums up plenty about the switch in roles between the US and Great Britain at this juncture in history.
A female version of Bond is obviously an enlightened idea at this time and place, but don’t forget that Umberto fucking Lenzi is directing this particular specimen, so it’s no feminist tract. And yet, and yet, Agent 008 is dead cool, very sexy, and in charge of most situations, so feminist critique is beside the point. (She is my second favourite Eurospy character so far, after Lady Arabella Chaplin.) The rule, as far as I can tell at the moment, is that the (male) Italian Bonds are either disgusting individuals or totally useless, and the women rule (and/or win) the day. Also, the “Bonds” all seem to be wearing ill-fitting Sunday suits with beige socks and boring funeral shoes, whereas the women eat up all the wardrobe budget and look totally sharp.
I’ll point out Frank’s one great scene: his fight to the death at the top of the Cairo Tower, Egypt’s primary piece of Modernist architecture at the time. This film occasionally looks like a terrific tourist reel for early-Nasser era Egypt, before it got really shit. Plenty of camels and souks and Pharaoh buildings and stuff.
Here we are, English dubbing starts about 7 minutes in for non-Italian speakers:
(The longer this film goes on, by the way, the more Frank looks like an alcoholic Timothy Dalton. 008 is too good for this schmuck.)