The Cold War gave writers a permanent antagonist and forty years of paranoia to work with. This tag collects reviews and essays on Cold War films, spy fiction and the era behind both.
Artificial IntelligenceOn September 26, 1983, a Soviet early-warning system reported five American nuclear missiles. Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov called it a malfunction, and he was right. Petrov Day marks the night one officer refused to believe the machine.
Cold WarIan Fleming failed as a soldier, a banker and a stockbroker, found his footing in naval intelligence, and wrote Casino Royale at forty-three in about five weeks. Every Bond novel after it came from the same quota: 2,000 words a…
1970sI have watched this more times than is defensible. A film about a computer, a requirements document and a mountain, and the machine is never once broken.
1980sIshtar (1987) rates 6 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Elaine May made a screwball comedy about two men with no talent, spent fifty-one million dollars doing it in the Sahara, and the name became shorthand for disaster before…
1960sThe Manchurian Candidate (1962) rates 10 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. Frankenheimer made a political thriller that is also a comedy, a nightmare and a story about a mother, released it thirteen months before Dallas, and Angela Lansbury…
1970sThree Days of the Condor (1975) rates 9 out of 10 on the rewatch scale. A man who reads books for the CIA goes out for lunch and comes back to find everybody he works with shot. The film changed…
Cold WarIn 1984 a former Soviet propagandist described four stages for taking a country apart: demoralize a generation, destabilize its institutions, manufacture a crisis, normalize what follows. He said the first stage was already finished in America.
Book ReviewsThe cat-and-mouse pursuit of a defecting Soviet submarine captain and his revolutionary stealth sub, with CIA analyst Jack Ryan racing to grasp his intentions. The blockbuster debut that invented the modern techno-thriller: gripping, meticulously researched, and genre-defining, if heavy on…
1990s1995 Martin Campbell Bond film with Pierce Brosnan's debut. Sean Bean as 006 traitor, Famke Janssen as Xenia Onatopp.
1980s1983 John Glen Bond film with Moore in India. Maud Adams as Octopussy, jewel-smuggling circus train, Soviet nuclear plot.
1970s1977 Lewis Gilbert Bond film with Moore teamed with Soviet agent Barbara Bach against Stromberg. The Spy Who Loved Me is Lewis Gilbert's 1977 British spy film.
1970s1973 Guy Hamilton Bond film with Roger Moore's debut. Voodoo, blaxploitation tropes, Jane Seymour as Solitaire.
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