Spies Like Us

Last updated

Spies Like Us
Spieslikeusposter.jpg
Theatrical release poster by John Alvin
Directed by John Landis
Screenplay by
Story by
Produced by
Starring
Cinematography Robert Paynter
Edited byMalcolm Campbell
Music by Elmer Bernstein
Production
companies
Distributed byWarner Bros. [1]
Release date
  • December 6, 1985 (1985-12-06)
Running time
109 minutes [1]
CountryUnited States [1]
LanguageEnglish
Budget$22 million [2]
Box office$77.3 million [3]

Spies Like Us is a 1985 American spy comedy film directed by John Landis, and starring Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd, Steve Forrest, and Donna Dixon. The film presents the comic adventures of two novice intelligence agents sent to the Soviet Union. Originally written by Aykroyd and Dave Thomas to star Aykroyd and John Belushi at Universal, the script went into turnaround and was later picked up by Warner Bros., starring Aykroyd and Chase.

Contents

Partly filmed on location near Sognefjord in Norway (as Russia) and the Sahara (as Pakistan), [4] [5] [6] the film is a homage to the famous Bob Hope and Bing Crosby Road to... film series. Hope himself cameos in one scene. Other cameos include directors Terry Gilliam, Sam Raimi, Costa-Gavras, Martin Brest, Frank Oz, and Joel Coen, musician B.B. King and visual effects pioneer Ray Harryhausen. Contemporary reviews of the film were largely negative. Spies Like Us was a financial success, grossing $77 million.

Plot

Austin Millbarge is a code breaker dwelling in the dark basement at the Pentagon who aspires to escape his under-respected job to become a secret agent. Emmett Fitz-Hume, a wisecracking, pencil-pushing son of an envoy, takes the foreign service exam under peer pressure. Millbarge and Fitz-Hume meet during the test, on which Fitz-Hume openly cheats after his attempts to bribe his female supervisor and the test monitor in exchange for the answers both fail. Millbarge was not prepared to take the test, having had only one night to study after his supervisor deliberately withheld a two-weeks notice for the exam, leaving him vulnerable to fail and having to remain in the bowels of the Pentagon.

Needing two expendable covert agents to act as decoys to draw attention away from a more capable team, Ruby and Keyes of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) decide to enlist Fitz-Hume and Millbarge, promote them to GLG-20 Foreign Service Operatives, rush them through minimal military survival training, and then send them on an undefined mission inside Pakistan and Soviet Central Asia. Meanwhile, the two professional agents are well on their way to carry out the actual objective: the seizure of a mobile SS-50 ICBM launcher in Soviet territory. A member of the main team is killed, while Millbarge and Fitz-Hume manage to escape multiple enemy attacks and eventually encounter Karen Boyer, the surviving operative from the main team.

In the Pamir Mountains of the Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic, the trio disguises themselves in hastily constructed extraterrestrial outfits and tranquilizes the mobile missile guard unit. Following orders in real-time from the intelligence agency (operating from the W.A.M.P. military bunker located deep under an abandoned drive-in theater), they begin to operate the launcher. At the end of their instructions, the vehicle launches the ICBM into space, targeting an unspecified area in the Continental United States. Thinking they have started a nuclear war, the American agents and their Soviet counterparts pair up to have sex before the world is destroyed.

Meanwhile, Ruby and Keyes have joined Generals Sline and Miegs, the two military commanders at W.A.M.P., in the operations bunker. They initiate the conversion of the drive-in theater to expose what is hidden beneath the screens and projection booth: a huge black-op SDI-esque laser and collector/emitter screen. The purpose of sending the agents to launch a Soviet ICBM is exposed as a means to test this anti-ballistic missile system, but the laser malfunctions and fails to intercept the missile. Despite this, Sline and Miegs choose not to inform the President and the US Government that the missile launch was not a nuclear attack initiated by the Soviet Union, revealing to the horrified Ruby and Keyes, a twisted contingency plan of letting the impending thermonuclear war commence to "preserve the American way of life".

Back in the Soviet Union, horrified at the thought of having launched a nuclear missile at their own country, Millbarge realizes that the missile can be diverted. The American spies and Soviet technicians quickly use Millbarge's knowledge of missile guidance systems to transmit instructions that deflect the missile off into space where it harmlessly detonates. Immediately after, the underground W.A.M.P. bunker is located and stormed by U.S. Army Rangers, Ruby, Keyes and the rogue military officials involved in the unauthorized covert operation are all arrested. Millbarge, Fitz-Hume, and Boyer go on to become nuclear disarmament negotiators, playing a nuclear version of Risk -meets- Trivial Pursuit against their new Soviet friends.

Cast

Other actors making appearances in minor roles include Jeff Harding as Fitz-Hume's state department colleague and Heidi Sorenson as Alice, Fitz-Hume's supervisor. Also making cameo appearances are special effects designer Derek Meddings as Dr. Stinson, directors Joel Coen, Sam Raimi, and Martin Brest as the drive-in security, comedian Bob Hope as himself, musician B.B. King and directors Michael Apted and Larry Cohen as the Ace Tomato agents, and NBC newscaster Edwin Newman as himself.

Title song

The title song, "Spies Like Us", was written and performed by Paul McCartney. It peaked at #7 on the singles chart in the United States in early 1986, his last top ten in the US until 2015. [7] It also reached #13 in the UK. [8] John Landis directed a music video for the song where Aykroyd and Chase are performing the song with McCartney (although they didn't actually play on the record).[ citation needed ]

Landis has stated that he feels "Spies Like Us" is a "a terrible song" but he couldn't say no to McCartney and Warner Bros. [9]

Soundtrack

The film's score was composed by Elmer Bernstein and performed by the Graunke Symphony Orchestra, conducted by the composer. The soundtrack album was released by Varèse Sarabande; it does not contain the Paul McCartney song. The film also features "Soul Finger," by the Bar-Kays, also absent from the soundtrack. In an early scene, Fitz-Hume watches Ronald Reagan, Virginia Mayo and Gene Nelson sing "I'll Still be Loving You" in the 1952 film musical She's Working Her Way Through College .[ citation needed ]

  1. "The Ace Tomato Company" (5:06)
  2. "Off to Spy" (1:52)
  3. "Russians in the Desert" (2:21)
  4. "Pass in the Tent" (2:58)
  5. "Escape" (3:25)
  6. "To the Bus" (3:14)
  7. "The Road to Russia" (3:39)
  8. "Rally 'Round" (2:39)
  9. "W.A.M.P." (2:48)
  10. "Martian Act" (3:08)
  11. "Arrest" (2:21)
  12. "Recall" (2:38)
  13. "Winners" (1:16)

Release

Box office

Spies Like Us earned $8.6 million on its US opening weekend and ultimately grossed $60 million in the United States and Canada [3] against a budget of $22 million. [2] [10] The film grossed $17.2 million overseas [11] for a worldwide total of $77.3 million. [3]

Critical reception

The Washington Post critic Paul Attanasio called Spies Like Us "a comedy with exactly one laugh, and those among you given to Easter egg hunts may feel free to try and find it." [12] The Chicago Reader critic Dave Kehr criticized the character development, saying that "Landis never bothers to account for the friendship that springs up spontaneously between these two antipathetic types, but then he never bothers to account for anything in this loose progression of recycled Abbott and Costello riffs". [13] The New York Times critic Janet Maslin wrote, "The stars are always affable, and they're worth watching even when they do very little, but it's painful to sit by as the screenplay runs out of steam." [14]

Variety magazine opined in a staff review, "Spies is not very amusing. Though Chase and Aykroyd provide moments, the overall script thinly takes on eccentric espionage and nuclear madness, with nothing new to add." [15] TV Guide published a staff review, stating, "Landis' direction is indulgent, to say the least, with big landscapes, big crashes, big hardware, and big gags filling the screen. What he forgets is character development, that all-important factor that must exist for comedy to work well." [16] David Parkinson, writing for the Radio Times , felt that "Dan Aykroyd and Chevy Chase simply fail to gel, and there's little fun to be had once the boisterous training school gags are exhausted." [17]

Review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes shows a score of 35% based on 26 reviews and an average rating of 4.5/10. The site's consensus states: "Despite the comedic prowess of its director and two leads, Spies Like Us appears to disavow all knowledge of how to make the viewer laugh." [18] Metacritic displays a score of 22 out of 100, based on 9 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". [19] Writing for Common Sense Media, Andrea Beach called the film a "dated '80s comedy [with] strong language, few laughs." [20] Collider staff writer Jeff Giles, reviewing the film's Blu-ray Disc release, stated, "on the whole, it’s more amusing than funny; it’s only 102 minutes, but it feels too long by half. For all the talent involved, there’s an awful lot of flab. It’s the kind of movie you can walk away from for 10 minutes without missing anything important." [21]

Legacy

Animated sitcom Family Guy paid tribute to the film with its 2009 episode "Spies Reminiscent of Us", which guest starred Aykroyd and Chase as fictionalized versions of themselves who, according to the series, were made real spies by Ronald Reagan after he saw the film. The episode recreates numerous scenes. [22] [23]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cuban Missile Crisis</span> 1962 confrontation between the US and USSR

The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis in Cuba, or the Caribbean Crisis, was a 13-day confrontation between the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union, when American deployments of nuclear missiles in Italy and Turkey were matched by Soviet deployments of nuclear missiles in Cuba. The crisis lasted from 16 to 28 October 1962. The confrontation is widely considered the closest the Cold War came to escalating into full-scale nuclear war.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Intercontinental ballistic missile</span> Ballistic missile with a range of more than 5,500 kilometres

An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a ballistic missile with a range greater than 5,500 kilometres (3,400 mi), primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery. Conventional, chemical, and biological weapons can also be delivered with varying effectiveness, but have never been deployed on ICBMs. Most modern designs support multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRVs), allowing a single missile to carry several warheads, each of which can strike a different target. The United States, Russia, China, France, India, the United Kingdom, Israel, and North Korea are the only countries known to have operational ICBMs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Strategic Defense Initiative</span> U.S. military defense program (1984–1993)

The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), nicknamed the Star Wars program, was a proposed missile defense system intended to protect the United States from attack by ballistic strategic nuclear weapons. The concept was announced on March 23, 1983, by President Ronald Reagan, a vocal critic of the doctrine of mutually assured destruction (MAD), which he described as a "suicide pact". Reagan called upon American scientists and engineers to develop a system that would render nuclear weapons obsolete. Elements of the program reemerged in 2019 with the Space Development Agency (SDA).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LGM-30 Minuteman</span> American ICBM, in service

The LGM-30 Minuteman is an American land-based intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in service with the Air Force Global Strike Command. As of 2024, the LGM-30G is the only land-based ICBM in service in the United States and represents the land leg of the U.S. nuclear triad, along with the Trident II submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) and nuclear weapons carried by long-range strategic bombers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Strategic Arms Limitation Talks</span> Two conferences between the United States and Soviet Union involving arms control

The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) were two rounds of bilateral conferences and corresponding international treaties involving the United States and the Soviet Union. The Cold War superpowers dealt with arms control in two rounds of talks and agreements: SALT I and SALT II.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LGM-118 Peacekeeper</span> Intercontinental ballistic missile

The LGM-118 Peacekeeper, originally known as the MX for "Missile, Experimental", was a MIRV-capable intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) produced and deployed by the United States from 1985 to 2005. The missile could carry up to twelve Mark 21 reentry vehicles, each armed with a 300-kiloton W87 warhead. Initial plans called for building and deploying 100 MX ICBMs, but budgetary concerns limited the final procurement; only 50 entered service. Disarmament treaties signed after the Peacekeeper's development led to its withdrawal from service in 2005.

<i>Colossus: The Forbin Project</i> 1970 film by Joseph Sargent

Colossus: The Forbin Project is a 1970 American science-fiction thriller film from Universal Pictures, produced by Stanley Chase, directed by Joseph Sargent, that stars Eric Braeden, Susan Clark, Gordon Pinsent, and William Schallert. It is based upon the 1966 science-fiction novel Colossus by Dennis Feltham Jones.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Russia and weapons of mass destruction</span>

The Russian Federation is known to possess or have possessed three types of weapons of mass destruction: nuclear weapons, biological weapons, and chemical weapons. It is one of the five nuclear-weapon states recognized under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oleg Penkovsky</span> British spy in the USSR (1919–1963)

Oleg Vladimirovich Penkovsky, codenamed Hero and Yoga was a Soviet military intelligence (GRU) colonel during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Penkovsky informed the United States and the United Kingdom about Soviet military secrets, including the appearance and footprint of Soviet intermediate-range ballistic missile installations and the weakness of the Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile program. This information was decisive in allowing the US to recognize that the Soviets were placing missiles in Cuba before most of them were operational. It also gave US President John F. Kennedy, during the Cuban Missile Crisis that followed, valuable information about Soviet weakness that allowed him to face down Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and resolve the crisis without a nuclear war.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fractional Orbital Bombardment System</span> Nuclear weapons delivery system

A Fractional Orbital Bombardment System (FOBS) is a warhead delivery system that uses a low Earth orbit towards its target destination. Just before reaching the target, it deorbits through a retrograde engine burn.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brilliant Pebbles</span> US anti-ballistic missile system

Brilliant Pebbles was a ballistic missile defense (BMD) system proposed by Lowell Wood and Edward Teller of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in 1987, near the end of the Cold War. The system would consist of thousands of small satellites, each with missiles similar to conventional heat seeking missiles, placed in low Earth orbit constellations so that hundreds would be above the Soviet Union at all times. If the Soviets launched its ICBM fleet, the pebbles would detect their rocket motors using infrared seekers and collide with them. Because the pebble strikes the ICBM before the latter could release its warheads, each pebble could destroy several warheads with one shot.

In the United States, during the Cold War, the missile gap was the perceived superiority of the number and power of the USSR's missiles in comparison with those of the U.S.. The gap in the ballistic missile arsenals did not exist except in exaggerated estimates, made by the Gaither Committee in 1957 and in United States Air Force (USAF) figures. Even the contradictory CIA figures for the USSR's weaponry, which showed a clear advantage for the US, were far above the actual count. Like the bomber gap of only a few years earlier, it was soon demonstrated that the gap was entirely fictional.

<i>The Blues Brothers</i> (film) 1980 American musical comedy film by John Landis

The Blues Brothers is a 1980 American musical action comedy film directed by John Landis. It stars John Belushi as "Joliet" Jake Blues and Dan Aykroyd as his brother Elwood, characters developed from the recurring musical sketch "The Blues Brothers" on NBC's variety series Saturday Night Live. The script is set in and around Chicago, Illinois, where it was filmed, and the screenplay is by Aykroyd and Landis. It features musical numbers by singers James Brown, Cab Calloway, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles and John Lee Hooker. It features non-musical supporting performances by Carrie Fisher and Henry Gibson.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Project Excalibur</span> Anti-missile system using an X-ray laser powered by a nuclear bomb

Project Excalibur was a Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) Cold War–era research program to develop an X-ray laser system as a ballistic missile defense (BMD) for the United States. The concept involved packing large numbers of expendable X-ray lasers around a nuclear device, which would orbit in space. During an attack, the device would be detonated, with the X-rays released focused by each laser to destroy multiple incoming target missiles. Because the system would be deployed above the Earth's atmosphere, the X-rays could reach missiles thousands of kilometers away, providing protection over a wide area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spies Like Us (song)</span> 1985 single by Paul McCartney

"Spies Like Us" is the title song to the 1985 Warner Bros. motion picture of the same name, starring Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd, and Donna Dixon. It was written and performed by Paul McCartney, and reached #7 on the Billboard singles chart in early 1986, making it McCartney's last US top ten hit until 2015's "FourFiveSeconds". It also reached #13 in the UK.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nuclear triad</span> Set of three types of nuclear-strike weapons

A nuclear triad is a three-pronged military force structure of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and strategic bombers with nuclear bombs and missiles. Countries build nuclear triads to eliminate an enemy's ability to destroy a nation's nuclear forces in a first-strike attack, which preserves their own ability to launch a second strike and therefore increases their nuclear deterrence.

The Cold War was reflected in culture through music, movies, books, television, and other media, as well as sports, social beliefs, and behavior. Major elements of the Cold War included the threat of communist expansion, a nuclear war, and – connected to both – espionage. Many works use the Cold War as a backdrop or directly take part in a fictional conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. The period 1953–62 saw Cold War themes becoming mainstream as a public preoccupation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spies Reminiscent of Us</span> 3rd episode of the 8th season of Family Guy

"Spies Reminiscent of Us" is the third episode of the eighth season of the animated comedy series Family Guy. It originally aired on Fox in the United States on October 11, 2009. The episode pays homage to the 1985 comedy film Spies Like Us, featuring baby Stewie and anthropomorphic dog Brian as they discover that American spies Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd have moved into their neighbor Cleveland Brown's old house; they eventually follow them on a secret mission to Russia. Meanwhile, Peter, Joe, and Quagmire attempt to start an improv comedy group with very little success.

Edward Chalmers Hume was an American film and television writer, best known for creating and developing several TV series in the 1970s, and for writing the 1983 TV movie The Day After.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Spies Like Us (1985)". AFI Catalog of Feature Films . Retrieved March 14, 2023.
  2. 1 2 David T. Friendly (January 2, 1986). "Purple, 'africa' Pace Box Office". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved July 9, 2012.
  3. 1 2 3 Spies Like Us at Box Office Mojo
  4. ↑ DeRiso, Nick. "How 'Spies Like Us' Faltered When It Got to the Spy Part". Ultimate Classic Rock. Retrieved September 21, 2022.
  5. ↑ McGrath, Nick (February 4, 2016). "Dan Aykroyd's Travelling Life". The Telegraph. ISSN   0307-1235 . Retrieved September 21, 2022. Favourite film location? We shot some of Spies Like Us in Norway, on the top of a mountain near Sognefjord.
  6. ↑ Davis, Tom (2009). Thirty-Nine Years of Short-Term Memory Loss: The Early Days of SNL. New York: Grove Press. p. 217.
  7. ↑ Trust, Gary (February 4, 2015). "Mark Ronson & Bruno Mars Top Hot 100; Rihanna, Kanye West & Paul McCartney Near Top 10". Billboard. Retrieved May 6, 2023.
  8. ↑ "Paul McCartney". Official Charts. The Official UK Charts Company. Retrieved January 26, 2017.
  9. ↑ John Landis on Paul McCartney's "Spies Like Us" Theme Song. Vimeo . August 27, 2017.
  10. ↑ Jack Matthews (December 25, 1985). "A Strong Start for 'Color Purple' in Christmas Box Office Race". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved July 9, 2012.
  11. ↑ McCarthy, Todd (December 8, 1986). "Record O'Seas Take For Warners". Daily Variety . p. 1.
  12. ↑ Attanasio, Paul (December 9, 1985). "Movies" . Retrieved April 23, 2018– via The Washington Post.
  13. ↑ Kehr, Dave (October 26, 1985). "Spies Like Us". Chicago Reader. Archived from the original on April 24, 2018. Retrieved April 23, 2018.
  14. ↑ Maslin, Janet (December 6, 1985). "Screen: 'Spies Like Us'". The New York Times. Archived from the original on April 23, 2018. Retrieved April 23, 2018.
  15. ↑ "Spies Like Us". Variety. January 1, 1985. Archived from the original on April 23, 2018. Retrieved April 23, 2018.
  16. ↑ "Spies Like Us". TV Guide. Archived from the original on December 6, 2017. Retrieved April 23, 2018.
  17. ↑ Parkinson, David. "Spies Like Us – review - cast and crew, movie star rating and where to watch film on TV and online". Radio Times. Archived from the original on April 23, 2018. Retrieved April 23, 2018.
  18. ↑ "Spies Like Us". Rotten Tomatoes . Retrieved November 30, 2023.
  19. ↑ "Spies Like Us". Metacritic . Retrieved April 23, 2018.
  20. ↑ "Spies Like Us - Movie Review" . Retrieved April 23, 2018.
  21. ↑ Jeff Giles (July 20, 2010). "FUNNY FARM and SPIES LIKE US Blu-ray Reviews". collider.com. Retrieved April 23, 2018.
  22. ↑ "Family Guy Preview: "Spies Reminiscent of Us"". IGN . October 9, 2009. Retrieved May 17, 2013.
  23. ↑ VanDerWerff, Emily (October 12, 2009). ""The Great Wife Hope"/"The One About Friends"/"Spies Reminiscent of Us"/"Home Adrone"". The A.V. Club . Retrieved November 19, 2009.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.