OSS117: The Spy Who (Covertly) Loved Them All
On the page, Agent 117 pre-dates 007 by several years. In the noughties he was brought back to the screen by a team who would go on to win Best Picture at the Oscars. As well as poking affectionate fun at the Bond character (especially his sexuality), the films have a serious side, satirising outdated attitudes. Will the upcoming third film maintain the same winning balance of comedy and social commentary?
Any Bond fan who likes the lighter side of the series is in for a treat with the OSS 117 comedies: Cairo Nest of Spies (2006), and Lost in Rio (2009). They offer an hilarious celebration of Sean Connery's Bond era. These French films have a very different flavour to the typical Hollywood parody. What really sets them apart is that they also have something to say.
The films work on two levels. One part of them makes fun of 1960s spy movie tropes. The other part is social commentary on how the world has changed since the 1960s. They make fun of colonial, racist and misogynist attitudes in older movies. Interestingly, the only homophobia expressed is from OSS 117 himself, the Bond-like character, grappling with his own sexuality.
The main reason to watch these films is because they are really fun, campy, loving parodies of Bond and related movies. The films stand out because you can tell the people who made them really know the Bond films they are parodying and love cinema. I don't know of any film that can parody Sean Connery's early James Bond so well. These films are celebrations of cinema, made by people with a vast knowledge of spy thrillers and similar films. Cheap parodies just throw in a trope and a gag. The OSS 117 movies make exact references to scenes and clothing from specific James Bond movies, several Hitchcock movies, and even a touch of Indiana Jones. These movies have a lot to say about how social norms have changed since the 1960s.
Since these films are not as well known as the Bond movies, I will save plot spoilers until the second half of the article. There will be a spoiler warning before that section begins.
The purpose of this article is to convince more people that the 2006 and 2009 OSS 117 films are worth watching, and not only for the laughs. A third film in this OSS 117 series is ready and will probably be released in 2021, pandemic allowing. Judging by the third film's French title, Red Alert in Black Africa, it will probably be referencing French colonial history even more than the first two.
The first series of OSS 117 films was produced in the 1960s as part of the spy film craze started by the Bond movies. The films discussed here are parodies produced in the 2000s. These films were made by the Oscar-winning team of The Artist (2011) for best foreign-language film. That team includes the director and male lead, plus the female lead in the 2006 film. The first, Cairo: Nest of Spies was released in 2006. The sequel, Lost in Rio, followed in 2009.
Shifting Attitudes
There is a high level of self-awareness within these films. It plays loose with time periods in order to comment on old attitudes and current ones. OSS 117 appears to already be outdated in the 1960s, while several people around him have post 2000 attitudes. On occasion, even his old M-like boss. OSS 117's suits are from a few years earlier than the year in which the movie is set. That's not a goof, but a conscious choice, according to the costume designer. These seeming contradictions are an example of the playful seriousness underlying the movie. Goofball on the outside, social commentary on the inside.
In my view, the OSS 117 movies tackle societal issues way better than any current Hollywood movies. They successfully follow the old wisdom that, in fiction, showing is far better than telling. Commentary is wrapped in fun and humour. The films cleverly use the main character's outdated attitudes so the audience can feel how much mainstream attitudes have changed, and get a good laugh out of it. That sentiment is even written on the French poster for the third film - "The world has changed. He hasn't". When another character calls out OSS 117 on his ignorance, it's shown as coming from within that character, not something they feel compelled to say out of social norms. Everyone in the audience is in on the joke and grinning at the main character's ignorance. It works similarly to when Judi Dench's character in GoldenEye dresses down Bond in her office with her words about Bond being a sexist, misogynist dinosaur. It's strong because it comes from within her, not because she is saying something her job or social norms would compel her to say. She is saying it out of conviction. We as the audience know exactly what she is referring to because we are familiar with the Bond character. That's how it's done in the OSS 117 films too, only with plenty of humour.
Preempting Bond
OSS 117 predates Ian Fleming‘s creation of James Bond by four years, starting in 1949. OSS 117 is the codename of Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath, a character created by French novelist Jean Bruce. To say he was prolific is an understatement. Jean Bruce wrote at least 88 OSS 117 novels (Wikipedia states both 88 and 91 initial novels). He also wrote many others outside the series, since he used a bunch of pen names. He only lived to age 42, dying in a car accident. His wife continued writing the series at a similarly fast pace for another 20 years, creating 143 installments. After her death, their daughter and son-in-law wrote another 24. Quite the family writing business and legacy. The first OSS 117 films were made in the 1960s. In this case, the spy craze of the 1960s created by James Bond was presumably the catalyst to adapting OSS 117 for cinema.
117’s codename is pronounced "one hundred and seventeen", not "one one seven", nor "double one seven". OSS 117's full name is Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath, but it is rarely used to refer to him because it is so long. In typical fashion, he even makes a joke about someone else's name being a mouthful, despite it being shorter than his. In contrast to Bond, it's more common to use his codename. Of course when he is introduced to people or checking into a hotel people call him Monsieur de La Bath. Or when someone angrily retorts one of his ignorant comments. [Sidenote: it appears other French writers and screenwriters were also ahead in the "fantastical spy genre". A villain's volcano lair appears in another French movie, Fantomas, that predates You Only Live Twice. The same movie uses lookalike masks to impersonate people before Mission: Impossible. And a car turns into an airplane 10 years before The Man with the Golden Gun.]
Riffing Off Bond
This series also differs in that the male lead playing Bond actually has the looks and physique to play James Bond. Most parodies feature either a comedian who looks nothing like James Bond, as part of the joke, or a guy with good looks who couldn't actually embody James Bond. Equally for the female lead. All parodies feature an attractive female lead, but very few would make really good Bond girls — with the exception of several 1960s parodies and comedy adventures that simply hired Ursula Andress.
The first OSS 117 movie does feature an actor who could be a genuinely good Bond girl. The female lead in the second film is not quite there, despite having the looks and decent acting skills. There's a certain something missing. The reason this is interesting is because the parodies highlight how difficult it is to cast the right actors. Spoofs can get away with a lot because it's supposed to be funny. When things don't work you can say it's a joke. But we all know they are trying to get close and mimic some characters from a real 007 movie. A parody wants to either use an actor who is so ridiculously different to James Bond that it's funny in itself (see Mike Myers as Austin Powers), or an actor who has many of the attributes of the suave, sophisticated fantasy secret agent. Our Man Flint with James Coburn is an example of the latter approach, as well as Dean Martin as Matt Helm. Coburn typically played hard-edged characters, while Dean Martin was known for lighter movies. What they both had in common were the looks, moves, and attitude that made their attractiveness believable. OSS 117 takes the same approach.
Time to look at a few topics in detail…
Spoiler alert: If you want zero spoilers, watch the films first. Pop back to find out if you missed anything. There will be spoilers from this point onwards.
Subverting sexpectations
The first film OSS 117: Cairo Nest of Spies, has agent OSS 117 look back nostalgically to a homoerotic relationship with a character very much resembling a Felix Leiter type character. In both adventures, agent OSS 117 is bisexual, and has gay adventures he suppresses. They are presented in flashbacks, memories, dreamlike sequences, and an LSD trip. This is a pretty clever method because it shows his suppression visually, without need for exposition.
OSS 117's sexual prowess is shown in unconventional and contradictory ways. This is used to great effect when he uses his desirability to get information out of a villainess. He stands in profile playing with a pistol between his legs while she watches from the opposite end of the room. This continues until it's too hot for her to stand any longer and she gives the information he wants. It's a role reversal, but not limited to being heterosexual. Enough said. Watch this scene and you will know what I mean.
In another scene the camera first pans away in the usual manner of the 1960s while OSS 117 is kissing a woman, fully clothed, on the bed. Then the camera pans back again for a peek but moves away very quickly because 117's moves on the bed are like those of an awkward teenager. The film keeps subverting expectations like this by showing 117 first as inept and awkward, then skilled and completely at ease.
Fancying Felix Leiter
There are several flashback scenes in the 2006 film where OSS 117 reminisces nostalgically about his old best buddy Jack Jefferson, a fairly obvious nod to Felix Leiter. It shows them playing around on the beach in homoerotic flashbacks.
However, these are the memories of OSS 117. Later on we see Jack's memories of those scenes are completely different. Jack has a negative view of how OSS 117 treated him. It's another clever way of highlighting 117's suppression. But it's not only OSS 117 who has homoerotic flashbacks. The Nazi villain also has a similar memory on a beach mirroring that of OSS 117 and Jack Jefferson. There are other moments too, such as with the masseur in the bath house. The first masseur is a large, middle-aged, but muscular man. He gently rubs oil over OSS 117's back and shoulders while explaining the importance of moisturising. 117 replies with a satisfied grin saying "I love being rubbed with oil". Then the mood changes as the masseur turns out to be a villain when his two henchmen arrive. The large henchman begins harshly stretching, beating, and bending 117's body. The second smaller henchmen is meanwhile gently massaging his boss's shoulders while he interrogates 117. It's an odd scene that works on a more subtle level than others. It's not overtly sexual like the beach or bed scenes, nor are there any nudge-nudge-wink-wink moments, but the atmosphere is sexual. I suppose when there are four naked, oiled men interacting in a bath house, there's no need to be more overt.
It's also worth noting that this sequence ends with 117's most brutal, most truly Conneryesque moment. OSS 117 frees himself by fighting and knocking out the hench-masseur with a few exact blows. This is not the comedy fighting you normally see in the rest of these movies. 117 hits fast and precise. Then he grabs the villain's neck and twists it with a short, but fast and precise movement, killing the villain. Both acts feel very much like the real Connery, but are also very modern.
117 then struts out of the bath house with a slightly exaggerated Connery swagger on display. This could be interpreted in several different ways. He definitely needs to free himself from the henchman and villain because there's real danger. However, I wonder whether the serious way he fights to get out of the sexual situation is a comment on his suppression. I don't believe there is a single definitive answer, but there are several possibilities here. It's another demonstration of why these films are so interesting. Instead of comedic brawl fighting, we suddenly get a brutal, precise OSS 117 more akin to Connery's Bond, Jason Bourne and Daniel Craig's Bond. Such decisions are clearly intentional.
After the mission has ended, 117 meets with his boss (his "M") who refers to "that somewhat odd business", which he had to tell the President about. OSS 117 immediately asks the waitress to come over and starts kissing her to try and prove he's not gay, but his boss just says it's fine with him if it makes 117 happy. And so 117 is left with no one else in his world being particularly bothered about his sexuality – except himself. Another way in which this film cleverly sets itself apart from the superficial gags of most other parodies.
Cupid Drops In
Agent OSS 117 has a few notable encounters while "Lost in Rio" (2009). While 117 is at the beach he unknowingly accepts LSD from a young hippie woman. A man who is part of an LSD beach orgy, and we are led to believe has sex with OSS 117, is like a mythological character. Even his physical stature is similar to that of a cherub. Or more precisely in this context, a putto, like Cupid. A putto representing Cupid is called an amoretto or amorino. Despite being a grown man, possibly in his late twenties, it's difficult to not see him as such a figure. (Cherubs have wings, and are of religious, biblical origin and context. Putti can have wings or not, but are of secular, ancient Roman mythological origin. The distinction can be quite confusing because artists have blurred the lines since the Renaissance). Putti are all over western art history. Well-nourished male babies appear sometimes with wings, sometimes without. This adult putto, appears in the love-in beach scene, in very short memory flashbacks, and sitting on a bench at night. He has a surreal nature. The first time because it's hallucinogenic. The second because it's nighttime and the streets are empty. This seductive putto represents the suppressed part of OSS 117's sexuality. This character only interacts with 117. It's as though nobody else notices them. The interactions are always in a dreamlike context that is sexual, or becomes sexual.
The second interaction with the putto is particularly interesting. He appears sitting on a park bench eating a candy/toffee apple. OSS 117 first passes him, then returns to ask the man why he looks familiar. The man answers they spent the night together on the beach. 117 laughs and says "that could easily be misunderstood". The man offers him a bite of his candied apple and 117 strikes it out of the man's hand, telling the "serpent to not tempt him with his fruit". Apart from the biblical and visual phallic references there is another which helps to explain why it is a red candy apple in the first place. A candy/toffee apple is called "love apple" in many languages. The original language is French. It's "pommes d'amour" in French, "maçã do amor" in Portuguese, "Liebesapfel" in German.
Taking the Connery
Jean Dujardin has the physique and looks to actually play Bond. He mimics Connery's early Bond perfectly, albeit in an exaggerated manner. Especially the way he walks is really well done. OSS 117 is like a self-obsessed, totally narcissistic, male model who can't get enough of himself. This makes for lots of campy fun. Just watching him walk through a hotel lobby dressed like Bond is funny in itself. Or when he places one foot on a car bumper or sofa in catalog-model poses. It's simple and silly, but anyone who appreciates Connery's early Bond films will get a kick out of it. For me, this is a celebration of the character Sean Connery embodied. There is nothing disparaging in my view.
The look of a 1960s movie is exactly on point. From the set designs and costumes, to the colour grading and back projection. This film was clearly made with a love of cinema and the period. Complete with back-projection and unrealistic steering wheel moves in car driving scenes, plus some painted backdrops or other optical effects used at that time. The color-grading is also spot-on. It really helps to draw you into a film of that era. They have done such a good job at recreating the era, even people who don't like the film still praise how well they recreated the period. The director is a specialist in this area because after these two films he created the Oscar-winning The Artist which recreated the silent movie era.
In the second film from 2009, there are even more nods to early Bond films. Like when Bond arrives in Jamaica at the beginning of Dr No and is picked up by the henchman chauffeur. That scene is recreated with a CIA agent saving OSS 117. But this time he is the total opposite to Felix Leiter. He is the only character in both movies to be depicted in a seriously negative way. During a drive 117 stops laughing and loses his flippant attitude. Even 117 feels disgusted and threatened.
Baby Blue Bathrobes
One of the most memorable sequences is when 117 wears a baby blue, ultra short bathrobe referencing the infamous garment worn by Sean Connery in Goldfinger. It's during a scene in which a female enemy agent visits his hotel room. She pretends to be there for fun and games, then excuses herself to the bathroom. Having stolen the object she wanted, she makes a getaway through the bathroom window. Meanwhile, 117 is practising sexy poses on the bed in his baby blue bathrobe, waiting for her to return. The result is 117 creating a pin-up poster pose. He is leaning on his right arm, grinning widely into the camera. The other arm lies relaxed over the knee of his left leg. That leg is propped at an angle, lifting the bathrobe up. The ultra-short robe only barely reaches his thighs in this pose. One end of the robe's belt is draped suggestively between his legs.
I'd like to draw your attention to the most famous landmark of Rio, visible in the background, directly behind OSS 117. The steeply rising mountain is very suggestively positioned (consider the angles of the various slopes). If you're going to parody the sexual objectification of Sean Connery in Thunderball, there isn't a better way to do it. Speaking of pin-ups, Daniel Craig created a pin-up wearing the baby blue trunks in Casino Royale. I noticed it pinned to a character's fridge door in another movie. The OSS 117 pin-up pose has cult potential. It accompanies a mock-up design for a perfume bottle. The design is based on a 1950s camera used in the second film. The perfume bottle does not actually exist, as far as I know. However, there is a mug featuring a cartoon version of the pin-up (available from a French website).
Correctly Incorrect
Apart from the physical comedy and sight gags, a lot of the humour is based on 117 being politically incorrect. Being so self-obsessed renders him completely insensitive to the environments in which the mission takes place, behaving with the attitude of an old colonialist. The first film, Nest of Spies, takes place in Cairo. Much of the humour is in the dialogue between 117 and his local contact Larmina, played by Bérénice Bejo, who would have made an excellent real Bond girl. Her character has to endure OSS 117's arrogance, chauvinism, and ignorance, until she gets to turn the tables. Despite being a relatively low cost production, they convincingly recreated the look and feel of the early Connery Bond films. However, there wasn't the budget for action set pieces. The two leads carry much of the movie. Of course, they work well together because four years later he won an Oscar for best actor and the film they co-starred in won best movie.
The parodying of OSS 117's ignorance continues in the second film. He presumes his mission partner, a female Israeli agent, must be his secretary, until she tells him she's an officer in the Israeli army. He struggles to understand that a woman could be an officer in the armed forces, in his usual ignorant but hilarious manner. And that is the mildest form of social faux-pas he commits. Just wait until he ignorantly discusses the Holocaust with the Israeli agents, or walks up to the reception desk of the German embassy in Rio and requests a list of Nazi criminals living in Brazil, in the same manner people ask for a restaurant recommendation at a hotel.
Being a French movie series, there is a significant amount of commentary on French history in a way that anyone can understand. In "Lost in Rio", 117 is given his mission by his equivalent of "M", and told to search for Nazis and their French collaborators hiding in Brazil. He has a long list. First, OSS 117 says that list can't be very long, maybe three or four names. His boss assures him the list is longer. Not only that, his boss's name is also on the list. 117 looks puzzled. He finds that odd considering President DeGaulle had said that all French people were in the Resistance. Later, he describes a regime with a military general as president, a secret police, and the absence of democracy. His mission partner, an Israeli woman working to bring Nazi criminals to justice, believes he is talking about a South American dictatorship. But OSS 117 replies, patriotically and without irony, that he is talking about France.
For the Laughs
Considering the second film was released in 2009, it was early to make smartphone jokes. The iPhone was introduced in late 2007, the App Store opened mid-2008. OSS 117 stops his car to take a "selfie", which means placing the camera on a wall and setting the timer, and going back to the car. Later, he urgently needs to make a phone call and uses a rotary dial phone with a really long number. Then we get a mosaic of people calling each other on old phones. It looks like a modern Zoom call, but this kind of phone call mosaic began in the 1960s. The Doris Day & Rock Hudson movies were well known for their split-screen phone calls. It works today as a call back to the 1960s, and a comment on changing technology.
The humour remains fresh because it keeps shifting. One moment he is inept, the next he is brilliant. They don't portray 177 as an imbecile all the time. He might suddenly do something brilliant, like find the exit to a pyramid by reading hieroglyphics. On the dance floor, OSS 117 learns to mambo within seconds. Instead of only explosions like at the end of Dr No, we get a colourful, whiz-bang firework display. In these moments, parodying other movies, he magically becomes overly adept. The humour stays fresh because it keeps flipping 117's abilities. You don't know whether he's going to look like an idiot, a genius, be awkward or suave. The first two OSS 117 movies offer great entertainment that works on multiple levels.
‘Red Alert in Black Africa’
A third film has been anticipated for a while. In the French comedy series Call My Agent (2015), there was a reference to a project by the director and lead actor of the first two OSS 117 films. The most promising indication is that the screenwriter Jean-François Halin remains the same as for the first two films. One reason for the delay, is that the original director left the project because he wanted to take it into a different direction. Agent OSS 117 was supposed to show his age and be balding. A possible reference to Sean Connery in Diamonds Are Forever and Never Say Never Again?He intended the film to take place in the 1970s, filmed in a Blaxploitation style, like Live and Let Die. As a result of all these creative differences, he left.
The third film is set in the 1980s, and OSS 117 keeps his hair. It takes place in Africa, focusing on French colonialism. Since it has been moved to the 1980s, the Blaxploitation style of the 1970s is no longer fitting. I presume we will see parodies of 1980s action movies. What we can expect, going by the title and teaser clips, is a focus on the post-colonialist era following independence of an African nation from France. After World War 2, most European colonies opted for independence, whether that was through an election or an uprising against foreign occupation. Jamaica gained its independence in 1962, just two months before the initial release of Dr No. The previous colonial powers did not want to give up their goal to extract natural resources at the cheapest possible price. Be it oil, precious-metals, diamonds, etc. When it wasn't natural resources, a colony could have been occupied for geopolitical reasons, i.e. to station troops or use as a listening post. All of those reasons are used in espionage fiction.
Post-Colonial Espionage Fiction
There are plots involving newly independent African states throughout television and movies of the 1960s spy craze. Especially in TV series like Danger Man (aka Secret Agent) starring Patrick McGoohan (who turned down the role of James Bond), early original Avengers episodes with Honor Blackman and Patrick Macnee, and the original Mission: Impossible TV series. Those plots continue into the 1970s, and even some 1980s movies. The British and US TV plots had several variations. One involved conferences where agents were tasked with protecting foreign dignitaries from assassination. Another plot line involved a person of interest, like a scientist, being held captive and needing to be extracted from the foreign country. A major plot was where a presidential candidate, or regent, was aided and hoisted to power. In those days, criticism of colonial rule was rare, but beginning.
The original Mission: Impossible series began with missions to help out fictional African nations against dictators and racist regimes. The IMF goes to the rescue, implying they are needed, and without criticism of its own nation's role. There is direct criticism in an original Avengers episode from 1965/66 titled Small Game For Big Hunters where a plot by a racist colonial group is uncovered and thwarted. The group wants to regain control over a former British colony by spreading disease with mutated mosquitos (the "small game" of the title). In the 1960s, we also began to see movies about mercenaries, hired to create a coup d'état or prop up someone already in power, often in African nations.
Most plots focused on unstable countries, inferring they were solely to blame. They rarely mentioned the outside interference that added to, or created, their instability. Since it was the Cold War, only interference through the Soviet Union and its satellites was shown in western media. On the other side of the Iron Curtain, Eastern Bloc nations depicted themselves as the rescuers, and western nations as the baddies. In reality, both blocs were fighting over ideological dominance and often harming former colonies in the process. The United States and Soviet Union did not face each other in direct war, but created so-called proxy wars in other nations where each side armed opposing sides in other countries. The Cold War was not really cold. The heat just shifted to different parts of the globe.
Speculation Time
What we can expect from the third OSS 117 film are comedic references to colonial attitudes in the way local people were addressed and treated. 117 already does this in the first movie. He treats the employee of his cover company (a chicken roost), like a colonial boss. He comically hands out photographs of the French president, as though the recipients were colonial subjects. From the teaser clips we can see that OSS 117's interaction with people in the hotel, as well as the President of the African country he is visiting, is going to be embarrassingly ignorant. Whether the film will uncover and comically critique the fight over natural resources is not clear. There is definitely hope for this movie since the writer remains the same for all three films, but I can't say anything about the new director. As Bond fans, we know that the director makes all the difference. After all, both Die Another Day and Casino Royale started out with the same screenwriters.
Further watching and reading
It usually takes a while for French movies to make their way around the world. In addition to the excellent TV series above, here are a few movie and book suggestions related to the topic of the third OSS 117 film. A selection of action, comedy, and romance.
Dark of the Sun (1968) - A gritty action movie about mercenaries in Africa starring Rod Taylor. Surprisingly brutal for its time (think "License to Kill"). The first trailer for the third OSS 117 movie has an action scene that reminded me of this one.
A United Kingdom (2016) - A romance amid political turmoil, based on real events shortly after World War 2. The ancestral heir, and new king, (David Oyelowo) to an African country under British rule, marries a white English woman (Rosamund Pike). The then racist regimes of South Africa and Rhodesia protest the "mixed race" marriage and ask Britain to prevent it. Britain has sold mining rights to a US corporation. Those resources are how the country would gain independent income in the future. Britain lures the king to the UK under false pretences, then prevents him from returning to his country because Britain wants to install its own administrator in his place.
The Dogs Of War, a novel by Frederick Forsyth. This is a serious, hard-core, and all too realistic fiction of a coup d'état involving mercenaries with a post-colonial background.
Water (1985) This is a silly, but entertaining romp, with Michael Caine as governor of a British colonial island which discovers it has reserves of mineral water (quite relevant to the 1980s when yuppies began drinking mineral water as a lifestyle statement, that has continued to the present day). Several countries are interested in exploitation rights. Much outdated humour, but also enjoyable, farcical moments. Plus, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, and Eric Clapton play backing group to the island's self-proclaimed freedom fighter (comedian Billy Connolly), during a gig at the United Nations (the movie was produced by George Harrison's film company, which explains how they got the latter performance).
Further Info
Trailers for the Third OSS 117 Film
https://www.allocine.fr/video/player_gen_cmedia=19590167&cfilm=262383.html
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7972012/
OSS 117 on Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSS_117
More on cherubs and putti in the Art History Babes episode "Weird Putti"
https://archive.org/details/Episode3WeirdPutti
Clothing reviews
https://www.bondsuits.com/oss-117s-light-grey-suit/
https://www.bondsuits.com/oss-117s-alpaca-dinner-suit/
Marcus became a Bond fan after experiencing two Bond double bills at a local Odeon cinema as a kid. He's fascinated by the contradictory nature and human complexity of Ian Fleming's Bond in the original novels, and by any storytelling which manages to be equally entertaining and thought-provoking.
Marcus can be contacted here