The Dead Drop

No Way Out (1987)

Thu, 17 Sep 2026 00:00:00 -0500

I’ve long-felt that No Way Out is one of the great overlooked spy films. Released in 1987, it was was early starring role for Kevin Costner.

Costner is Tom Farrell, a Navy officer working in the Pentagon. He’s sleeping with Susan, who also happens to be sleeping with the Secretary of Defense.

One night, the Secretary accidentally kills her during an argument about her other lover (who he doesn’t know is Farrell). He concocts a plan to find the other lover and frame him as “Yuri,” a rumored Soviet deep cover agent that has been operating in DC for years. The CIA can then kill him and resolve Susan’s death without the Secretary’s involvement ever being known.

The Secretary assigns Farrell to find the other lover… which puts him in the problematic position of running a manhunt of which he is the target.

You might think I’ve revealed too much, but I haven’t. It’s a tightly-wound thriller with great performances from Costner, Gene Hackman as the Secretary, and a young Will Patton as his scheming assistant who has an agenda of his own.

Top it off with a head-snapping twist at the end, and you end up with an amazing thriller that never quite got the renown that it should have.

Bond Intro in LEGO

Wed, 16 Sep 2026 00:00:00 -0500

This guy spent a lot of time recreating the Bond “gunbarrel” intro in LEGO. Some amazing ingenuity here.

Gardner Novel Set

Tue, 15 Sep 2026 00:00:00 -0500

I finally got around to finishing my collection of John Gardner’s original Bond novels. He wrote 13 original novels and two movie novelizations between 1981 and 1996.

I've never been a huge fan of Gardner, but I stumbled on Seafire in a used bookstore a couple of months ago, then realized I was just three novels away from having the set. It took a few eBay orders, but I finally got it completed.

(And you can call it sacrilege, but I highly approve of Gardner putting Bond in a Saab 9000 Turbo. I've always had a thing for them.)

Eyes (2005)

Mon, 14 Sep 2026 00:00:00 -0500

If you blinked back in 2005, you might have missed Eyes which didn’t even last a full month. ABC filmed 12 episodes, but only aired five before yanking it off the air.

It was an hour-long drama about Judd Risk Management, a private investigation firm. So, it wasn’t espionage in the classic sense, but there was a lot of sneaking around.

It was an ensemble show. Tim Daly was Harlan Judd, who owned the firm, but he was surrounded by 7-8 other players with their own dramas, and a central plot point around how the troubled firm was going to survive and who was maneuvering for power over whom. It reminded me of a legal drama where ownership and partnership are the chess pieces.

But there were some neat spy-ish bits in the pilot episode: lots of surveillance, reconstruction of shredded documents, and general skullduggery.

I remember watching it on network TV when it came out and being surprised at how little it was marketed. Production values were sky-high, so I’m sure the show cost a fortune to make, but there was very little promotion of it — it just kind of appeared suddenly, and then disappeared just as quickly.

Probably for the best, honestly, because the pilot made it seem like it was heading into soap opera territory pretty quickly.

The episode is on YouTube, but is frustratingly missing the last two minutes of audio (which I remember being a montage over David Bowie’s Under Pressure… which, now that I think about it, is probably why it was removed).

Cover Up (1984)

Sun, 13 Sep 2026 00:00:00 -0500

Cover Up lasted for a single season back in 1984, but it’s most well-known for how one of its stars died mid-season.

Danielle Reynolds is a New York fashion photographer. She’s married to Mark, an embassy functionary (but really a CIA agent) in La Costa, a fictional country south of the border. When Mark is killed in a car bombing, Danielle finds an ex-special forces soldier named Mac who just happens to be handsome enough to pose as a model, and they travel to La Costa to investigate. At the end of the episode, it’s decided that they will take Mark’s place doing missions for the CIA using their photographer/model cover story.

Mac was the centerpiece of the show — it was kind of a reverse Charlie’s Angels, in that respect. He was played by newcomer Jon Erik Hexum, and in addition to his impossibly good looks, he had a genuinely compelling screen presence.

Tragically, during the filming of episode seven, he was playing on-set with a handgun loaded with blanks. He put it against his head and pulled the trigger, not realizing that even though a blank doesn’t propel a slug, there’s still a short range explosion of propellant. The resulting brain damage left him in a coma and he was removed from life support six days later.

He was replaced with another hero, and the show finished out a 22-episode season, but it just didn’t have the ratings to get renewed.

The CIA boss is played by Richard Anderson, who was Oscar Goldman in the Six Million Dollar Man. And the main villain in the pilot is Louis Jourdan, who had played Kamal Kahn in Octopussy just a year before. The theme song was Holding Out for a Hero (RIP Bonnie Tyler) sung by Hexum’s girlfriend at the time.

Someone has posted the entire series on YouTube. As with most 80s TV transferred to digital, the quality is rough.

To Catch a Thief (1955)

Sat, 12 Sep 2026 00:00:00 -0500

I read somewhere that 1955’s To Catch a Thief was fairly spy-adjacent. I watched it this morning.

It’s got about everything you need: a very debonair hero in Cary Grant (he was 51 at the time), a beautiful girl in Grace Kelly (she was just 26), amazing locations on the French Rivera, elegant galas, classic sports cars, and intrigue around stolen jewels.

Grant is John Robie, a former jewel thief nicknamed “The Cat” who broke out of prison during World War II and joined the French Resistance. He became a hero and earned parole, then went straight. But 15 years later, someone has started robbing the idle rich in Nice and Cannes using John’s old techniques. He has to catch the real thief before the police come for him.

It’s probably as close to a Bond film as you can get without actually being about espionage. The love affair between Grant and Kelly is a little weird when you consider their ages, but it’s handled in typically vague fashion for the 1950s.

Parts of it were filmed on location, and the scenery is gorgeous. But I almost forgot it was a Hitchcock movie — it just doesn’t have that Hitchcockian vibe to it.

Code Name: Emperor (2022)

Tue, 8 Sep 2026 00:00:00 -0500

I watched Code Name: Emperor on Netflix. (That’s the English title, anyway — it’s a Spanish film. I watched it with English subtitles.)

It stars Luis Tosar, who is apparently one of the most popular actors in Spain (the only other thing I’ve seen him in is as the Big Boss in the Miami Vice movie). He plays Juan, some kind of intelligence agent — only once does someone refer to “The Agency.”

There’s are two plot threads, which confused me. A German couple is smuggling radioactive material, and Juan has been asked to find kompromat on a young politician. Those are two separate things, it turned out, but both of them play into a crisis of conscience that Juan is struggling with, which culminates in a monologue by a General about how military control and blackmail helps maintain the political order.

In retrospect, it was a little confusing. But it was compelling while I was watching it. There’s a romantic subplot which is genuinely touching, and Tosar does a great job embodying a weary agent who is questioning what side of the fence he’s actually on.

The Drunken Witness

Mon, 7 Sep 2026 00:00:00 -0500

I was reminded of the bit player from three consecutive James Bond movies who witnesses something surreal and subsequently questions his sobriety. He was uncredited, but IMDb lists him as “Man with Bottle” twice and “Man with Wine Glass” once.

The official YouTube channel compiled all three clips into this short video.

One hopes that he’s stopped drinking by now.

Masquerade (1983)

Mon, 7 Sep 2026 00:00:00 -0500

Masquerade was an attempt to bring the Love Boat/Fantasy Island format to espionage. It didn’t even last a full season back in 1983.

Rod Taylor, Greg Evigan, and Kirstie Alley were the three constants. Taylor was the head of “Operation Masquerade,” which was a program to use civilians in spy operations, ostensibly because the Soviets knew all about the “real” spies. Evigan and Alley played his lieutenants.

Then, in each episode, there were a crew of guest stars recruited for that episode only (you can see the Love Boat angle, right?). For example, the pilot movie has Earnest Borgnine, Cybil Shepard, Richard Roundtree, Rue McClanahan, and others. Each of them bring their own little subplots and conflicts, as well as some special skill that was critical to that week’s antics.

The plot of the pilot was a far-fetched plan to discredit a Soviet spy stationed in Paris so that he wouldn’t be selected as the new head of the KGB. The entire thing was absurd and more played for laughs than drama. (For example, at one point, Borgnine’s plumber replaces the water in the Soviet’s shower with gin, to make him appear to be an alcoholic. That’s why they needed a plumber on the team, naturally.)

Someone has posted the entire pilot movie on YouTube. It’s just over an hour, which means it must have been 90-minutes with commercials. The quality is horrible, but you can get the idea.

As a bonus, here’s a 30-second bumper promo for the next episode which shows Walter Gotell (General Gogol from the Bond films) doing his best Soviet accent (he was actually German).

Also, check out the opening credits and theme song. It’s an orgy of espionage cliches.

Red Sparrow (2013)

Sat, 5 Sep 2026 00:00:00 -0500

I got stuck in Boston due to weather, so I asked AI to recommend a spy novel. It came up with Red Sparrow, which was the 2013 basis for the movie starring Jennifer Lawrence.

I tore through the book in about 24 hours. It was spectacular, and I’m currently nursing a “narrative hangover” from it.

Here is my full review.

Minox Camera Book

Fri, 4 Sep 2026 00:00:00 -0500

I spent some time with an book devoted to the history and specification of the Minox camera. This is the tiny camera that you activate by squeezing it together. It’s a staple of Cold War spy movies.

It was a quirky book — one of those things that I’m glad exists, but that I don’t quite understand.

Here’s my review.

Movie Scene Map

Wed, 2 Sep 2026 00:00:00 -0500

On the heels of Reading Maps, we have Movie Scene Maps, which appears to locate both plot locations and filming locations. The Bond movies never disappoint in terms of globe-hopping: here’s the locations for Casino Royale.

True Lies (1994)

Tue, 1 Sep 2026 00:00:00 -0500

True Lies came to the historic theater in our local downtown. I last watched it in the theater fully 32 years ago when it originally released.

I still remember seeing “Tom Arnold” in the opening credits and thinking, “Aw, this is going to suck…” But his character turned out to be one of the best things in the movie.

I’ve always liked the intersection of action and human stories. The marriage angle is kind of fascinating, and the ending is fulfilling. And Bill Paxton does a great job playing a slimy used car salesman trying to bed Arnold Schwarzenegger’s wife, played by Jamie Lee Curtis.

The entire film holds up really well. The sound, in particular, was absolutely incredible. There was supposed to be a sequel, but terrorism was a problematic subject after 9/11, and then Arnold was elected governor of California in 2003. Apparently a TV series was written, cast, picked up… and then ultimate canceled.

My wife even liked it, which I did not expect.

The Ipcress File (1965)

Mon, 31 Aug 2026 00:00:00 -0500

I watched The Ipcress File from 1965. It was based on Len Deighton’s first novel and was released at the height of mid-60s “Bond-mania” as kind of an anti-Bond.

Michael Caine is Harry Palmer, an Army officer working for the Ministry of Defence. He’s insolent and insubordinate and has some criminal charges in his background. Harry’s world is one of dreary offices, gloomy London streets, condescending bosses, and rote paperwork.

He’s assigned to a unit that’s trying to recover a missing scientist and discover why several other scientists have seemingly become incapable of doing critical research.

There are lots of Bond alumni here: Harry Saltzman produces, Ken Adams built the sets, and John Barry delivers one of the most classic 60s spy soundtracks you’re ever going to find (the sound you hear over and over is a cimbalom). The film direction is artistic — lots and lots of shots through some foreground object to the main action behind it.

It's a solid movie. It has a good mystery, a great climax, and Caine is fantastic in the title role.

There were a few more Harry Palmer films, both in theaters and on television, though none of them are considered as good as Ipcress. There was also a limited series in 2022 on British television which is streaming on multiple services.

Mission Impossible Prague Locations

Sun, 30 Aug 2026 00:00:00 -0500

I’ve always loved the opening scene of the original Mission Impossible. It was set in Prague, and it was the perfect mix of action and intrigue.

As luck would have it, I found myself in Prague a couple years ago, and I spent an entire day tracking down all the shooting locations I could find. (I thought this was novel and original, but it turns out a lot of people have done it.)

I put my pics, and the corresponding frame from the movie, into this Google Doc.

Red Storm Rising

Sun, 30 Aug 2026 00:00:00 -0500

I picked up Red Storm Rising yesterday, and quickly got completely engrossed in it. I have read it, but I was in high school, close to 40 years ago. It was published in 1986.

The first section of the book (I’m 150 pages in) is an absolute masterclass of intelligence gathering. Bob Toland and others in the U.S. intelligence community put together a series of clues that indicate the Soviets are about to launch an attack on West Germany. The awareness comes about slowly and methodically, as they put the puzzle together, piece by piece.

Clancy does great job of zooming in and out, from huge geopolitical machinations down to very human stories. Soviet armies and navies assemble for a surprise attack… but then one man doesn’t look both ways before crossing the street, and a piece of paper he was carrying causes the U.S. to go to DEFCON 2.

I’m absolutely hooked, which is weird considering I know how the book plays out. It’s also inconvenient when the target of an addiction is a 638-page novel. There go my evenings for a while.

Gene Hackman’s Dual Identity

Sat, 29 Aug 2026 00:00:00 -0500

There’s a fan theory that says Gene Hackman was playing the same character in two espionage thrillers, released 24 years apart.

Hackman starred as Harry Caul in The Conversation in 1974. Then he played Edward “Brill” Lyle in Enemy of the State in 1998.

A theory has been floated that these two characters are the same person. From the Wikipedia page for The Conversation:

Hackman's character Edward Lyle in Enemy of the State closely resembles Caul: he dons the same translucent raincoat, and his workshop is nearly identical to Caul's. Also, the photograph used for Lyle in his NSA file is actually a photograph of Caul. Enemy of the State also includes a scene which is very similar to The Conversation's opening surveillance scene in San Francisco's Union Square.

If this is unintended as an actual plot device, then it has to be an Easter Egg or an inside joke — using the photo of Caul from the first movie for the photo of Lyle in the second movie is hard to deny.

Ryan Reynolds on Michael Bay

Fri, 28 Aug 2026 00:00:00 -0500

This is a funny, 24-second video published by Ryan Reynolds where he’s reflecting on what’s great about filming with Michael Bay. It’s funny because the opening car chase scene from 6 Underground is filming in the background, and Reynolds just nails the timing (it could be an homage to The Greatest Shot in Television History).

Magnum P.I., S3E1

Thu, 27 Aug 2026 00:00:00 -0500

Magnum P.I. was always spy-adjacent. Magnum was an intelligence officer (…or a Navy SEAL?…or both?), and multiple episodes had a espionage angle to them, usually related to Magnum’s somewhat-murky service during the Vietnam War. He even gets called back to Naval Intelligence a couple of times.

Here’s a 22-second video of one of the most infamous moments in the series. In Nam, Magnum and T.C. were captured and tortured by a KGB agent named Ivan. When Ivan reappears in Hawaii looking for them, it results in a pretty shocking ending for primetime in 1982.

Spoiler: Magnum just plain shoots him in cold blood. The episode ends on a freeze-frame which was omitted from some international broadcasts, as it was problematic. There are no details given about how Magnum gets away with the murder.

This was the ending of a two-parter (actually a two-hour TV movie back in 1982), and the next episode in the series just picks up like nothing happened, innocently guest-starring the zany brothers from Simon and Simon, even.

(I’m still really salty that Robin’s Nest was torn down. You can see it here on Google Maps — it’s never been re-developed. It would have made an amazing AirBnB.)

The 39 Steps (1935)

Wed, 26 Aug 2026 00:00:00 -0500

I watched The 39 Steps, which is a Hitchcock movie from 1935. It’s considered one of the classic spy thrillers.

A man in London runs into a woman who claims to be a spy who has uncovered an intelligence network in Scotland. She’s on the run from assassins. Before long, the man is accused of her murder, and he has to flee into Scotland to find whatever she uncovered and prove his innocence.

It’s quite good for its time. The final sequence is really well-done and brings it all together. And I’m no expert on Hitchcock, but there’s a lot of signature style from him in there (including a brief cameo).

I’m not sure if I missed it, but I wasn’t quite sure which side was the bad guys here. This was 1935, so I imagine it must have been the Germans…?

Scarecrow and Mrs. King, S1E1

Tue, 25 Aug 2026 00:00:00 -0500

For absolutely no particular reason, I watched the first episode of Scarecrow and Mrs. King the other night.

(I almost said “re-watched” because I can’t imagine I haven’t seen this before, but it’s been 43 years since it aired, so who can remember…)

The show was a moderate success in the 80s, running for four seasons between 1983 and 1987. It was Bruce Boxleitner’s first notable thing after Tron, and Kate Jackson’s first after Charlie’s Angels.

It was… cute. Boxleitner is an agent for “The Agency,” and Jackson is a recently divorced single mom. He runs into her on a train platform and gives her a package before he gets roughed up by some KGB agents. That draws her into a plot involving a cooking show that is secretly communicating orders to kill other agents (shades of Wayne Newton’s character in License to Kill). By the end of the episode, she’s been recruited as his “civilian partner.”

There’s a weird amount of killing (I counted six people in that episode alone, most of it off-screen), and some plot holes and very convenient coincidences that don’t quite make sense. But it otherwise holds up, so long as you remember this was primetime in the early 80s.

Cryptome

Mon, 24 Aug 2026 00:00:00 -0500

Cryptome was always an odd thing. It was (is?) an online archive and document repository which published things that it hinted should not have been published.

I remember Cryptome from back in the 1990s, when I was first getting on the web. It published all sorts of random combintations of government documents, often rolled up into zip file downloads.

All the while, it gave off a very spy-ish vibe. There were various news articles on topics, but also some odd things like fighter jet operating manuals and official reports on how to store nuclear waste.

I never could figure it out, but I was fascinated by it. To me, this was an example of how the internet was a greater leveling system that gave people access to things they would never see otherwise. I always felt like a bit of a secret agent while I was browsing through it.

The Wikipedia page discussed how they were involved in WikiLeaks and other scandals, which fits. One of the founders died last year.

Syriana Plot Diagram

Sun, 23 Aug 2026 00:00:00 -0500

Syriana from 2005 is my favorite kind of movie: it has lots of plot threads that overlap and come together in different ways. I learned that this style has name: hyperlink cinema.

Unfortunately, a side effect of this style is that the film was wildly complex and hard to understand. While I was watching it for the first time, I was only barely understanding the overall plot mechanics and why everyone was doing what they were doing.

Over a decade ago, I found an interactive “plot explorer” tool for the movie that let you visually follow different threads on a digital surface. It’s here, but it was created in Flash, which hasn’t been relevant or supported on the web for years, so it doesn’t work on my browser.

Helpfully, the creator also converted it to a static image. It shows all the different groups and how they intersect, explaining what their individual motivations are which can help you figure out the plot.

(It’s worth mentioning also that Syriana has an awful torture scene which is probably the biggest impediment to me ever re-watching it.)

Ronin Car Chase

Sat, 22 Aug 2026 00:00:00 -0500

Chases are all over the place in spy movies, but the second car chase in Ronin is one of the best on film. It’s a BMW and a Peugeot through the streets of Paris.

It’s very realistic (except maybe for a weird amount of sparks). There’s no musical soundtrack for most of it, just more than seven full minutes screaming engines and scraping metal. Robert DeNiro looks like he’s on the verge of a stroke from start to finish.

Honda Del Sol Commercial

Fri, 21 Aug 2026 00:00:00 -0500

Here’s a commercial for the Honda Del Sol from 1995.

It’s very Bondian, from the music to the casting to the theme. So much so, that MGM sued Honda and made them pull it off the air.

The lawsuit accuses Honda of copyright infringement and falsely implying that the car is endorsed by MGM and Danjaq.

Fortune Hunter (1994)

Thu, 20 Aug 2026 00:00:00 -0500

Back in the mid-90s, there was a very short-lived primetime show called Fortune Hunter. I can’t find a full episode (only five of them actually aired), but here’s a short promo video.

Carlton Dial was a literal fortune hunter — he did jobs for money. I vaguely remember that he was searching for treasure or other valuable items. (There weren’t even enough episodes to totally flesh out the concept.)

There was also a weird plot device where he had cameras in his contact lenses linking back to a computer geek at home base… or something (I might be foggy on that). And, of course, Dial’s gun shot tranquilizer darts, because this was primetime and he was a good guy.

The show did not succeed, but I remember it being mildly interesting, and borrowing heavily from the Bond canon (see the video: “…Dial. Carlton Dial.”). This was right in the middle of Bond’s legal turmoil and exile from the theaters, so the time was right to fill the gap.

The show was so fleeting that I couldn’t even find a decent image for this post. And tragically, the star, Mark Frankel, died in a traffic accident just a couple years after the show aired.

Bond’s Use of the Word “Penny”

Wed, 19 Aug 2026 00:00:00 -0500

In a prior post, I mentioned the scene from Casino Royale where Vesper Lynd says, “I’m the money” and Bond responds, “…every penny of it.”

I suddenly started wondering why Bond would say the word “penny,” given that it’s a name for a unit of American currency. Shouldn’t he of said… “pence” or “quid” or something?

Well, it turns out I’m pathetically uncultured and American-centric. AI set me straight:

Your instinct has it backwards — "penny" is about as British as currency words get. It's Old English (penig), it's the name of an actual British coin (pre-decimal pence, and the 1p piece since 1971), and it's woven through the idiom: in for a penny, in for a pound; a penny for your thoughts; the penny dropped; penny-pinching; spend a penny. Americans use "penny" too, but only colloquially — the US coin is officially a cent. So if anything, "penny" reads as the Anglophone-original and the American usage as the borrowing.

I’ve embarrassed myself.

Spy Briefing PowerPoint Magic

Tue, 18 Aug 2026 00:00:00 -0500

A few days ago, I posted about M’s speech to Bond in GoldenEye. Go watch that again: at a certain point, she quickly presses some buttons to reveal a TV and a ….PowerPoint (?) about General Orumov.

This is what I call “spy briefing room PowerPoint magic.” No matter what happens, someone always has these presentations ready to go. What buttons did M press? Did she have this queued up already?

It’s is a trope in spy movies that has always fascinated me. They always seem to have these ready-made presentations about the bad guys, complete with pictures, videos, and detailed stat sheets. They then immediately start talking over them, reciting statistics and detailed histories, or they have someone else in the room do it, as if it was rehearsed. They must prep these in advance because no one is ever seen fumbling for the information or trying to share their desktop — it’s always one button and voila!

In my other life, I work in the field of content management and enterprise software. I can tell you that I’ve never seen things go as smoothly as this.

Some guy is compiling all examples on screen of the “photographs connected by red string” trope. Some other guy wrote an entire book about how science fiction interfaces can be used to learn about how we should design for today.

I feel like there are lessons to be learned about how well fictional spy agencies manage their PowerPoints.

6 Underground (2019)

Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 -0500

6 Underground is a guilty pleasure. It combines Michael Bay with Ryan Reynolds — maybe the two most un-subtle people in Hollywood.

The movie is unapologetically ridiculous, but I always thought it did a great job with exposition. There’s a lot of backstory to get through, and it nicely weaves that through a set of flashbacks.

The plot isn’t terrible, but it’s essentially just a framework to hang 4-5 action set pieces on.

This is a not a “good” movie, in the traditional sense, but it’s wildly entertaining. Every shot is visually stunning and the action is well-choreographed.

I shut my brain off and re-watch it a couple of times a year. I just don’t tell people about it.

Timothy Dalton on Charlie’s Angels

Sun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 -0500

Back in 1979, Timothy Dalton guest-starred on Charlie’s Angels as cat burglar Damien Roth, described as “a man with James Bondian tastes, means, and charm.”

Someone has helpfully compiled all of his scenes in this YouTube video.