Once Upon a Spy

ONCE UPON A SPY is a deservedly unknown 1980 TV movie that stars up-and-coming Ted Danson as a computer programmer who unwittingly gets drawn into a spy plot that's straight out of a James Bond movie. And indeed this turns out to be a Bond spoof through-and-through, with the unfortunate added side-effect that it's also quite horrible.

Rarely have I seen a film in which the acting is so stilted or the narrative so predictable and boring at the same time. Danson displays none of the charisma that would make him a household name in time, and his attempts at flirting and romance with token blonde Mary Louise Weller are, to be frank, excruciating. ONCE UPON A SPY is truly a movie of its era, with cod attempts at feminism (think CHARLIE'S ANGELS style tough fighting women) mixed in with the normal "saving the girl" routines and some quite appalling jump suits that make the female cast look both fat and frumpy (although they're neither).

Bizarrely, Hammer scribe Jimmy Sangster had a hand in the screenplay, although quite what he was thinking I don't know. Keeping on the Hammer theme, we get Christopher Lee as the villain, riffing on his MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN persona. I felt sorry for him, soiled by his appearance in this; I remember his comments about breaking free of Hammer and making it in Hollywood, but even latter-day Hammer efforts like THE SATANIC RITES OF Dracula are a hundred times better than this trash. Definitely a film to be consigned to obscurity, and for good reason.

John Cacavas' idea of a James Bond theme plays over the opening credits of this TV-movie spy flick which even features silhouetted buxom women posing in various contortions the same way the Bond films have done for decades. (The film also features a certain musical motif that is exceedingly close to what is found in all the Bond films.) Danson plays a computer expert who is coerced by the government into rescuing a super-computer from the clutches of evil, wheelchair-bound Lee, who intends to rule the world with it. The agent assigned to brief Danson is curvy, smart-mouthed Weller who reports to the authoritative and no-nonsense Parker. Retrieving the computer is only part of the job. Danson also hopes to rescue his doctor friend (Stone) and the doctor's daughter who are being held against their will, a task Parker is only mildly concerned about accomplishing. There is a lot of pseudo-witty banter and quasi-dangerous espionage as the film plays out with Danson and Weller straining for romantic chemistry while carrying out various aspects of a mission in which no one is ever killed. It's James Bond Lite, almost for kids. The whole enterprise reeks of "unsold pilot" with the credits even playing like a TV show opening and the ending setting the scene for possible future escapades. Danson is fairly solid throughout and manages to balance his character's brains and lack of experience pretty well. Weller is often very annoying, chirping Danson's character's name frequently ("Chenault!") and trotting around in foolish skirts, shoes and hairdos, acting like she's some big deal when really she's rather a lightweight herself. Lee is somewhat interesting at times, but could play this role in his sleep and sometimes seems like he's doing so. Parker (an unjustly forgotten actress who graced the silver screen with many wonderful, powerful performances in the 40's, 50's and beyond) is on her last legs here. She looks okay, but does all her scenes seated behind a large table and rattles out loud orders with very little timing or finesse. It's a sloppily done production with many continuity errors (notably in the costuming) and cheap sets. One notably intriguing sequence involves an elaborate maze in which Weller must fight for her life, but it is undercut by the fact that she is really in the same old section over and over with just angle and lighting changes tossed in occasionally. Lester, who plays a henchman here, would soon begin a memorable nine-year stay on "The Young and the Restless".

This continues the string of bad-to-middling pictures Christopher Lee lent his services to after he went the Hollywood route; while not terrible as such – at the very least, it reunited him with former Hammer scribe Jimmy Sangster – the end result is best described as terminally bland.

Rather than imitating the James Bond formula (though John Cacavas' score certainly throws several cues in that direction), the film seems like a belated addition to the myriad espionage TV series of the 1960s yet fully embracing the absurd obsession with technology that was redolent of the era in which it was made; interestingly, Lee's shrinking of a cumbersome computer to portable size can be seen as a prophetic indication of the extensive progress achieved in this particular field! He plays a reclusive tycoon, bound all the way through in a snazzy missile-carrying(!) wheelchair, whose everyman nemesis (Ted Danson) not only happens to be an old rival but ultimately contrives to hoist the older man with his own petard. Aiding the protagonist is a female secret agent (a relationship which, typically, starts off on the wrong foot and inevitably ends in romance) and, to further accentuate the feminist viewpoint, Eleanor Parker fills in for the Agency Head.

The film, then, is not unentertaining for what it is and, if anything, manages a nod to both Hitchcock (Danson is about to be eliminated when a crowd of tourists bursts upon the scene and he joins them on their way out towards safety) and the cult TV series THE PRISONER (hero and villain conduct a deadly board game utilizing human pieces).

This strangely endearing Movie of the Week features Ted Danson as a computer expert reluctantly pulled into the orbit of a mysterious American intelligence service run by grand dame Eleanor Parker. Parker needs his expertise to track down super villain Christopher Lee, a wheelchair bound businessman with his eye on world domination via a super weapon and control of commercial space satellites. Danson is teamed up with secret agent Mary Louise Weller, an attractive and almost believable actress who does her best with the rather hackneyed dialogue. Danson gets the best stuff from screenwriter Jimmy Sangster and shows why he went on to be one of America's favorite comic actors of the decade, and Lee seems to be having a grand time. Good fun if you're in the right mood.

One of those failed TV-pilots that then became a standalone TV-movie, ONCE UPON A SPY takes the James Bond aesthetic to the small screen, from formidable (and colorful) technical set pieces to a flaunting trumpet score to a former Bond villain in Christopher Lee, a brilliant computer mogul who, brain-wise, is second to none...

Well except for Ted Danson, turning in one of those "befuddled geeks who's really a handsome diamond-in-the rough/anti-leading-man" types... and it's no surprise, given his near-future turn in CHEERS, he has great comedic timing...

Perfectly paired with (and counterbalanced by) sublime ANIMAL HOUSE beauty Mary-Louise Weller, an Alpha Male-like female operative and, after getting Danson's Jack Chenault out of a stuffy office shared with his only friend, a computer the size of a wall, the action is pretty much non-stop...

So the peripheral world-dominating plot doesn't matters since it's the nifty Odd Couple duo... whether ripping around in a hot-rod on the ground or jumping out of planes in the air... that really matters, and this SPY would have made a genuinely good series (as the creators of REMINGTON STEELE would soon-after prove).