Il était une fois un espion

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.

"Once Upon a Spy" is a TV movie featuring Ted Danson as a computer genius and Christopher Lee as an evil computer genius, Marcus Velorium, bent on controlling the world...much like a Bond villain. But unlike Bond, there is no super-spy to stop the madman...only nice-guy Jack (Danson).

Being 1980, the concepts of computers sure isn't what we think of today. So, when a supercomputer that is the size of a city block is stolen, folks take notice. As a result, one of the foremost NICE computer scientists, Jack, is brought to a top secret location to talk to some humorless woman...and she recruits him to help investigate the theft. Naturally, the computer is being used to vaporize things from space...and I hate when that happens.

As I said above, in many ways this plays like a Bond film....a really bad one featuring a leading man who seems completely out of his element. I think this might have worked had it been more of a parody. Instead, however, it just seemed annoying and childish....and would not appeal to most adult viewers...unless you are curious what Danson was doing before he became famous. Even with the scene-chewing Lee as the baddie, this is pretty limp and dated.

Not great but there are some elements available today in 2021 (the film is made in 1980), they mention terms like "new world structure", "reset", "new order".

Ted Danson has neither salt nor pepper, the script is predictable and boring, Mary Louise Weller is beautiful and sexy in body-hugging costumes, either black or yellow. And Christopher Lee doesn't have the dominating force as in other movies. But his character fits Bill Gates perfectly.

I dont get the ratings? This is a great classic. It has all the ingredients to make a great spy movie. Hot ladies, action, humor. Great iconic actors like Christopher Lee and Ted Danson in his early years is making this movie a joy to watch. Its a classic and deserves better ratings.

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.