If we’re being honest the spy movie didn’t really develop all that much from the 60s to the 70s. Much like those that came before them the spy movies of this decade were a mixture of something that was derived from several nations, not just those that were most prominent in the movie. Spies were down and dirty, suave, and easily adaptable to a situation when they had to be. A lot of spy movies were still focused squarely on the Cold War era but were starting to ease off the subject while featuring the Russians as the main antagonists and threatening nuclear annihilation as a mounting conflict that was always on the horizon. There were of course many spies that were the favorites, one among them that comes to most peoples’ minds, but the main point of any spy movie was this: who can you trust?
Here are some of the best spy movies from the 70s.
5. The Mackintosh Man
This is a good example of the trust no one mentality as Rearden is sent on a mission that is meant to smoke out an organization and instead ends up getting deeper and deeper in terms of the trouble he’s causing and landing in. Eventually he does escape his captors, who were initially going to trust him but instead decided that they couldn’t. Figuring out where he is Rearden brings in in someone to help him only to have her be captured. Upon finally coming to her rescue he’s no doubt surprised when she pulls out a gun and shoots the men that he was caught in a standoff with. Really, one should expect the unexpected in a spy movie.
4. The Man with the Golden Gun
Some would actually call this one of the best Bond films out there, and such a claim wouldn’t be contested too hotly. After all the villain, Scaramanga, was pretty well done, and the idea of solar power was something that might not have been brand new according to science, but it was still revolutionary enough that it was able to be of interest to some viewers. Who would have thought that a couple of decades earlier that solar power would become something that people actually looked forward to seeing as a power source? Also, have you ever noticed that many Bond films end with Bond getting the girl and romancing her as the credits roll? Classic Bond, or typical as some might say.
3. Marathon Man
Sometimes there are moments in movies when those that have nothing to do with the espionage game are drawn into it unwittingly and are used as pawns in order to make ends meet. Babe however, after withstanding torture and a great deal of trouble over something he knows little to nothing about, finally turns the tables on those that are after him and the diamonds he supposedly has stashed. This involves killing those that are after him, something that it might seem difficult for the average person to do without suffering any long-term effects, but something that a person pushed to the edge might not hesitate to do.
2. Three Days of the Condor
It kind of seems that the answer for anything within the agencies that are tasked with keeping Americans safe when something goes wrong is to eliminate it. Turner was filing a report that he thought would be handled as it usually was, but came back to find all of his coworkers dead and their assassin long gone. When he begins to poke around he too becomes the target of an assassin as he attempts to find out just what it was that put killers on his trail and his future in question. The search and destroy method that is used in the movies is something you can only hope is never practiced in real life.
1. Live and Let Die
It’s not every movie that you get to see Bond taking on someone that’s steeped in the occult, but it makes for an interesting plot. Of course there’s the women that he seduces and has sex with but after a while that part is kind of just expected since it’s James Bond, he’s there to kick butt and be as PC-less as possible since it was a different time and he was the alpha male, suave British spy that women couldn’t resist. But this movie was different in a big way since voodoo and the use of the occult is quite a bit different than Russian spies and nuclear warheads. The inclusion of heroin as a plot device was also something that kind of speaks to the 70s. Well honestly that kind of speaks to every decade in some regard.
The spy game would eventually begin to change, but not until the 80s did it really start being turned on its head.
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