Spy Dames: How allure of the female secret agent on screen has only grown since Greta Garbo sizzled as Mata Hari-Entertainment News , Firstpost

The allure of the female spy on screen has grown manifolds since the days Greta Garbo sizzled in the title role of the 1931 box office smash, Mata Hari. The film turned out to be the greatest hit in Garbo’s legendary career and also set the ball rolling for the female spy thriller in mainstream Hollywood, establishing ground rules for the sub-genre that has evolved with time and emerged a viable commercial package for studios.

Playing a spy is a sexy makeover for any star, female or male. It is a role that makes heroism look cool because screen spies have the license to get away with defying societal norms as they go about saving country and world. Some of the biggest stars in business have added sheen to the secret agent on screen with their signature styles. Garbo apart, generations of actresses who have enthralled as the femme fatale on secret service include Ingrid Bergman, Judi Dench, Helen Mirren, Anne Parillaud, Geena Davis, Angelina Jolie, Scarlett Johansson, Jennifer Lawrence and Julia Roberts, just to name a few.

Yet, strange as it may sound, cinema never came up with that one iconic female spy franchise, in the way James Bond, Jason Bourne or Ethan Hunt have been celebrated down the decades. Sure, there were the Charlie’s Angels films, rehashed from the original TV show of the seventies, but technically speaking the Angels are investigators than secret agents. Moreover, their run at the international box office was shortlived. A recent shot at rebooting the franchise in 2019 didn’t add up to much either. Blame it on sexism or cite commercial viability as the reason, so far female spies on screen are deemed profitable only as short-term investments in Hollywood.

Right now, even as speculations abound over if and when Lashana Lynch’s Nomi gets her first full-blown 007 flick, the year 2022 saw a return of the female spy on Hollywood screen with the multistarrer thriller, The 355. The action flick sees Jessica Chastain, Penelope Cruz, Lupita Nyong’o, Diane Kruger and Fan Bingbing get into espionage mode much like hero-centric potboilers served it back in the eighties.

Here’s a doff at greatest female secret agents of the silver screen, who made spying an exciting adventure for legions of fans over the years.

MATA HARI (1931)

(Greta Garbo as Mata Hari)

Playing the Dutch origin exotic dancer and World War I spy Mata Hari, or Margaretha Zelle in real life, would become Hollywood goddess Greta Garbo’s greatest claim to fame. George Fitzmaurice’s 1931 spy thriller about the Parisian dancer traces Mata Hari’s life right up to when she is held for spying and executed in 1917. The film was a pre-Code era production, which means it had to be censored for re-release after Hollywood’s Hays Code came into action in 1934. Among sequences censored is a major portion of Garbo’s famous erotic dance before a statue of Lord Shiva.

LA FEMME NIKITA (1990)

(Anne Parillaud as Nikita)

Every modern era female spy on screen echoes some shade or the other of Luc Besson’s immortal creation of 1990. Besson’s pulsating French thriller cast Anne Parillaud as Nikita, a teenage drug addict prone to violence. Sentenced to life for killing a cop, she gets a second chance with the option of functioning as an assassin. Remakes include Point Of No Return (1993) and Black Cat (1991), plus there have been a couple of tele-series, Nikita (2010-2013) and La Femme Nikita (1997-2001), which cashed in. The Protégé starring Maggie Q, which released earlier this year, has been the latest film bearing the stamp of Besson’s all-time global hit.

NOTORIOUS (1946)

(Ingrid Bergman as Alicia Huberman)

Alfred Hitchcock’s film noir classic cast Ingrid Bergman as Alicia Huberman, who is out to redeem her name after her German father is convicted for treason against the United States. Eager to serve the nation, she becomes part of a dubious operation on being approached by an agent named Devlin (Cary Grant). Things get complicated when romance brews between Alicia and Devlin. Decades later, Thandie Newton would play a role in Mission: Impossible II that was heavily inspired by Bergman’s Alicia.

SALT (2010)

(Angeline Jolie as Evelyn Salt)

No other contemporary Hollywood actress has played the spy as many times as Angelina Jolie. While her roster also includes Mr And Mrs Smith (2005) and The Tourist (2010), it is her titular role in Phillip Noyce’s ultra-stylish caper Salt that defines her avatar as one of Hollywood’s outstanding screen spies. Jolie’s Evelyn Salt is a CIA operative who is charged with being an agent for Russia, and she must embark on a race against time to prove her innocence.

Kurt Wimmer’s script is said to be originally written as a male protagonist, Edwin Salt, for Tom Cruise. The actor is reported to have passed on the offer because he was already tied with the Mission: Impossible franchise. Jolie’s version of the role has marked one of the more violent depictions of the female spy in mainstream Hollywood.

BLACK WIDOW (2021)

(Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff)

Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff gave the secret agent a superhero twist, and the fans were asking for more. While Johansson’s KGB assassin Romanoff finally had her first solo release as her alter ego superhero Black Widow last year, the Marvel creation was introduced to the Hollywood screen in the 2010 adventure, Iron Man 2. Over nine releases, Johansson’s avatar as the superhero spy would go on to become a popular icon of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). While most secret agents amp the glamour quotient engaging in heavy-duty action and gunfights, Scarlett as Black Widow is a martial arts ace who uses special gizmos such as Widow’s Bite bracelets, Taser and Smoke Disks, and stun batons, besides a pair of Glock 26s to bust the baddies

LONG KISS GOODNIGHT (1996)

(Geena Davis as Samantha Caine)

If a film attains cult status among Hollywood buffs and is also good enough to tempt Salman Khan to try an ‘inspired take’ in Bollywood, that says a lot for its universal appeal. Finnish filmmaker Renny Harlin’s Hollywood hit of 1996 cast Geena Davis as smalltown schoolteacher and single mother Samantha Caine (Geena Davis), who inexplicably starts getting visions of violence and realises she possesses the ability to engage in heavy action in a way she never knew. Her life goes haywire when Samantha discovers she is actually a trained assassin suffering from amnesia. Things are further complicated when ex-employers want her back in business. The story idea broadly forms the crux of the 2002 Salman-starrer, Tumko Na Bhool Paayenge.

LUST, CAUTION (2007)

(Tang Wei as Wong Chia Chi)

Ang Lee’s erotic spy drama, based on Eileen Chang’s 1979 novella of the same name, courted headlines for its graphic scenes of sex upon release. The slowburn suspense film cast actress Tang Wei in her career-defining role of Wong Chia Chi, said to be based on the life of Chinese spy Zheng Pingru who served during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Visually stunning as any Lee film and evocative as a period epic, the Venice 2007 Golden Lion winner, titled Se, Jie in original Mandarin version, gave cinema one of its most remarkable female protagonists in recent decades.

THE DEBT (2010)

(Helen Mirren and Jessica Chastain as Rachel Singer)

Jessica Chastain and Helen Mirren essay a retired Mossad agent named Rachel Singer in different time frames, in John Madden’s spy thriller about the past returning to haunt a trio of retired agents. The film, a remake of the 2007 Israeli thriller Ha-Hov, is valued for the way Madden balanced two sets of cast to balance two different timelines. The film is also noted for the manner in which the narrative traces the journey of its protagonists with abundant twists.

ATOMIC BLONDE (2017)

(Charlize Theron as Lorraine Broughton)

Espionage drama got a twist of comicbook cool as Charlize Theron stepped into the boots of MI6 agent Lorraine Broughton in the David Leitch directorial. The film is based on Antony Johnston’s 2012 graphic novel, The Coldest City. Theron as super spy Lorraine engages in stylish, all-out violence to locate a missing list of double agents on the eve of the Berlin Wall collapse. Although the spy drama seemed toned down in comparison to other films of the genre, Theron as action hero was in top form. Talks are on for a sequel.

RED SPARROW (2018)

(Jennifer Lawrence as Dominika Egorova)

An old-school spy drama, Francis Lawrence’s film was questioned over factuality and historical veracity, but was applauded for its intriguing protagonist Dominika Egorova, played effectively by Jennifer Lawrence. In modernday Russia, Dominika is a ballerina whose career ended following an injury. When her uncle and Russian intelligence officer Ivan approaches her with the job of seducing a gangster named Ustinov, in exchange for medical support for her mother, Dominika cannot afford to refuse. The film trains focus on a top secret Russian program that trains women to carry out such activity, a contention that has been refuted by several historians.

RED JOAN (2018)

(Judi Dench and Sophie Cookson as Joan)

Trevor Nunn’s spy drama of 2018 is based on Jennie Rooney’s novel of the same name, which in turn is based on the life of KGB spy Melita Norwood. The film and its protagonist drew intrigue for the way the narrative keeps the audience guessing right till the end if Joan is guilty of the charges levelled against her. In 2000, Joan Elizabeth Stanley (Judi Dench) is arrested on grounds that in her youth, as Joan Smith (played by Sophie Cookson), she passed vital nuclear intelligence to the erstwhile Soviet Union. Joan was subsequently established to be the KGB’s longest-serving British spy.

Vinayak Chakravorty is a critic, columnist, and film journalist based in Delhi-NCR.