Eurospy films is a nickname for the genre of European international co-production films that imitated and spoofed the James Bond 007 series of films. The Eurospy genre was highly prolific in the years from the end of 1964 when Goldfinger was released until 1967 following the release of You Only Live Twice or the demise of the international popularity of the sword and sandal genre and the rise of the spaghetti western. They often featured American and British stars in the lead.[1]
Some European stars and their films were renamed and retitled to cash in on the superspy craze. For example Jesus Franco's or "Jess Frank"'s 1964 La Muerte Silba un Blues was later retitled 077 Operation Jamaica or 077 Operation Sexy with star Conrado San Martin rechristened "Sean Martin" to evoke images of Sean Connery and Dean Martin (who played Matt Helm). Germany's fictional hero Rolf Torring's film Der Fluch des Schwarzen Rubin was retitled Agente S3S Operazinie Uranio.[2]
So many Italian films used "007" that United Artists told the Italian film industry that only James Bond could be 007, and threatened legal action.[3]
Notable examples are the French OSS 117 André Hunebelle series based on the Jean Bruce character [4] and Claude Chabrol's Tiger series, the German Kommissar X and Jerry Cotton series, and various Italian imitations such as the Secret Agent 077 series with Ken Clark in the lead. Bruno Corbucci's "James Tont" series starred Lando Buzzanca[5]; Corbucci also wrote the Derek Flint parody Il vostro super agente Flit. Dino De Laurentiis's Italian American international co-production Kiss the Girls and Make Them Die was filmed in Rio de Janeiro using an American director as well as American and British stars and featured a higher budget then most Eurospy films. A touchstone of this series of films was OK Connery (1967) which featured Neil Connery as the lead who was the brother of the then James Bond actor Sean Connery as well as featuring many other actors who appeared in the James Bond series.
Christopher Frayling who estimated the amount of Eurospy films as 50, felt that the Eurospy films passed on such traits to the Spaghetti Western as emphasis on the technology of death, such as special weapons, the anonymity of the protagonist, the "money=power" equation of the villains and humorous asides that released the audience's laughter after a violent sequence.[6]
The recent French films OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies and OSS 117: Lost in Rio both recreates and parodies the genre for a new audience.
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