|
|
 |
Hot Enough for June AKA Agent 8 ¾
R2 - United Kingdom - Network Review written by and copyright: Paul Lewis (27th July 2009). |
|
The Film
 
Part of the longstanding collaboration between director Ralph Thomas and star Dirk Bogarde, whose working relationship also encompasses A Tale of Two Cities (1958) and the Doctor films (beginning with Doctor in the House, 1954), Hot Enough for June (1965) is an open parody of the then-popular James Bond films. By the mid-1960s, the British espionage picture’s popularity had been ensured by the international success of the Bond films: 1965 was the year of the release of both the fourth James Bond picture, Thunderball (Terence Young), and the ‘anti-Bond’ espionage film The Ipcress File (Sidney J. Furie); in 1966, Bogarde would also star in Joseph Losey’s parody of the espionage genre, Modesty Blaise. However, despite its comic approach to the conventions of the genre of espionage fiction, Hot Enough for June is in fact an adaptation of Lionel Davidson’s ‘straight’ espionage novel The Night of Wenceslas, published in 1960. 
Hot Enough for June opens with an imposing and stunningly-orchestrated tracking shot, following John Le Mesurier (playing British secret agent Roger Allsop) through an empty library to a table where the paraphernalia of spycraft is emptied from his briefcase: several false passports, a shoe with a false heel, an automatic pistol, a compass and a lucky rabbit’s foot. Allsop and a lower-ranking agent lament the passing of one of their colleagues: it is revealed that agent 007 is deceased – the gadgets in Allsop’s briefcase belonged to 007 – and Allsop uses a telephone to advise his employers that they had ‘best start looking for a replacement’. 
Meanwhile, in London unemployed Nicholas Wistler (Dirk Bogarde) visits the labour exchange and is advised that he has a job interview. A layabout by nature, Whistler complains, ‘You can’t have a job for me: I’m a writer. It says so on my passport’. However, Whistler is made to go along to the interview, which is for the position of ‘trainee executive’ at ‘a firm of glass manufacturers’. At the interview, Whistler tries to throw the job; but the employer, Colonel Cunliffe (Robert Morley), seems most interested in Whistler’s ability to speak Czech. Whistler becomes much more interested in the job when he is told that he will be payed ‘forty quid a week … with expenses, of course’. However, unbeknownst to Whistler Colonel Cunliffe is the head of a division within the British Secret Service. 
Whistler is thus unwillingly drafted into the British Secret Service; his new employers intend to send him to Prague as little more than a courier. Before Whistler leaves the country, Colonel Cuncliffe advises him that ‘It is quite safe to drink the water; but I should be very wary of the local gin’. Whistler is also informed that the callsign that will enable him to identify his local contact in Prague is ‘Hot Enough for June?’, to which the correct response is ‘Ah, but you should have been here last September’. However, in Prague Whistler does not find the plan working as well as it should: none of his contacts seem to know the correct response to the callsign he has been given. However, eventually Whistler appears to find his contact in the form of a bathroom attendant. Meanwhile, Whistler begins to fall for his driver, Comrade Vlasta Simoneva (Sylva Koscina). Matters become more complicated when Whistler realises that Vlasta is the daughter of Communists’ counter-espionage unit’s chief (Leo McKern). 
Bogarde is, as always, extremely likeable: in Hot Enough for June, he plays the kind of romantic lead with which he was associated in the 1950s, prior to his transition from romantic pin-up to ‘serious actor’ following his appearance in Victim (Basil Dearden, 1961). In fact, aside from the allusions to the then-popular Bond pictures Hot Enough for June feels like a throwback to 1950s filmmaking, especially in comparison with some of the other ‘serious’ pictures that Bogarde was making in the mid-1960s, such as The Servant (Joseph Losey, 1963) and Darling (John Schlesinger, 1965). Here, Bogarde is surrounded by a variety of British comedy actors, including John Le Mesurier and Robert Morley. Hot Enough for June’s jokes at the expense of the Bond pictures are for the most part fairly obvious: as the film opens, we are informed that agent 007 is dead; there are recurring jokes about the use of codenames and callsigns; Robert Morley plays Colonel Cunliffe as a more bumbling variation of M, the character made popular in the Bond films by Bernard Lee; and trying to get his package to the British Embassy, Whistler escapes from a group of Communist agents who are dressed in tuxedos. Perhaps for this reason, in Beyond Bond: Spies in Fiction and Film (2005) Wesley Britton refers to Hot Enough for June as ‘yet another quickly forgettable parody of the Bond boom’ (107). However, Hot Enough for June is more than just a parody of the Bond pictures. There are also jokes about British attitudes to issues such as nation and class, an element familiar from the other films on which Bogarde and Ralph Thomas collaborated. For example, when Whistler discovers that his contact is a British bathroom attendant, he declares ‘Don’t say you’re British!’ ‘Of course I am, you idiot’, the bathroom attendant asserts. ‘Well, how did you get stuck in a job like this?’, Whistler asks with amazement. 
Distributed by the Rank Organisation in the UK, in America Hot Enough for June was cut by twenty minutes and released under the title Agent 8 ¾. This release contains the uncut British version of the film. The film runs for 92:31 mins (PAL).
Video
The film is presented in the aspect ratio of 1.78:1, with anamorphic enhancement. This would appear to approximate the film’s cinema aspect ratio. The transfer is very handsome: colours are vibrant and the image is detailed. 
Audio
The disc presents the film via a mono (two-channel) audio track. This is clear and detailed. However, there are no subtitles.
Extras
Extras include: - a trailer (2:50). The trailer foregrounds the espionage elements of the film, almost selling the picture as a ‘straight’ adaptation of the novel on which it is based – aside from the narrator’s odd chuckles, which appear intermittently throughout the trailer; - an image gallery (3:06) consisting of stills from the film; - a portrait image gallery (3:03) consisting of portraits of the film’s stars; - a behind the scenes image gallery (2:13) showing the cast and crew on the set of the production.
Overall
A modest comedy-thriller, Hot Enough for June benefits greatly from its cast, especially Bogarde who is, as usual, an extremely likeable lead actor. Here, Bogarde is also surrounded by some very good comic actors, including John Le Mesurier and Robert Morley; his romantic foil is the Italian beauty Sylva Koscina. However, many of the film’s jokes (especially those about the Bond pictures) fall flat, and placed alongside some of its contemporaries (such as The Ipcress File) the film seems positively quaint in an era in which British cinema was going through radical changes thanks to the impact of ‘new wave’ filmmakers like Tony Richardson, John Schlesinger, Lindsay Anderson and Karel Reisz. Nevertheless, Hot Enough for June is pleasing to watch, and this DVD contains an excellent presentation of the film, alongside some relevant contextual material. References: Britton, Wesley, 2005: Beyond Bond: Spies in Fiction and Film. Greenwood Publishing Group For more information, please visit the homepage of Network DVD.
|
|||||
|