OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies

It’s men like Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath (alias OSS 117) who have made France the world power that it is today. Jean Bruce created this Gallic James Bond in 1949 in a pulp fiction series that finally ran to 265 novels and spawned seven film versions between 1956 and 1970. Now 117’s back in a delicious parody, suavely outwitting Nazis before enjoying a bracing and manly game of beach tennis with his very good friend and fellow agent, Jack. Then on to the Middle East where, under the cover of running a poultry factory, he will be plunged into a dastardly intrigue involving the Russians, the Brits and assorted Islamic fundamentalists. He will need all of the cultural sensitivity and deference to other ways of life for which the French are famed if he is to unravel the caper and return the region to a place where Europeans can feel safe to wear a tuxedo and cut a nifty samba.

On a superficial level these clichés are the clichés of fifties movies, and at a deeper level, they are the clichés of the controlling western philosophy.

Michel Hazanavicius