Connection
The Spook Who Sat by the Door is a american film of genre Drama directed by Ivan Dixon released in USA on 21 september 1973 with Lawrence Cook
The Spook Who Sat by the Door (1973)
If you like this film, let us know!
- Infos
- Casting
- Technical infos
- Photos
- Videos
- Film quotes
- Characters
- Music
- Awards
Add to a movie listReleased in USA 21 september 1973
Length 1h42
Directed by Ivan Dixon
OriginUSA
Themes Spy films
Rating70%
The Spook Who Sat by the Door is a 1973 film based on the 1969 novel of the same name by Sam Greenlee. It is both a satire of the civil rights struggle in the United States of the late 1960s and a serious attempt to focus on the issue of black militancy. Dan Freeman, the titular protagonist, is enlisted in the Central Intelligence Agency's elitist espionage program as its token black. After mastering agency tactics, however, he becomes disillusioned and drops out to train young Chicago blacks as "Freedom Fighters". As a story of one man's reaction to white ruling-class hypocrisy, the film is loosely autobiographical and personal.
The novel and the film also dramatize the CIA's history of giving training to persons and/or groups who later utilize their specialized intelligence training against the agency - an example of "blowback."
Directed by Ivan Dixon, co-produced by Dixon and Greenlee, from a screenplay written by Greenlee with Mel Clay, the film starred Lawrence Cook, Paula Kelly, Janet League, J. A. Preston, and David Lemieux. It was mostly shot in Gary, Indiana, because the themes of racial strife did not please Chicago's then-mayor Richard J. Daley. The soundtrack was composed by Herbie Hancock.
In 2012, the film was added to the National Film Registry, which annually chooses 25 films that are "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant", and are at least 10 years old.
Synopsis
The story takes place in the early 1970s in Chicago. The CIA has been required for political reasons to recruit African Americans for training. Only one of them, Dan Freeman (Lawrence Cook), secretly a black nationalist, successfully completes the training process. He becomes the first black man in the agency and is given a desk job—Top Secret Reproduction Center Sections Chief (which means he's in charge of the copy machine). Freeman understands that he is the token black person in the CIA, and that the CIA defines his function as providing proof of the agency's supposed commitment to integration and progress. Therefore, after completing his training in guerrilla warfare techniques, weaponry, communications and subversion, Freeman puts in just enough time to avoid raising any suspicions about his motives before he resigns from the CIA and returns to work in the social services in Chicago.Actors
Comments
Leave comment :
Suggestions of similar film to The Spook Who Sat by the Door
There are 11 films with the same actors, 1 films with the same director, 73554 with the same cinematographic genres (including 2 with exactly the same 5 genres than The Spook Who Sat by the Door), 1126 films with the same themes, to have finally 70 suggestions of similar films.If you liked The Spook Who Sat by the Door, you will probably like those similar films :
Trouble Man (1972)
, 1h39Directed by Ivan Dixon
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Thriller, Action, Crime, Romance
Themes Children's films
Actors Robert Hooks, Paul Winfield, Paula Kelly, Ralph Waite, Bill Henderson, Gordon Jump
Rating66%
Dans ce drame urbain, un homme de la ville cherche à fuir à la fois les flics et des escrocs dans ce drame urbain. T (Robert Hooks) est la combinaison d'un requin de piscine, d'un détective privé et d'un homme à tout faire du ghetto, menant ses affaires depuis un club de billard dans le centre-sud de Los Angeles.
, 2h1Directed by Guy Hamilton
Origin USA
Genres Thriller, Comedy, Action, Adventure, Spy
Themes Spy films
Actors Fred Ward, Joel Grey, Kate Mulgrew, Wilford Brimley, J. A. Preston, George Coe
Rating63%
Sam Makin is a tough Brooklyn, New York City street cop and Vietnam-era Marine Corps veteran. He is unwillingly recruited as an assassin for a secret United States organization, CURE. The recruitment is through a bizarre method: his death is faked and he is given a new face and a new name. Rechristened "Remo Williams" (after the name and location of the manufacturer of the bedpan in Makin's hospital room), his face is surgically altered and he is trained to be a human killing machine by his aged, derisive and impassive Korean martial arts master Chiun.
Lust, Caution (2007)
, 2h38Directed by Ang Lee
Origin Taiwan
Genres Drama, War, Thriller, Action, Spy, Historical, Crime, Romance
Themes Spy films, Films about sexuality, Erotic films, Political films, Erotic thriller films
Actors Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Tang Wei, Joan Chen, Carlo Chin, Anupam Kher, Wang Hui-Ling
Rating74%
The film takes place in the 1940s, when Shanghai was under Japanese occupation. A young Chinese woman named Mrs Mai is sitting in a luxurious cafe. She makes a phone call, signaling a group of resistance agents to load their weapons.
, 1h11Directed by Roy William Neill
Origin USA
Genres Drama, War, Thriller, Action, Spy, Crime
Themes Spy films, Sherlock Holmes films, Buddy films
Actors Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Marjorie Lord, Mary Forbes, Henry Daniell, George Zucco
Rating66%
A British agent carrying a vital document is murdered on his way to deliver it in the USA. Holmes deduces he was carrying the document in the form of microfilm and goes to Washington with Watson to find the killer and retrieve the document before it falls into the hands of an "international spy ring". Before his death, the agent managed to pass the microfilm into the unwitting hands of a Washington debutante and bride-to-be. There are some amusing moments when the microfilm, which has been inserted into a "V for Victory" matchbook, gets passed from hand to hand at a party unknowingly, and at one point is discarded by the chief criminal. Holmes and Watson track down the criminals, rescue the bride-to-be and regain the microfilm.
Topaz (1969)
, 2h7Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Thriller, Action, Spy, Crime
Themes Spy films, Seafaring films, Politique, Transport films, Political films
Actors Frederick Stafford, Dany Robin, Claude Jade, Michel Subor, John Forsythe, Karin Dor
Rating61%
In Copenhagen in 1962, a high-ranking Soviet intelligence officer, Boris Kusenov (Per-Axel Arosenius), defects to the West with his wife and daughter after a chase through the streets to the US embassy. In Washington DC, CIA agent Mike Nordstrom (John Forsythe) debriefs him and learns that Russian ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads are to be placed in Cuba. Needing physical evidence of the missiles, he contacts an old friend, French agent André Devereaux (Frederick Stafford), at his house in Georgetown. Nordstrom discloses Kusenov's name to Devereaux, asking him to bribe Luis Uribe, a member of Cuba's U.N. delegation, to provide photographs of documents confirming the missile bases in Cuba (knowing that Uribe hates the United States and would never cooperate with an American agent). Devereaux decides to accompany his daughter Michèle (Claude Jade) on her honeymoon with journalist François Picard (Michel Subor) as a reason to go to New York City. His wife Nicole (Dany Robin) is worried and tries to dissuade him.
Mata Hari (1931)
, 1h29Directed by George Fitzmaurice
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Thriller, Action, Spy, Crime, Romance
Themes Spy films, Political films
Actors Greta Garbo, Ramón Novarro, Lewis Stone, Lionel Barrymore, C. Henry Gordon, Karen Morley
Rating65%
In 1917, France is embroiled in World War I. Dubois (C. Henry Gordon), head of the French spy bureau, offers to spare the life of a captured agent (an uncredited Mischa Auer) if he will reveal who he is protecting. Dubois suspects it is Mata Hari, a celebrated, wildly popular exotic dancer, but the prisoner chooses execution by firing squad.
Vishwaroopam II (2013)
, 2h5Directed by Kamal Haasan
Genres Drama, Action, Spy, Crime
Themes Spy films
Actors Kamal Haasan, Rahul Bose, Pooja Kumar, Andrea Jeremiah, Shekhar Kapur, Jaideep Ahlawat
Rating58%
Ronin (1998)
, 2h1Directed by John Frankenheimer
Origin United-kingdom
Genres Drama, Thriller, Action, Adventure, Spy, Crime
Themes Spy films, Transport films, Films about automobiles, Road movies, Heist films, Chase films, Gangster films, Escroquerie
Actors Robert De Niro, Jean Reno, Natascha McElhone, Stellan Skarsgård, Sean Bean, Jonathan Pryce
Rating71%
At a bistro in the Montmartre district of Paris, IRA operative Deirdre (Natascha McElhone) meets with ex-special operatives-turned mercenaries Sam (Robert De Niro), Larry (Skipp Sudduth), and Vincent (Jean Reno), and takes them to a warehouse where fellow mercenaries Gregor (Stellan Skarsgård) and Spence (Sean Bean) are waiting. There, Deirdre briefs the men on their mission: that they have been hired to attack a heavily armed convoy and steal a large metallic briefcase, the contents of which are never revealed. As the team prepares, Deirdre meets with her ex-IRA handler, Seamus O' Roarke (Jonathan Pryce), who reveals that the Russian mob is bidding for the case and the team must intervene. After Spence is exposed as a fraud by Sam and summarily dismissed, the others depart for Nice. Sam and Deirdre develop an attraction to each other during a stakeout. On the day of the sale, Deirdre's team ambush the convoy at La Turbie and pursue the survivors back to Nice. After a gun battle at the port, Gregor steals the case and disappears.
The Eagle Has Landed (1976)
, 2h15Directed by John Sturges
Origin United-kingdom
Genres Drama, War, Thriller, Action, Adventure, Spy
Themes Spy films, Political films
Actors Michael Caine, Donald Sutherland, Robert Duvall, Jenny Agutter, Donald Pleasence, Anthony Quayle
Rating68%
The film begins with captured Second World War film footage of the rescue from Italy of Mussolini by German paratroopers.
Guns (1990)
, 1h36Directed by Andy Sidaris
Origin USA
Genres Drama, Thriller, Action, Spy, Crime
Themes Spy films, Films about sexuality, Erotic films, Sexploitation films
Actors Erik Estrada, Devin DeVasquez, Danny Trejo, Phyllis Davis, Chuck McCann, George Kee Cheung
Rating44%
An international crime lord stages a brutal murder in Las Vegas to lure federal agents away from Hawaii in an attempt to smuggle assault weapons to drug traffickers in South America.