I took the title of this blog, and my PhD itself, from a 1960s Eurospy film released in the UK by Compton. It was one of the Agent 077 films. These were Italian/ French/ Spanish co-productions.
Whilst I have yet to find a copy of this film itself, last weekend I found the quad poster. It was in the same shop I bought the lobby cards almost two years ago, in a box of posters I had never seen before. It has been folded, probably for most of the last fifty years, but it is still in remarkably good condition. The artwork is crude, and Ken Clark is all out of proportion and looks like he is in a western, but I am still happy to have found it. This will take a prominent place in the visual elements of my study.
Agent 077's name was Dick Malloy, and he was played by the American actor Ken Clark, who despite some success at home spent the majority of his career working in Italian films.
According to the Kiss Kiss Kill Kill archive there were three Agent 077 films, and some of the posters advertised that fact. It is interesting that Compton chose not to use that in their materials, perhaps trying to play down the Bond connection for suspicious British audiences.
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| Argentinian poster for From the Orient With Fury (1965) |
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| Italian poster for Mission Bloody Mary (1965) |
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| Italian poster for Operation Lady Chaplin (1966) |
