Espionage in Movies I Trivia Quiz

Answer: Sir Francis Walsingham

Although the recent Queen Elizabeth I movies, made in our era of spy glorification, may show Walsingham as more powerful than he really was, he was the world's first real spy master, with the full support of the Queen and of Sir William Cecil behind his "innovations." His domestic spies uncovered the Throckmorton and Babington Plots that were intended to place Mary, Queen of Scots on the English throne, while his foreign spies tracked every move in the Spanish and French royal houses. Part of the reason that movies may exaggerate Walsingham's influence is because no one knows how much he was involved in activities that weren't officially acknowledged.

Answer: The Three Musketeers

In "The Three Musketeers", Lady de Winter was a teenage nun who was branded with the fleur de lis (marking her as a criminal) when caught stealing church property. The brand, which she concealed, didn't stop her rise through her beauty. Later, as Richelieu's spy, Milady succeeded in gathering secret information, in covertly stealing two diamonds given to the English Duke of Buckingham by the Queen of France and, later, in murdering the Duke and others.

Some of the most beautiful actresses in Hollywood have played her, including Barbara LaMarr (a silent star known as "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World"), Lana Turner, Faye Dunaway and Rebecca De Mornay (who appeared in the only version of the movie that made Milady at all sympathetic).

Answer: Maj. John André

"The Scarlet Coat" captured the ambivalence of the American officers about executing the charming André, who was disguised as an American officer when he foolishly revealed his true identity to three renegade American soldiers. André was returning from a clandestine meeting with American Gen. Benedict Arnold at West Point and was carrying documents from Arnold detailing his plans to surrender the fort to the British.

He was executed primarily because the British had previously executed the American spy Nathan Hale.

However, despite Sturges' direction, the movie had little to recommend it other than one of the best-known performances of Elizabeth Taylor's second husband, Michael Wilding, as André.

Answer: Mata Hari

Although Mata Hari was the stage name of a real person (Margaretha Zelle) who was executed for espionage during WWI, the movie was almost entirely fictional, telling the story of a beautiful seductress who pretended to work for the French but who actually manipulated her lovers into providing vital secrets for her German masters before her capture.

In real life, Mata Hari was recruited by the French as a spy, but her "reveal" as a double agent in a decoded German message (sent in a code that the Germans weren't then using, as they knew the French had broken it) may have been an attempt by a real double agent - perhaps the French spy who had recruited her - to divert attention from himself.

The French army sealed its documents about the case for 100 years, until the year 2017, and perhaps some of the questions will be resolved then. Nevertheless, the idea of Mata Hari as an real-life Lady de Winter captured the public's imagination, and the movie was Garbo's biggest hit.

Answer: The 39 Steps

In "The 39 Steps", the amateur Hannay managed to expose the foreign spy ring, albeit with a lot of luck, including the fluke of having a bullet (fired by Professor Jordan, the leader of the spies, at Hannay) stopped by a hymnal in his coat and the spectacle of vaudeville performer "Mr. Memory" answering a question about the spies (at the cost of his life) to prevent his knowledge-based vaudeville act from flopping.

Answer: Matewan

Set against the backdrop of the Hatfield-McCoy feud, this movie was loosely based on a real struggle (culminating in the Battle of Matewan in 1920) between pro-union and anti-union forces. In real life (not mentioned in the film), Lively had been an undercover agent with the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency since 1912 or 1913. He rented space at the UMW meeting hall for his restaurant, so that he could keep up with all union activity. In the film, he progressed from trying to lead the unionl into illegal activities (so the company could arrest the leaders) to convincing an ignorant, needy girl from the hill country to give false evidence of rape against union organizer Joe Kenehan (Chris Cooper). The plan almost worked, but its failure forced Lively to flee for his life. The end monologue noted (correctly) that Lively was the leader of a company gang that murdered the local sheriff (a Hatfield) in broad daylight a couple of years later and that he was acquitted of the murder charges on the grounds of self-defense because townspeople, fearing for their lives, wouldn't testify against him.

Gunton subsequently played a similarly duplicitous role in "The Shawshank Redemption."

Answer: valet

Cicero (portrayed by James Mason) was the valet to the British ambassador to Turkey, Sir Hughe Montgomery Knatchbull-Hugessen. During late 1943 and early 1944, the Nazis paid him £300,000, and he provided them with copies of just about every important British diplomatic document, which he photographed from the ambassador's safe. However, the Nazis didn't believe that his documents were real for months - until the Allies bombed Sofia, Bulgaria at the time and in the manner discussed in one of his documents - and even after that, the Germans generally failed to act on his information. Meanwhile, the British were searching at the embassy for a spy, though they generally believed Bazna/Diello too stupid to be one. When his Nazi contact's secretary (who could identify him as the spy) defected in early 1944, Cicero decided to take his money and quit. However, he then got a rude shock: his payments from the Germans had been made in counterfeit British pounds from the Nazis' counterfeiting operation, Operation Bernhard.

In the movie, Diello laughed hysterically at this news. In real life, Bazna unsuccessfully sued postwar West Germany for his cash.

Answer: Donald Sutherland

Liam Devlin was loosely based on the real IRA leader and German spy Frank Ryan, who was recruited into Germany's intelligence agency, the Abwehr, in 1940. Although Ryan had fought on the Republican side, against the Fascists, in the Spanish Civil War, his desire to fight against England led him to the German side, the same as the back story for Devlin.

In the movie, Devlin was given a very sympathetic portrayal because of his nationalistic ambitions, including a love interest among the locals (Molly Prior, played by Jenny Agutter) who remained loyal to him even after she found out his true allegiance.

However, the other German spy, Joanna Grey (Jean Marsh), a South African working as a housekeeper in England, was treated with scorn by both sides, so the sympathy for Devlin was apparently related to his underlying cause.

Answer: Notorious

Hitchcock had first read the magazine story that inspired "Notorious" back in 1921 and had been fascinated by the idea of a movie about a man forcing the woman he loved to romance another man ever since then. His problem was finding a way to keep the male lead in such a story from being repugnant. In 1946's "Notorious", screenwriter Ben Hecht solved the problem by creating Devlin, an agent who would have strong job-related reasons for such a choice. Devlin's seeming indifference to Alicia's dilemma, and his hostility when she did as he asked, made him unsympathetic even though he was merely doing his job. At the end of the movie, though, Devlin was redeemed when (against orders) he saved Alicia, who was slowly being poisoned by Sebastian and his mother, and then left Alex Sebastian behind, presumably to be killed by his ex-Nazi allies.

The other three choices were also Hitchcock movies, but made prior to the end of WWII.

Answer: The General

"The General" was a mix of physical comedy and drama based upon Andrews' Raid, which took place in 1862 in Georgia and Tennessee. Eight of the Union spies were ultimately hanged; another eight escaped rebel custody and made it back to the North. However, the film failed to appeal to audiences during the Roaring Twenties. It was a colossal flop upon release, the worst-performing film at the box office that Keaton had released in years despite its expense (which included the cost of destroying an actual train), and it was savaged by critics. As a result, Keaton never again had full artistic control over his pictures. However, he lived long enough to see critical and popular opinion shift 180 degrees with regard to "The General", which is now considered to be his masterpiece.

The story of Andrews' Raid was remade by Disney in 1956 as a straight spy drama entitled "The Great Locomotive Chase", and Keaton later recycled some of his stunts from the movie in the 1948 Red Skelton spy comedy "A Southern Yankee".