Where the Spies Are is a 1966 British spy comedy film directed by Val Guest, starring David Niven, Françoise Dorléac, John Le Mesurier, and Cyril Cusack. It was adapted from the 1964 novel Passport to Oblivion by James Leasor.
After a British agent is assassinated in Beirut, British intelligence boss MacGillivray recruits Jason Love (Niven), who did some intelligence work during World War II but is now a doctor, to attend a medical conference and find out what is going on. During a stop in Paris, Love meets MacGillivray's contact, a model called Vikki (Dorléac). Love arrives in Beirut and together with Vikki they discover a communist assassination plot.
This film features examples of:
- Curse Cut Short: At the end of the film; the car with Love in it is driven away as he starts expressing his opinion on MacGillivray.
- Decon-Recon Switch: The movie ridicules the Bond-type spy movies with their girls and gadgets, yet our hero ends up playing them straight—meeting a beautiful girl during his adventures and using the gadgets he's given to get out of various scrapes.
- Dirty Communists: Jason Love uncovers a communist plot to assassinate the pro-British Prince of Zahlouf, thereby threatening Britain's Eastern oil treaties.
- Double Agent: Vikki is revealed to be a double agent to the Russians.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: It's heavily implied, but never stated, that the lecturer at the KGB Spy School at the beginning of the film is Kim Philby, the real-life British intelligence officer that turned out to be a Double Agent for the Soviet Union.
- Pointy-Haired Boss: A British government official is shown complaining about what Love had gotten up to, saying they should claim he's drunk or mad. When MacGillivray points out that Love has gone missing and could have been killed, his response is: "Yes, that would be convenient."
- Redemption Equals Death: After being revealed as a double agent, Vikki shoots the Russians to enable Love to escape, but she is killed in turn.
- Shoe Phone: Subverted. The film opens with a KGB briefing on various gadgets used by British agents, which segues to a scene where a British agent is kidnapped by two Russians and uses one of these devices to break free, only to be gunned down as he's running away. Lampshaded in a later scene where Jason Love, still an amateur spy, runs into a veteran agent and is told to "throw away that rubbish and get yourself a bloody gun."
- Spy School: The KGB school where a lecturer is discussing British Intelligence techniques and spy gadgets, some of which were recovered from a dead British agent.
