Red Peril returns
Hurrah! The Cold War’s back
Putting a side the loss of freedom, the roll back of democracy etc the Cold war was good for Popular Culture.
Let’s face it fear, imminent obliteration and broad brush ideology was lots of fun and made for great art!
Examples:
Spy novels: have been rubbish since 1990, any good ones have to be set in past to make sense.
Mad pop song about politics: it might have been multi-millionaires singing in praise of Chairman Mao but has there been any good songs written about Iran or Sudan?
Films: hurrah Johnny English get’s let off the hook and is replaced again by horrible Ivan as the bad guy in action pics. Hollywood could never get the balance right with Middle Eastern terrorists or Yardies it all went a bit racist. Plus media moguls as Bond Villains were rubbish.
Sci-fi: Point of fact global warming is bobbins for near future disaster mad max style stuff you need a good nuke to get things going.
Computer games & comics see sci-fi and films
Art: well the CIA paid for abstract expressionism, uncle Joe stumped up for constructivism and Sergei Eisenstein what we do we get nowadays Grayson Perry and those Russian faux lesbian starlets.
So, what’s the best cold war song, film or book?
ps: here's Len Deighton's CV
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Frankie's 'Two Tribes' video...
was an inspired critique of the end of the cold war era. Good tune too...
Len Deighton
I loved his work too. The Harry Palmer books (as they came to be known after the films) and the Bernard Sampson books were all excellent.
Adam Hall's Quiller books were good too.
I could never get into John Le Carre's books though. I tried, but usually nodded off!
yeah to Len
all excellent, JLC patchy but the smiley series are pretty good nice and seedy,
Just come back from my first visit to Berlin
HUgely recommended. Ordered the John Le Carre books I haven't read. Love him.
"My Polaroid's a taser in disguise."
Blondie – Contact in Red Square
A faux James Bond intro, followed by Debbie Harry’s whistle stop tour around the clichés of the espionage genre. Microfilms, trench coats, cyanide pills and secret bases are all mentioned in passing. A shade over two minutes, it makes the Cold War sound like brilliant fun.
cold war update:
Further proof if it were needed: Produced by that constant source of pop music trivia "thought for today" that hard rain by B. Dylan was written the day of cuban missile crisis (something i didn't know).
We await J. Blunt's 3mins.40 on Georgia by the end of the week!
Eve Of Destruction
Barry McGuire.
Obliteration blues baby.
Do you not read John le Carre?
He's had variable output, but I'd put The Night Manager, Single & Single, Our Game, The Constant Gardener & Absolute Friends up there with the best of his cold war material.
Little Drummer Girl from early 1980s
..is pretty good (Middle East politics) although film was ropey.
I do think that Le Carre never really gets his due as he is pigeonholed as a populist genre writer and therefore not award worthy.
Then again the recent one, The Mission Song was dire.
Mission Song
I agree with you on that one. I didn't like The Tailor Of Panama either. I've never managed to get past the first couple of pages of A Perfect Spy either.
I'd forgotten The Little Drummer Girl, which I liked quite a lot.
99 Red Balloons
or neun und neunzig luftballon.Indispensable cold war pop.
worry worry
super scurry get the troops out in a hurry!