Spies on screen

Daniel Craig, the latest actor to portray Ian Fleming's James Bond, the secret agent with a license to kill, in "Casino Royale" (2006).

Though the most famous of movie spies, Bond is simply carrying on a cherished tradition of espionage in films and TV, where subterfuge, high-stakes action, and tackling a bevy of femme fatales are all part of the character's job description.

By CBSNews.com producer David Morgan

Ian Fleming said that one inspiration for the character of super spy James Bond was Bulldog Drummond, an English gentleman who survived the boredom of the post-WWI years by acting as a detective, intelligence agent and all-around adventurer. Introduced by novelist Herman Cyril McNeile in 1920, Drummond was featured in a slew of films beginning in 1923, and in a popular radio series.

At left: Ronald Colman is in a sticky situation with Lilyan Tashman in "Bulldog Drummond" (1929), the first Drummond talkie. Colman earned a Best Actor Oscar nomination.

The character was reintroduced in a Bond take-off "Deadlier Than the Male" (1965) in which Drummond goes after two curvaceous female assassins.

Greta Garbo, Ramon Novarro, "Mata Hari" — MGM

Greta Garbo played "Mata Hari" (1931), an exotic dancer and prostitute who was accused of spying for the Germans during World War I. Here she romances a Russian Lt. played by Ramon Novarro.

Marlene Dietrich played an Austrian Secret Service agent who uses her seductive powers against unwitting Russians in "Dishonored" (1931), directed by Josef von Sternberg.

One of Alfred Hitchcock's earliest international successes was the spy caper "The 39 Steps" (1935), in which Robert Donat is an innocent man who winds up with a dead secret agent in his room.

Escaping arrest, he embarks on a cross-country chase to uncover a spy ring, on the lookout for a foreign agent who reportedly is missing part of his little finger - wait, is that . . . OH NO!!!!!!

World War II introduced spies from the Axis powers to movie screens, in a slew of espionage titles such as "Madame Spy," "Foreign Agent," "Traitor Spy," "Murder in the Air," "Secret Agent of Japan," and "The House on 92nd Street" (1945), in which William Eythe is recruited to join a Nazi spy ring - but he's actually a double agent for the FBI!

Alfred Hitchcock made several notable wartime spy films, combining the tricks of intelligence with the tricks of cinema, such as the windmills of Holland signaling enemy agents in "Foreign Correspondent."

In "Saboteur" (1942), Robert Cummings (here with Priscilla Lane) plays a hunted man wrongly accused of sabotage, on the trail of the real saboteurs. The chase leads to the very top of the Statue of Liberty, where it's a long fall down . . .

In "Notorious" (1946), Ingrid Bergman plays a woman recruited by an American agent (Cary Grant) to spy on Nazis in South America. Hitchcock's "Macguffin" - the plot element that supposedly drives the narrative - turns out to be uranium hidden in wine bottles.

But the espionage was less important than the romance between the two leads in what was one of the director's most erotically-charged films.

The World War II thriller "5 Fingers" (1952), based on a true story, starred James Mason as the valet of a British diplomat in Turkey who sells his employer's secrets to the Nazis. Ads described Mason's character as "the highest paid spy in history!"

Donald Sutherland played a German spy hiding out on a Scottish island who tries to get out with information about the Allied D-Day invasion in the 1981 film "Eye of the Needle," based on Ken Follett's novel.

Hitchcock's trademark humor and storytelling flair were again on display in "North by Northwest" (1959), starring Cary Grant as a Madison Avenue ad man mistaken for a spy. He finds he must pretend to be a secret agent in order to clear his name of murder.

And who can possibly help him, as he is chased by plane-riding gunmen and assassins all the way to the very edge of Mount Rushmore? The mysterious Eva Marie Saint, who isn't what she appears to be . . .

"The Spy Who Came in From the Cold" (1965), directed by Martin Ritt, starred Richard Burton as a British spy who pretends to defect as part of plot to help snare an East German agent.

It was the first film adaptation of a John le Carre novel, and also starred Claire Bloom, Oskar Werner, Sam Wanamaker, Cyril Cusack, and Rupert Davies as George Smiley. The film earned Burton an Oscar nomination, and won BAFTA Awards for Best Film and Best Actor.

One change made from le Carre's novel: The character of Burton's girlfriend had her name changed from Liz to Nan - to avoid possible confusion with Burton's real-life lover, Liz Taylor.

The conspiracy thriller "The Manchurian Candidate" (1962) starred Laurence Harvey as a Korean War veteran who had been brainwashed while being held captive. His mission: Kill a nationally prominent politician on the eve of the presidential election.

Directed by John Frankenheimer by a novel by Richard Condon ("Prizzi's Honor"), the film was rarely seen for years following the assassination of John F. Kennedy, leading to rumors that star Frank Sinatra had suppressed it.

Though Ian Fleming's James Bond, Secret Agent 007, was first dramatized in a 1954 live TV adaptation of "Casino Royale" on the CBS series "Climax" (Americanized as "Jimmy Bond" and played by Barry Nelson), Sean Connery was the first to play the super spy on movie screens, in the lean Caribbean thriller "Dr. No." (1962).

The low-budget actioner was a hit, leading to increasingly bigger budgets - much of its spent in the gadget department.

Sean Connery with Daniela Bianchi in "From Russia With Love" (1963), one of the best Bond films.

Sean Connery as James Bond comes face to face with a laser in the lair of arch criminal Auric Goldfinger. (Set design by Ken Adams.)

Bond: "Do you expect me to talk?"
Goldfinger: "No, Mr. Bond! I expect you to die!"

In "The Spy Who Loved Me" (1977), James Bond's Lotus Esprit converted into a submarine.

The success of the Bond films in the '60s produced many Bond knock-offs aping the formula - handsome guy, lots of action and high-tech weaponry and, of course, beautiful women. One of the better examples was "Our Man Flint" starring James Coburn as Derek Flint out to stop a secret organization that was controlling the weather.

Why should guys have all the fun? The British comic strip character Modesty Blaise, a wealthy adventuress and former crime boss who throws her lot in with the British Secret Service, inspired novels, films and TV pilots. The campy 1966 film "Modesty Blaise" starred Italian actress Monica Vitti (more familiar from her appearances in the less spy-ish films of Michelangelo Antonioni).

Ian Fleming was actually one of the co-creators of the spy series "The Man From U.N.C.L.E.," which ran on NBC from 1964 to 1968. Starring Robert Vaughn as Napoleon Solo and David McCallum as Russian Illya Kuryakin, the two agents from the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement fought competing acronyms and launched a spin-off series, "The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.," starring Stefanie Powers.

Bill Cosby and Robert Culp pretended to be a tennis player and his trainer, but were actually covert agents for military intelligence in the 1960s series "I Spy." The show was notable for being the first major TV series to feature a black star - and even more notable for never making Cosby's race an issue in the plots.

The show also busted budgets by filming on international locations, like the Bond films, rather than remaining confined on a Hollywood backlot.

"Extraordinary crimes against the people, and the state, have to be avenged by agents extraordinary.

One of Britain's top exports in the 1960s was the spy series "The Avengers," starring Patrick Macnee as dapper English agent John Steed. He was accompanied at turns by Honor Blackman as Cathy Gale (left); Diana Rigg as Emma Peel (center); and Linda Thorson as Tara King.

The show mixed fantastic storylines, deftly-staged action, humor and revealing costumes for the female stars.

"They've given you a number, and taken away your name ..."

Patrick MacGoohan had already starred in a popular espionage show, "Danger Man" (U.S. title "Secret Agent"), which he followed up with "The Prisoner" (1967-68), a cunning look at a retired agent's battle with mysterious forces who want him to talk.

Kidnapped to an isolated spot known as The Village, Number Six (MacGoohan) is trapped by a deadly, roaring bubble and is under constant surveillance. "The Prisoner" comprised a single season of 17 episodes, each a duel between Number Six and a steady stream of Number Twos who try to break him.

A heady mix of psychological probings and individualism ("I am not a number, I am a free man!"), the show remains one of the best ever televised.

The James Bond legend, including the proliferation of gadgets, got some ribbing from Don Adams (here with his trusty shoe-phone) as secret agent Maxwell Smart in the comedy series "Get Smart."

Created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, the show ran for five years on NBC and then CBS, and later spun off a feature film, "The Nude Bomb." The show was recently rebooted as a feature film starring Steve Carell.

Every office cubicle worker can appreciate the value of the "Cone of Silence" (that is, if it ever worked), just one of the many gadgets featured in "Get Smart." Pictured: Don Adams as Maxwell Smart and Edward Platt as the long-suffering Chief.

The covert operatives of "Mission: Impossible" brought high-tech spyware to new highs, from spray-on masks to robotics, as the IM Force ruined the plans of dictators and evil scientists, often in locales with vaguely-Slavic signposts.

Led by Peter Graves (top, who replaced the first season's team leader), the cast included (clockwise) Martin Landau, Greg Morris, Peter Lupus and Barbara Bain. Later seasons featured in the cast Leonard Nimoy, Lesley Ann Warren, and Lynda Day George. A series re-boot and movie franchise followed.

Michael Caine portrayed British spy Harry Palmer in a trio of films in the 1960s - "Funeral in Berlin," "The Ipcress File" (left), and "Billion Dollar Brain." The character was actually anonymous in Len Deighton's first novel featuring the working class agent. The producers of the film version, needing a name, came up with an unglamorous-sounding one, to juxtapose against that of James Bond.

George Segal starred in "The Quiller Memorandum" (1966), about the investigation into the murder of two British secrets agents by a neo-Nazi group in West Berlin.

Alistair MacLean's adventure books were great fodder for films - the World War II thrillers "The Guns of Navarone" and "Where Eagles Dare" being two of the best. His thriller "Ice Station Zebra" (1968) - a true Cold War race between American and Soviet forces to retrieve a downed reconnaissance satellite near the North Pole - starred Patrick MacGoohan (pictured) as a British agent, Rock Hudson, Jim Brown and Ernest Borgnine.

When Sean Connery bowed out of playing Bond after "You Only Live Twice," George Lazenby took over the role in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (1969), which featured action scenes high in the Swiss Alps. Connery was back, though, in "Diamonds Are Forever."

Lazenby did make a cameo appearance in a 1983 TV movie, playing a secret agent driving a car with the license plates JB.

Roger Moore - TV's "Saint" - took up the Bond mantle in seven films, in locales as varied as the Caribbean, Harlem, Greece, India, San Francisco, and - following the success of "Star Wars" - outer space, in "Moonraker" (left).

Robert Redford is a CIA analyst trying to get at the bottom of a conspiracy after his coworkers are executed in the thriller "3 Days of the Condor" (1975).

John le Carre's novel "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy," in which George Smiley is brought out of retirement to help track down a Russian mole in the highest echelons of the British intelligence service (a.k.a. the "Circus"), became a classic TV mini-series in 1979, starring Alec Guinness as Smiley.

Timothy Dalton played James Bond in "The Living Daylights" and "License to Kill."

Pierce Brosnan took over the Bond role in four films, including "Die Another Day" (2002), where he infiltrated a military camp in North Korea to battle arms traffickers.

You know it's a French espionage film when the assassin is a beautiful women in a little black dress. "La Femme Nikita" (1990) starred Anne Parillaud as a convicted felon who is trained to be a killer in Luc Besson's stylish thriller.

A big hit, "Nikita" spawned a Hollywood remake ("Point of No Return," starring Bridget Fonda) and a TV series.

In the action series "Alias" (2001-2006), Jennifer Garner played Sydney Bristow, a double agent for the CIA who has infiltrated an international organized crime group.

Robert Ludlum, who wrote a shelf full of conspiracy and espionage thrillers, penned "The Bourne Identity," about an amnesiac who can't remember that he's a trained assassin. (Maybe that's why so many people are trying to kill him?) Fortunately for Bourne, he's a well-trained assassin!

Matt Damon's believable performance and Doug Liman's taut direction of the 2002 film led to two well-received sequels, and now a spin-off, "The Bourne Legacy," starring Jeremy Renner following in Damon's footsteps.

Daniel Craig became the latest actor to play James Bond in the 2006 reboot "Casino Royale," which depicted the secret agent's first major assignment: Bankrupt Le Chiffre, a terrorist financier, at the gaming tables of Montenegro.

Following "Quantum of Solace," Craig is now filming his third Bond outing, "Skyfall."

Angelina Jolie stars as Evelyn Salt, accused of being a sleeper Russian agent, in the action thriller "Salt" (2010). The character, originally intended for Tom Cruise, was rewritten for Jolie.

The "Mission: Impossible" TV series spawned a franchise of big-screen thrillers starring Tom Cruise. The fourth film in the series, "Mission Impossible - Ghost Protocol" (2011), follows Cruise and his IM Force as they track the source of a bombing of the Kremlin, which may spark a war between Russia and the United States.

Tom Cruise's IMF agent Ethan Hunt scales the tallest building in the world, Dubai's Burj Khalifa, in "Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol."

Gary Oldman as George Smiley in a new feature film adaptation of John le Carre's "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" (2011), directed by Tomas Alfredson (the Swedish vampire thriller "Let the Right One In").

In a stripped-down adaptation, spies turn their eyes on one another as Smiley must uncover the Soviet mole within the British Secret Service. The film has been included in Sight & Sound magazine's poll of international critics as one of the year's best films.

One (or more) of these men is not who they seem: David Dencik, Colin Firth, Toby Jones, John Hurt, Gary Oldman and Ciaran Hinds in the John le Carre thriller "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" (2011).

By CBSNews.com producer David Morgan