Agent 8¾
| Hot Enough for June | |
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Original film poster by Renato Fratini
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| Directed by | Ralph Thomas |
| Produced by | Betty E. Box |
| Screenplay by | Lukas Heller |
| Based on |
The Night of Wenceslas by Lionel Davidson |
| Starring |
Dirk Bogarde Sylva Koscina Robert Morley Leo McKern |
| Music by | Angelo Lavagnino |
| Cinematography | Ernest Steward |
| Edited by | Alfred Roome |
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Production
company |
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| Distributed by |
Rank Film Distributors (UK) Central Distributing (US) |
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Release date
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Running time
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98 min. |
| Country | United Kingdom |
Hot Enough for June is a 1964 British spy comedy film directed by Ralph Thomas, and featuring Dirk Bogarde, Sylva Koscina in her English film debut,Robert Morley and Leo McKern. It is based on the 1960 novel The Night of Wenceslas by Lionel Davidson. The film was cut by twenty minutes and retitled Agent 8¾ for the US release by the American distributor Central Distributing.
Part of a trend of spy films in the wake of the success of the James Bond series, its art director was Syd Cain, who had the same job on the first two Bond films. Koscina herself had been considered for the role of Tatiana Romanova in From Russia with Love.
Roger Allsop (John Le Mesurier) turns over some belongings to a clerk, who stows them in a drawer marked 007 before turning the identifying card over to read "deceased". Allsop and his superior, Colonel Cunliffe (Robert Morley), then discuss the necessity to send someone to pick up something behind the Iron Curtain.
Unemployed British writer Nicholas Whistler (Dirk Bogarde) is sent by the employment exchange to be interviewed by Cunliffe, supposedly for a job as a trainee executive for a glass company. Cunliffe discovers Whistler speaks Czech, and offers him an exorbitant salary, plus expenses.
Whistler is given puzzling instructions to meet someone who will respond to his remark, "Hot enough for June", by stating he should have been there in September, before being sent that very day to Prague on a "business" trip. On his arrival, he is assigned a beautiful driver and guide, Vlasta (Sylva Koscina). She drives him to inspect a glass factory, where he finally discovers the washroom attendant is his man. However, he has to come back another day to make contact without arousing suspicion.
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Wikipedia