Eurospy

Eurospy film is a genre of spy films produced across Europe that either imitated or parodied the British James Bond series. The first wave of Eurospy films were released in 1964, two years after the first James Bond film, Dr. No, and in the same year as the premiere of what many consider to be the apotheosis of the Bond series, Goldfinger. For the most part, the Eurospy craze lasted until around 1967 or 1968. In Italy, where most of these films were produced, this trend replaced the declining sword and sandal genre.

Christopher Frayling, who estimated the number of Eurospy films at 50, felt that they passed on such traits to the Spaghetti Western as emphasis on the technology of death, such as special weapons, the anonymity of the protagonist, the "money = power" equation of the villains and humorous asides that released the audience's laughter after a violent sequence.

For additional verisimilitude, these films often featured American and British stars in the lead roles. The heroes of the films were secret agents who were often given a name similar to "James Bond" (including "Charles Bind", "Charles Vine" and "James Tont"), and/or a code name matching, or similar to, James Bond's "007". Other Eurospy films made use of existing literary fictional spies, including Bulldog Drummond, Harry Palmer, Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath, AKA OSS 117 (who was not based on James Bond but rather had helped to inspire James Bond), Francis Coplan and Rolf Torring.

Some European stars and their films were renamed and retitled to cash in on the superspy craze. For example, Jesus Franco's or "Jess Frank"'s 1962 La Muerte silba un Blues was later retitled 077 Operation Jamaica or 077 Operation Sexy with star Conrado San Martín rechristened "Sean Martin" to evoke images of Sean Connery and Dean Martin (who played Matt Helm). Germany's fictional hero Rolf Torring's film Der Fluch des Schwarzen Rubin was retitled Agente S3S Operazione Uranio.

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