Spies Like Us (1985)
The Dr. Strangelove-esque plot of Spies Like Us involves the two most inept, low-level U.S. intelligence agents they could find to go on a mission as expendable decoys for the real agents. Emmett Fitz-Hume (Chevy Chase) and Austin Millbarge (Dan Aykroyd) were scouted by the CIA after cheating on their advanced placement exams, with a mission that sees them parachuting into Pakistan. From there, the bumbling duo ends up in Afghanistan, where they’re mistaken for doctors there on a humanitarian mission for the United Nations, followed by run-ins with the Russians during an effort to draw out the identities of Soviet spies in the area so that the real American spies can complete their mission to check out a news style of Soviet missile launcher. With this launcher, they can send up a Soviet missile in order to test the U.S. anti-missile satellite defenses (a la Reagan’s “Star Wars” defense system) in order to convince the Soviet Union that they have the edge in technology.
Scripted by Aykroyd in the early 1980s, Spies Like Us was originally meant to be a vehicle starring Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi. Aykroyd had wanted to make it a rehashing of the old Bob Hope/Bing Crosby Road to… films he had enjoyed when he was young (as homage, Bob Hope makes a literal walk-on cameo appearance), and the Belushi/Aykroyd pairing was proving to be as appealing as Hope/Crosby after the smash success of 1980’s The Blues Brothers. However, the script would be in limbo after the untimely death of John Belushi in 1982 from a drug overdose.
Aykroyd would end up proceeding to work with fellow Canadian comedian Dave Thomas during a Jamaican getaway to help retool the script to make up for Belushi’s absence. For a brief period, it was thought that Thomas might be the one to use the screenplay for his own vehicle to star in with SCTV partner Rick Moranis but he wasn’t tested enough in films to make such a highly ambitious film bankable to produce. Aykroyd had the hotter hand, especially after co-writing and co-starring in the phenomenally popular 1984 film, Ghostbusters, and decided to hone the script some more by handing it to a screenwriting team with a good deal of recent success in comedies, Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, who had just scored an Oscar nomination for their script to Splash, to remove the excess in terms of the heavier emphasis on the spy element and stick to the basics of what would produce laughs. Together, they would mix the original script’s inept CIA agent premise with the topical nature of American-Soviet tension, especially as it related to the potential for a nuclear war that was the biggest threat to the minds of people in the early to mid-1980s.
As for the director, the role would end up filled by John Landis. Landis had a great track record, but his reputation would get blemished somewhat due to a tragic accident during the second-unit filming of his segment in Twilight Zone: The Movie that resulted in the death of actor Vic Morrow and two Vietnamese child actors. A prolonged lawsuit would follow that put Landis at odds with the studio, Warner Bros, which made him initially balk at working for them again when they gave him the script to Spies Like Us, which they wanted him to do after successful outings with Aykroyd with The Blues Brothers and Trading Places. Landis’s lawyer advised him to give it a go if for no other reason than it showed that Warner Bros’ felt he was trustworthy enough to be given the reins of another project, ruining their chances of pushing the blame on him alone for the deaths. He reluctantly signed on without reading the script, but once he did give it a look, he felt it was a good opportunity to get away from the heaviness of the lawsuit by filming overseas making a supremely silly road movie.
Warner Bros’ was also pushing new “SNL” played Joe Piscopo to appear in the film alongside Aykroyd but it didn’t come together. Aykroyd knew he needed an established counterweight in comedy to make it complete, so one day, after running into him at a party and reminiscing about ‘old times’, he coaxed his old co-star from “Saturday Night Live”, Chevy Chase, to do it as a buddy film with him. It was their first collaboration since “SNL” other than Chase making a short appearance in the music video for Ghostbusters. They had their fun working together but Aykroyd’s films were far better known to those they worked with while shooting in London, causing Chase to become grouchy and overbearing, causing friction with Landis, who didn’t even want him to be in the film save for Aykroyd’s desire.
The bulk of the production would be done at Twickenham Studios in London, then proceed to Norway for the snowy winter scenes, and then Morocco for the segments involving the trip to Pakistan and Afghanistan, followed by additional shoots in Lancaster and Palmdale, CA, and Washington DC. The Norway scenes were well below zero temperatures, with snow as deep as eight feet, making the shoot there grueling for cast and crew. Meanwhile, the Sahara Desert cooked the cast and crew on a daily basis, with temperatures that near 130 degrees Fahrenheit.
Donna Dixon was initially reluctant to take her role in the film, as she was the wife of Dan Aykroyd and wanted no special treatment. She had similarly turned down the Sigourney Weaver role in Ghostbusters for the same reason but ended up getting convinced to audition with everyone else and earn it on her own. Speaking of Ghostbusters, Aykroyd was able to bring over the same composer in Elmer Bernstein to score Spies Like Us with his trademark light and playful touch.
Warner Bros. approached Paul McCartney to do the title song for the film, which gave Landis mixed feelings because it was quite a coup to get such a major talent to contribute a song, but the movie was pretty much finished at the time and he didn’t want to re-edit the opening. After much back and forth, Landis and Warner Bros’ came to an agreement that it would play during the closing credits. McCartney worked on this during the period he was making his album “Press to Play” (where it appears as a bonus track on CDs issued later), and performed all of the instruments on the track save the synthesizer, which was done by Eddie Rayner from the group Split Enz, and the backing vocals. The track would shoot to #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States, and its music video featured McCartney along with stars Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd. Since then McCartney has mostly distanced himself from the song, despite it being his final top ten hit in the U.S.
Cameo appearances galore are in the film. B.B. King gets a part, as John Landis happened to be working on a documentary short on the bluesman at the time called B.B. King “Into the Night” which was a collection of music videos meant to promote his next album of the same name.
As far as the finished product goes, Spies Like Us can be a mixed bag and its enjoyment will certainly depend on the viewer’s expectations and state of mind at the time of viewing. Although it isn’t a kids’ film in any way, younger viewers and those who just enjoy silly shenanigans will likely find the slapstick humor and slapdash zaniness to be amusing for how far they are willing to go to get a laugh. Viewed with an objective critical eye, its “Three Stooges”-level style of mugging, lowbrow humor was already antiquated by the time it was made in the mid-1980s, but given that it is meant to be a throwback to the Hope/Crosby era, and that both Chase and Aykroyd would do even more inane comedies down the road, it will likely get a pass for big fans of either of the two lead stars.
Once the film was completed, test audiences mostly complained about the intended ending, which would result in World War III erupting due to the botched mission that essentially caused the end of the world. Revisions would be made so that such a downbeat ending to an otherwise light and goofy film could be avoided. Nevertheless, the threat of nuclear annihilation, whether it was carried out of not, is still a bit heavy way to end the film, undercutting the tone of childish absurdity that would threaten to leave audiences walking out a bit deflated. Luckily, after a “make love not war” diversion, they were able to add an extra scene of epilogue where nuclear wars are played on board games rather than in real-world scenarios, snapping that tone back to its tongue-in-cheek vibe it would achieve in its best moments.
Despite a rather large budget for a comedy at a reported $22 million, Spies Like Us would end up being a pretty big hit in 1985, spending two entire months in the top ten films domestically, racking up a hefty $60 million, which also placed it as the tenth highest-grossing film of the year, just a million behind The Goonies.
Despite its comedic star appeal, Spies Like Us hasn’t gone down to be a classic 1980s comedy like so many others, though it is generally liked by audiences as a diversion more than as a comedy they fully embrace. Because it will probably stroke better for juvenile viewers, and many kids today don’t have the kind of love for the original “SNL” stars that those who were teens in the 1980s had, its appeal may be limited for garnering new fans, especially as some of the humor in regards to women as object hasn’t aged as well. It’s breezy and does deliver a handful of funny moments, enough to recommend, but anyone expecting Aykroyd to continue his comedic momentum going as a screenwriter will likely be disappointed that the funniest moments in Spies Like Us would be comparable to the least funny moments in Ghostbusters.
Qwipster’s rating: B-
MPAA Rated: PG for sexual references, comic violence, and language (I would rate this PG-13)
Running time: 101 min.
Cast: Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd, Donna Dixon, Steve Forrest, Bruce Davison, William Prince, Tom Hatten, Charles McKeown, Bernie Casey, Vanessa Angel
Small roles: Bob Hope, Frank Oz, Terry Gilliam, Ray Harryhausen, Joel Coen, Sam Raimi, Martin Brest, Costa Gravas, B.B. King, Michael Apted, Larry Cohen, Edwin Newman, Bob Swaim
Director: John Landis
Screenplay: Dan Aykroyd, Lowell Ganz, Babaloo Mandel