Hot Enough for June

Hot Enough for June (1964)

She's an eye catcher… He's a spy catcher

A young man travels to Prague to join his new employer, unaware that he is being used as an espionage courier.

Date of release
1964-03-10
TMDB
5.7 / 10 (26)
Runtime
1h 38m
Genres
Comedy, Thriller
Director
Ralph Thomas

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Based on: The Night of Wenceslas
  • Filmed in: Pinewood Studios

Hot Enough for June is a 1964 British spy comedy film directed by Ralph Thomas, and starring Dirk Bogarde with Sylva Koscina in her English film debut, Robert Morley and Leo McKern. It was written by Lukas Heller based on the 1960 novel The Night of Wenceslas by Lionel Davidson. The film was cut by twenty minutes and retitled Agent 8+3⁄4 for the US release by the American distributor Continental Distributing.

Production

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. As a result, in addition to the allusion to "007" in the opening scene, the offices of Cunliffe's glass company are (deliberately) almost an exact match to the outer waiting room and offices of "M" in the early James Bond films.

Film rights to Lionel Davidson's novel were originally bought by American producer Hal Wallis, who wanted to make the film with Laurence Harvey. However, Wallis and Harvey had a falling out and the rights went instead to Rank and producer Betty E. Box.

Dirk Bogarde was cast in the lead. However he then decided he did not want to, as he had just made The Servant (1963). Box and director Ralph Thomas who had directed Bogarde in the "Doctor" film series were not unduly concerned as they did not feel Bogarde was ideal casting anyway, and approached Tom Courtenay instead. Courtenay agreed, but then Bogarde changed his mind again after his manager told him he needed the money.

Shooting began in September 1963. It took place in Padua, representing Prague.

Ralph Thomas later said he made the film "because I thought the script was quite funny and I loved working with Dirk. It was still during the period when he was doing those sort of roles very well."

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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