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GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

August 1, 2008

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www.GayPeoplesChronicle.com

DU

eveni

E

Shaken, stirred, whatever

It's 1955, and France sets a bumbling, gay American spy loose in Egypt. What could possibly go wrong?

Larmina and OSS 117 mambo their way through a nest of vipers.

by Anthony Glassman

A connection between spies and homosexuality swirls through popular culture, now perhaps more than any other time in history.

Scandals involving closeted diplomats being used by their foreign lovers have been around for centuries, if not millennia. But TV, movies and the internet make all of it a lot more accessible.

M. Butterfly, for example, was a hit on the stage and a minor success on the silver

screen.

More recently, openly gay actor Rupert Everett spoke of his desire to portray a gay super-spy, and Daniel Craig, the latest to hold the mantle of James Bond, urged producers of the upcoming Quantum of Solace to put in a gay sex scene.

Everett and Craig have both been beaten to the punch by French film OSS 117: Cairo Nest of Spies.

Secret agent Hubert Bonisseur de la Bath, better known as OSS 117, was also featured in a series of films from the mid-1950s until 1970. These were B-movie answers to the

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EX FILES WHIKAT SEVENTEEN

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top-tier Bond epics, based on a series of novels that began four years before Ian Fleming began his 007 books.

Now, writer Jean-François Halin has adapted the Jean Bruce OSS 117 novels into a satire, directed by Michel Hazanavicius, in which pretty much every spy seems to be gay.

From swimsuit-clad days on the beach filled with almost psychotic laughter to enjoying a soon-to-be fatal massage, OSS 117, portrayed by Jean Dujardin, is a little fonder of men than he's willing to admit.

Dujardin is perfect casting for the role, looking like a Gallic Sean Connery. Interestingly, he also looks a lot like Gene Kelly.

The film begins in black and white, at the end of World War II. American spy Jack Jefferson takes the place of a Nazi officer and infiltrates a flight carrying secret plans for the V-2 rocket. He is discovered and shot in the leg but out of the cockpit comes his partner, OSS 117.

Short story long, the Nazi goes out the door sans parachute, the good guys get the rocket plans, insane laughter ensues.

PARD

T THE TIME I WAS RECOVERING FROM MY FIRST BROKEN O, I PARTICIPATED IN A TIME HONORED GAYBOY RITE OF PASSAGE.

GULP

WELL,

HERE

GORS

Seriously, these guys must have had a blast on the set, because their laughter is one notch away from a Batman villain's.

Fast forward ten years. OSS 117 recovers an envelope from Princess al Tarouk of Egypt, daughter of the deposed King Farouk. Inside is a photo of Jack Jefferson, looking quite deceased.

OSS 117 is sent to Cairo to investigate Jefferson's fate and discover what became of a Soviet ship that disappeared in the Suez Canal.

He is joined by Jefferson's secretary, Larmina, who leads him through the city's halls of power. He pretends to be Jefferson's business partner-the late agent's cover was the head of a poultry cartel.

Secret agents from other countries have similar fronts, all in the agricultural business. It's a laughable conceit, but it works well.

Germany, the Soviet Union and Belgium are all represented among his fellow agents, and everybody but the Belgian seem to have a desire for the "weenie," as the subtitles refer to it.

Continued on page 10

by Robert Kirby

YEP, IT WAS MY FIRST TIME OUT ALONE IN A GAY BAR, THAT UNIQUELY TERRIFYING EXPERIENCE.

; squeak; II'LL HAVE AN ORANGE JUICE,

PLEASE

SURE

S

FOUND A TO

THIS IS GOOD THING I'M

DOING

and he was all

CORNER AND TRIED LOOK CASUAL

баб.

NOTHING

I WONDER WHAT ALAN'S DOING RIGHT Now...

WHY DOESN'T HE LOVE ME? WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME?

MOMENTS

LATER...

I

WONDER WHAT HE'D SAY IF HE

KNEW I WAS HERE...

I

HOPE I

DON'T

Look Too STOOPID

Hi

www.curb-side.com

D'YA THINK ANYONE

NOTICES

ME?

RESCUED.

MY NAME 15

JIM~

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TO BE CONTINUED.