The spy novel came into being in England and has largely remained a British preserve'. The assertion of American historian and political commentator Walter Lacquer (1983: 62) has received wide acceptance, such that American literary scholars Matthew Bruccoli and Judith Baughman have claimed the modern spy story a 'British genre'. 'If they didn't invent it', the critics claimed, 'they perfected it ' (2004: xi). Similarly, American cultural scholar Michael Denning has maintained that, 'The spy thriller has been, for most of its history, a British genre, indeed a major cultural export ' (1987: 6). The British spy story in popular literature has received considerable critical attention and authors such as Eric Ambler, Graham Greene, Ian Fleming, John le Carré and Len Deighton have been singled out for their importance and influence. 1 The spy picture has maintained a close relationship with the printed form, many films being adaptations of stories by popular authors; unsurprisingly, film versions have appeared of the best-selling novels and stories of the most acclaimed writers. This is evident with the spy thrillers of Alfred Hitchcock in the 1930s, which were adapted from such novelists as John Buchan, Somerset Maugham and Joseph Conrad (Burton 2017).Spies and spying became a popular, durable and significant topic for British film-and television-makers. Eminent American film critic Richard Schickel has even gone so far as to claim the spy picture to be the 'greatest of English movie genres' (Review of The Whistle Blower, Time Magazine, 7 September 1987). Surprisingly then, the spy picture in Britain has not come in for much critical attention. Following recent work on crime, horror, comedy, historical and heritage films, espionage is, James Bond apart, arguably the last remaining of the significant British screen genres to receive detailed attention. 2