Damien Lewis on The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare - SpyMaster Interview #81

[00:00:02] Hello and welcome to SpyHards Podcast, my name is Agent Scott and we are continuing our deep dive into 2024's The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. And we've got a special treat lined up for you today, I'm actually sitting down with

[00:00:51] the writer of the book, the film is based upon Mr Damien Lewis. Damien is a British author and filmmaker who has spent over 20 years reporting and writing about conflict zones in many countries and he's written a ton of books as well, namely

[00:01:09] the book that we're sort of focusing on this week which you'll know as The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare it was released as Churchill's Secret Warriors, the explosive true story of the special forces desperadoes of World War 2. So without further ado let's get to the interview.

[00:01:29] Joining us on the show now, we've been talking about this film all week and let's get to the man who brought the book together in the first place, he is a journalist and an

[00:01:41] author and a filmmaker and he put together the book that this film is based on The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. It is none other than Mr Damien Lewis, hello sir, welcome to the show. Hello, great to be with you.

[00:01:54] Wonderful to be here sir and I've got a lot to talk about when it comes to Ungentlemanly Warfare. We love a spy movie here, it's what we do best and it's just nice to see a spy movie come about with a sense of fun.

[00:02:08] Nowadays they always seem to have a little bit of the dire streak to them post sort of the born era onwards and there's a real sense of camaraderie and fun about Ungentlemanly Warfare which I just finished the book as well.

[00:02:21] And I think it all comes from the relationships that they all shared going back to some of the earliest missions on Fernando Poe. But what I want to get into is it will take us back to the beginning of the book

[00:02:33] and how that book came to you before we get to maybe the film and all the machinations there. So one thing that the book says has come from sort of the declassified stories of books from Winston Churchill.

[00:02:46] You'd already written some books by this point, by you've been a journalist years before that. How did you stumble upon the stories of March Phillips and Lassen? Yeah, so I was approached by a guy who was a former SAS guy.

[00:03:02] A gentleman in his latter years of life, but he had served in the regiment and he basically said that he'd read some of my books and he felt there was a story that needed telling that hadn't been told.

[00:03:13] And it was the story of Anders Lassen and his band of warriors in Second World War. And crucially, he had he had the contacts and access to around about half a dozen veterans of the Second World War from this unit.

[00:03:26] So he said, you know, you access to these individuals and all the research material. So I kind of started looking into it and talking to two individuals and the story hits you like a like a speeding truck head on. It's absolutely, fantastically amazing.

[00:03:41] If you made it up, if you made up all the crazy mad, unbelievable, unthinkable things they do in this in this book and in the Second World War, in truth, these things all happened. And you put it forward as a Hollywood movie script.

[00:03:53] People would say that that couldn't have happened when it all did. So very quickly, I thought, yeah, this is an incredible story. One of the really sad things about it is that today, as we speak, there is only one veteran of that unit left alive.

[00:04:07] He's a guy called Jack Mann. He's become a good friend of mine. He's in his late 90s and that is the only one left with us. So, you know, capturing these stories whilst these guys are still alive is becoming less and less possible.

[00:04:20] And was he was he part of like the SBS or something like that? Was he involved in any of those towards the end of the missions? Yeah. So Jack, Jack Mann was actually in several different units.

[00:04:31] So he was in the Long Range Desert Group who were the Desert Reconnaissance Specialists. Then he was in the SCS and the Special Boat Service, the SBS. And he was also in the Phantoms, which were secret signals units. So he had an incredibly diverse and

[00:04:45] fascinating war and full of bandless courage. Of course, he was also SOE, Special Operations and Executive Ministry of Ungenerality Warfare because all these guys at the very early stages and the kind of stages that we're talking about with Operation Postmaster and the movie, they were all SOE agents.

[00:05:02] So they were, you know, these deniable black operators the very first of their kind. It's a it's kind of a crazy story to think about it and put into context because spies in espionage as existed for a very long time

[00:05:16] pre the wars or the world wars, but for it to come into sort of a military service in a sense, having a military service of intelligence. That seems to be maybe the first in the world that the SOE.

[00:05:29] And just to think that that was where it all began in many ways is utterly crazy. And the fact that also a lot of this just wasn't known. Yeah, yeah, I mean these operations were extremely sensitive and and beyond top secret.

[00:05:45] I mean, you know, these operations are really never been written about because for that very simple reason, I mean, several people actually did try to write about them after the war. People have been on some of these operations and they were told to know

[00:05:56] in certain terms they weren't allowed to and of course the files closed as well. So those files that hadn't been destroyed because sadly, an awful lot of SOE, Ministry of Ungendered and Warfare files were destroyed after the Second World War, something like 85 percent of them

[00:06:10] were just burnt and got rid off. But those files that survive are really, really useful. But of course, they're only opened in very recent years. You know, they're closed under the 70 year rule or the 80 year rule or the 100 year rule or the hundred and fifty year rule.

[00:06:24] You know, there's any number of ways to skin a cat. And so, you know, getting one's hands on those files and getting to speak to some of the guys who served in the unit was absolutely crucial. Couldn't told the story otherwise.

[00:06:36] Well, it wasn't a question I had planned, but you've led me onto it. Did you find there were barriers to getting to some of these stories where you obfuscated by certain departments in the military? You know, it's a really interesting question because it's quite funny in a way.

[00:06:51] So if you imagine it, there was a committee at the National Archives to consider freedom of information requests to get files open that still close. If there's a file under 100 year rule, whatever it might be, you can ask for it to be opened.

[00:07:05] The point about it is nobody who sits on that committee was alive at the time the file was closed. And so the reasoning behind the closure of that file for such a long period of time generally escapes people.

[00:07:18] And so generally you do I've only had one file ever refused to be opened. And that file was refused to be opened because, you know, it was basically it had intelligence ramifications. And I think there were still family members of the intelligent person

[00:07:34] still alive, so there was sensitivity. So sometimes you get files opened and they're partially redacted. So parts have been just blacked out. But it only once have I ever not had a file opened. So, you know, one is blessed by the fact that with the passage of time,

[00:07:48] there's really no one left around anymore who can actually remember or cast their mind back or have reference to why it was so sensitive at the time and why it had closed. Did you did you find that to be a bit of a barrier

[00:08:02] to putting the book together in a sense? I mean, you were given a lot of the information and the contacts you made throughout sort of the SAS and the other services were, I imagine key and you say at the beginning of the book,

[00:08:12] this is pieced together from different sources and you tried your best to make a facsimile of the best versions of what happened in each story. But, you know, was that a particular trouble and bringing that together and trying to make a cohesive

[00:08:25] sort of narrative out of all of these journal entries? It's always a challenge with in historical, you know, historical books, you know, Second World War or even more recent, actually, you know. And the other thing about it is it just is a fact that.

[00:08:42] No two people who've been on the front line of war behind any lines will remember those events the same. It just that is just how it is. He read the accounts and they differ. People's memories differ, you know, it's very emotional time, very stressful time,

[00:08:55] high octane roller coaster existence. You know, very few people kept diaries. Those who did, you know, the diaries that were kept a very rare and very precious. So you do have different versions of events. And, you know, the technique that I used to try to sift

[00:09:10] that material on come to the to the core of the truth, the core of the narrative is the most likely scenario. So if you've got two or three sources, which kind of corroborate each other, you go with that. And that's all that's the best you can do.

[00:09:22] I mean, you have to take a view as a as a writer and a historian or someone who brings history alive and tell the story to the best of your abilities. Well, I mean, before we even get

[00:09:31] talking about the film, I think the book is is genuinely wonderful. It was a I mean, I've picked up a copy physically, but I was in a mode where I think audio books was certainly doing it more for me at a time.

[00:09:41] And I think I went through the 12 hour unabridged version in about three days, which is a lot of my day gone for that. And I think it's a real pace. And I recommend people pick up a copy of the book

[00:09:52] before even watching the film, because the film itself is only the first hundred pages or so I'd say. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So so the film only covers Operation Postmaster, which is really the first mission in the book.

[00:10:06] And, you know, the same characters go on to carry out a string of equally unbelievable and thinkable, daring, maverick, crazy, wild operations. They really are some of the best best stories in Second World War.

[00:10:20] And the idea always was from the very get go that it would be a series of movies, which what the end, of course, Churchill says, you know, now you work for me. He's got his band of, you know, covert operators,

[00:10:30] and he sends them off to do other missions of daring, do which is exactly what happened in truth. I mean, Churchill really did embrace these kinds of operations without him that never happened. And he had a very hands on, very personal interest in them.

[00:10:44] Well, you're queuing up a question. I think I'm going to pin for later because I want to get more into the film. But I think getting back to the book itself and you mentioned when you first heard about some of these stories

[00:10:53] and you felt impassioned to tell this story. And there's a phrase that's used throughout the book, the piratical nature of these soldiers. I just thought that phrase, piratical nature, a piratical nature. But what is it about their missions that just captured your imagination?

[00:11:08] Well, it's a different way of waging war. No one had ever done it before. And what I love about it, you know, cut into the quick. And let's be frank about it. What those guys who joined these units loved about soldiering in them

[00:11:21] was it was a completely different way of operating. That's why they were so unpopular. Let's get it straight. They were deeply, deeply, deeply unpopular. Most people in high command, the military high commander in political establishment abhorred what these individuals, what these groups were about.

[00:11:35] And they didn't like them because it was un-gently warfare. It wasn't the way British officers were supposed to behave. This wasn't the done thing, it wasn't cricket. And of course Churchill had had had had had vowed, you know, set the lands of the enemy ablaze, you know,

[00:11:48] leave a trail of corpses in your wake, make sure no German soldier can sleep soundly in his bed at night. That's what he asked his men to do. And he asked them to do the unthinkable. So he was a believer, but most people weren't.

[00:11:59] And if you read the accounts of those who served in these units, it's fascinating. The only discipline that was required in the these SOE units, all the SS as they went on, come on, the SPS was self-discipline.

[00:12:13] You know, the idea of, you know, officers ruling the roost by rank alone and strict rigid hierarchies was anathema. These were egalitarian units where people from all walks of life didn't matter if you were a dustman or a plumber or a lord

[00:12:30] or, you know, a high born member of the aristocracy. It did not matter. You were all equal in these units and you all crucially were encouraged to put forward your ideas in a Chinese parliament, gathering of equals, no matter how crazy and off the wall they might seem

[00:12:49] because those are exactly the ideas they wanted, because if they were if they were utterly, utterly unthinkable ways of hitting the enemy, of course, the enemy would never think of them because they were unthinkable. And then it was the ethos to put those ideas into operation.

[00:13:01] So if you can imagine being in a unit like that, where you're empowered, you are disciplined as self-discipline. The only threat against you is return to unit. If you step out of line, you'll be returned to where you came from.

[00:13:12] No, that's the worst thing any of them can never conceive is to be thrown out of the brotherhood. You know, you're told that no matter what your rank, you know, if you're a small unit of operators behind enemy lines and everyone else is killed or captured,

[00:13:23] you, Private Smith, will go ahead and carry out the mission because you have the ability to do so. So you're completely empowered and you feel like this brotherhood of equals, you know. And that was a wonderful thing for so many of these individuals.

[00:13:35] It was that's why the esprit de corps was so strong. That's why the brotherhood, the spirit, you know, the sense of teamwork and camaraderie was second to none. And you can see that when you read the accounts from the time that, you know, that's why they were willing

[00:13:51] to go and undertake suicidal missions, which, you know, on paper, Operation Postmaster was a suicide mission. That the chances of pulling it off were pretty much zero. And if you got captured, you knew you were going to be hung out to drive

[00:14:05] by your government, denied by your government. You're in civilian clothes, you're not in uniform. There for your treated as by by the enemy. And there for you get tortured and killed in a very nasty way. That's what you know is coming. So if you can imagine volunteering,

[00:14:17] because they're all volunteers to do those kind of missions, imagine what kind of, you know, what kind of impetus you need amongst the brother warriors and sister warriors, because some of them are women that you're serving with. It's absolutely extraordinary. And that's what it all boils down to.

[00:14:32] And that's why they're such great stories and that's why they're so unique and groundbreaking and so compelling. I mean, you mentioned the work on camaraderie and that was really something that jumped out to me when sort of going through the stories.

[00:14:43] You know, you could see these people were willing to jump in front of bullets for one another and that is not something you would see in the rank and file then at least anyway. Maybe it's a different story now in the armed services,

[00:14:53] but and you know, you talk about desertion and in the Axis forces when they're, you know, in suddenly Italy in places like that in the islands. And a lot of that happened there too. And you know, there's a story that just jumped out to me

[00:15:05] when you're talking about that sort of sense of interdependency within the unit and a sense of other as well from the rest of the armed forces. A story really late in the book where there's two of the soldiers that can't remember their names. I'm sorry about that.

[00:15:18] They're asked by a separate major to dig in on in the beach and they go, why? This is completely pointless. And the major is like bristling that they're not doing what they're told. And then Lassen comes over and says, why on earth would they do that?

[00:15:32] And then just takes them away, which is just a completely at the antithesis of what you think would happen in an armed service. But it's exactly why they were so successful. Yeah, yeah, the scenes are brilliant scene in the book. So they've actually, they're already on this island

[00:15:46] and there's no enemy on the island. It's been an unopposed landing. And then a bunch of regular forces can storm offshore from a landing craft. Then it's the ready almost. And they're kind of lying down brewing up as they do on the beach.

[00:16:01] And the major storms open and says, why aren't you digging in? And they say, we don't do that. And he says, what unit are you from? And how are you dressed so appallingly? He sees apoplectic and they're like, well, we don't dig in. So we're not digging it.

[00:16:16] And actually it gets to the stage where the major calls over some of his men to put them under close arrest. And they say, no, you're not that. And then there's pretty much guns drawn. And then Lassen comes over and he says, what are you doing?

[00:16:30] And the major says, well, I've ordered your men to dig in. He said, we don't dig in. It is who are you? And he said, I'm major Anders Lassen. And he's of course, he's got, he's highly decorated already by then. So the major's looking, okay.

[00:16:43] He looks like, they look like a rag tag bunch of pirates. Cause bear in mind, uniform was personal choice. You could pretty much wear any kind of items of uniform you fancy. But despite that, the fact that it looked distinctly piratical, Lassen and his men are highly decorated.

[00:17:00] And Lassen says to the major, my men have seen more war than you would ever even understand on paraphrasing. And then more highly decorated than anyone in your entire unit. And he introduces them. This is so-and-so with any list of their medals.

[00:17:16] And he says, we've got better things to do and just takes them away. And as they're walking away, one says to the other, Lassen's marching off in front. And one says to the other, sometimes you've just got to love that man. And you do.

[00:17:31] You do love Anders Lassen by the end of the book. And I mean, a fascinating story in his own. And I think we're slowly pivoting towards the film and sort of the characterizations in there. But one thing I wanted to ask you,

[00:17:43] because Operation Postmaster is what the film revolves around, but there are many more operations that you talk about in the book that they undertook and more I imagine that didn't make the cut to the book as well. But of their exploits during World War II,

[00:17:56] what was sort of your favorite story to read? Well, my favorite story in the book, it's probably when they liberate Santorini. So basically Lassen and his band of a few score warriors are tasked to liberate Greece. I mean, it's completely insane, but anyway they are

[00:18:19] because the Allies can't spare any forces. And so they liberate Athens and then Lassen on his own call, no orders at all, just says, well, I'm going to go for liberate Santorini, which is Greece's second city and there's like a 2,000 strong German garrison there.

[00:18:33] So he turns up at Santorini having just sailed up the coast in some kind of like commandeered fishing boats. They've got one jeep and a few dozen men and he gets in the jeep and drives it all around the high ground

[00:18:45] around Santorini so it can be seen a lot and then he sends a message via a courier to the German commander saying, and events are completely fictitious. British corps, you know, thousands and thousands of troops design the commander of the so-and-so corps and what I have you surrounded

[00:19:04] these are the men arms I have under my command and if you don't surrender or leave Santorini immediately you will be annihilated and it doesn't get a response so he then thinks, well, we've got to up the ante. So they go to the fire at fire station

[00:19:19] and they get the fire engines from the town and so they drive in from the outskirts in towards the centre ringing the bells and setting light to houses and just making a look and sound like this is made to advance taking place

[00:19:34] then he sends a few of his men in on these kind of like like probing patrols and there are some blistering firefights which they win and eventually the bluff works and the German commander basically says give me 24 hours and we'll leave and they do.

[00:19:46] So Lassen's bluff pays off and then they take Santorini, Greece's second city and Lassen becomes the governor of the city for the next week and basically they party like there's no tomorrow and you know they deserved it and eventually he receives an order from someone in Heikermann saying

[00:20:04] you shouldn't be there, how did you get there and when are you going to return? I mean it's just, it's priceless, it's absolutely priceless. That's one of my favourite operations but yeah, there are so many brilliant, brilliant raids in the book and there are just so many delicious

[00:20:24] moments of high drama that it's a feast really. Some of the stories in the book feel like they're entirely fictional. Like these things just couldn't have ever happened because they're so outrageous. The Santorini mission is a prime example. It's Anders Lassen and a handful of men

[00:20:42] riding around on fire trucks making a lot of noise and then the Nazis acquiesce and they give up and high tail it out of there and it's just like that just feels like it's prime for adaptation to film

[00:20:58] and that's kind of where I want to pivot us into because the book comes out and then I think it's about a year later that Paramount Pictures get involved is that the sort of timeline I have? Yeah, I mean it was actually a couple of

[00:21:10] well, there's a character called Neil Perret who's a producer. It's a great story actually, he just happened to read the book as soon as it came out he's playing football in the States he's an English guy and he's playing football with some fellow people in film industry

[00:21:28] they've got a kind of football team in LA and they just said to two of them hey guys, read this book it's amazing two guys called Paul Tamase and Eric Johnson who are really great script writers in Hollywood

[00:21:38] and they read it and said we've got to make this movie and so they took it to Brookheimer Films and Brookheimer Films optioned it and then they took it to Paramount so that all happened over about a year and the great thing about it was

[00:21:50] that from the get go Jerry Brookheimer, but in particular Chad Oman who's the producer there the guy who produced the Carrots of the Caribbean and loads of other amazing stuff he basically said from the very off

[00:22:02] look Damien, we're going to make a movie that you're going to be proud of that is what we're going to do and I promise you that watch this space because it's coming so that was always the intention it was always the intention incidentally to make several series

[00:22:16] bringing about the same characters based around Anders Lassen and the four and that's why it's just Postmaster in the first movie Yeah, there was a query I had so Paramount Brookheimer is here what are they pitching you in terms of a story

[00:22:34] is it like a men on a mission story or are they looking to make it more dramatic how are they originally pitching their adaptation to you because obviously it goes through I imagine it's gone through several sort of evolutions over the time before Yeah, well it was always

[00:22:50] the idea was always to make a movie or series of movies looking at the very earliest birth of Black Ops that was the log line if you like where did it come from everything else flowed all the stuff we accept today as being normal

[00:23:06] and just part of our everyday landscape like black deniable operation secret units all this kind of stuff it wasn't always that way it was always revolutionary and it was always the intention to get that story out there so we would understand

[00:23:22] the heritage and where it all came from and we'll get into the eventual casting but when you were putting the book together I imagine you had images in your head images of the real people of course but did you ever think about it being turned into a film

[00:23:38] did you ever have any idea of who you perhaps want to play you know, March Phillips and Lassen and some of the other characters yeah I didn't to the degree that I would you know, think about casting but because I was a war reporter for 30 years or so

[00:23:54] and I mainly was a cameraman so I filmed my own material so I've got a very visual way of seeing and writing and perceiving stories I mean I see them in my head as I write and people who read my books say it's like

[00:24:10] it feels like you're immersed in a movie almost when you're reading them so I think I've got a very visual way of bringing stories live so yeah, I can see it kind of playing out in that way and I think whenever

[00:24:24] whether it be second world war or even more contemporary whenever I'm writing something there's always a part of me thinking how would this look how would it appear on screen because that's the world I came from so yeah it was always to me you know you've got this

[00:24:42] this group of characters who you just couldn't write them if they you know you couldn't invent them if they weren't real you know truth is strange in the fiction and this and in this book it really was and is you know as you said you know these missions

[00:24:58] a number of them if you actually propose them as kind of you know movies with no factual basis people would say come on that's too far fetched that would never have worked like the fire engines in Santorini the reason why it worked is because

[00:25:14] Santorini is a brilliant example the enemy just couldn't they couldn't think in that way the German military was great we know it was a very efficient military machine it was very rigid and hierarchical it didn't have that they never had the same special elite forces to deniable operations

[00:25:34] that we had you know they had very very small units that operated occasionally but nothing on the same level nothing on the same level of kind of maverick, pluratical, unthinkable operations that's something that I don't I can't put my finger on why

[00:25:54] but there's something about the British mentality that lends itself to it there's something about British eccentricity I you know there just is there's an alchemy there it's British and Irish actually crucially because so many of these guys were from the Emerald Isle and there's something about that alchemy

[00:26:16] in the Second World War where we just perfected this way of carrying out these operations which were so outrageous and so off the wall and so unthinkable the enemy would never imagine that possible so yes they would, they'd buy it they'd buy the bluff

[00:26:30] I feel like there's just a sort of a sense of fail and pluck for these men they just knew what they were doing would be successful and that mentality almost manifested their success and one thing I found, especially when I was going

[00:26:44] through the book, was the key was in the name, un-gentlemanly because everyone thought that war was a sporting thing to do, everyone was like a handshake and a game of cricket and it's like no you can play outside the rules in colour outside the lines

[00:26:58] and apparently no one else could think of that and that's why even I think you mentioned a book as an MP who complains about it in Parliament and I just think but clearly they're being successful why on earth would you complain about this

[00:27:10] well that's probably because MPs complain but yeah it's crazy Yeah the craziest thing of all was that the more successful they became the less popular they became because if you think about it, if you've been schooled in the First World War and if you've been static trench warfare

[00:27:30] as most of our commanders have been who were senior commands in the Second World War and if you had been schooled in that kind of idea of gentlemanly officer conduct and then these guys come along and start doing what they're doing hit and run operations behind enemy lines

[00:27:46] shooting, scoop doing the utterly unthinkable and not adhering to the traditional rigid hierarchies all of that is anathema to you so it's going to get you back up and it really did, they were deeply unpopular but then low and behold it turns out to be incredibly effective

[00:28:06] so they're not only cocking a snook at you but they're proving you wrong in the most powerful way you can imagine so the more successful they became the more unpopular they became there were so many attempts made to disband the SOE and SAS

[00:28:20] during the war it begs us to believe I mean you know and they owned all these epithets like Raiders of the Thug Variety or the Ministry of Ungentely Warfare or Baker Street Irregulars or the Firm or the Racket those were the nicknames that

[00:28:34] their detractors gave them and in typical style they just embraced them and made it their own but they were hugely unpopular because they were proving the naysayers the stick in them as you could argue there was a different way of doing things and it goes back to Churchill

[00:28:48] to a large extent because Churchill in the very word go that's why he founded the Special Operations of Decadent that's why he founded the Ministry of Ungentely Warfare right at the start of the war because he said Hitler has declared total war this will be a war

[00:29:04] waged on all fronts and all levels we have to do the same in fact we have to do better than him we have to go further so the Ministry of Ungentely Warfare was literally set up to do all the things you are strictly speaking not allowed

[00:29:16] to do under the rules of war so it was bribery, assassination, corruption money laundering, running guerrilla armies, smuggling fleets just if you think if you conceive of something crazy the SOE might have done it will have done it I'll just give you an example

[00:29:36] by the end of the war and it's going to sound absolutely insane but it's true by the end of the war the SOE was making so much money from all its nefarious activities it was making a profit financing intelligence and black ops organization and it got up braided

[00:29:54] by parliament because they said you have to cook the books you have to you have to do some false accounting because it's embarrassing how much money you're making and they did get your head around that it's absolutely wonderful and they ran this operation

[00:30:12] off the coast of Spain just as one example when I stumbled upon the files in the National Archives they were like this can't be true it's absolutely true they called it musons smuggling fleet so what they did the Royal Navy was blockading much of Europe

[00:30:26] so they were confiscating cigarettes and alcohol all that stuff they didn't want getting into Nazi occupied Europe and so the SOE were taking the contraband that had been confiscated off the bad smugglers but they had their own pet smuggling fleet these are bona fide Spanish and Portuguese smugglers

[00:30:46] right so they're giving the contraband to them saying you are allowed to smuggle it you will not get stopped all we expect you to do is run guns and ammo to our guerrilla armies and resistance fighters behind the lines and run agents in and out for us

[00:31:00] and bring us intelligence and so it reached the stage where they didn't they couldn't get enough contraband from what the Royal Navy confiscated off the bad smugglers so they set up cigarette manufacturing plants in Portugal and Gibraltar to provide cigarette slave manufacturers to the smugglers

[00:31:22] for their smuggling fleet to smuggle into enemy occupied territory to run their intelligence gatherer operation their agents insertions that's just one example and it's called muson smuggling fleet after the surname of the English guy captain as he was at the time he was the skipper of the fleet

[00:31:44] it's true story it was one of its countless operations they did and it earned a handsome profit it's stuff like that you can understand why the top brass in the military were having their feathers ruffled perhaps because it was just like

[00:32:00] how are we not able to do this why can't we have this sort of fun and they're out there being pirates which to them sounds like a lot of fun reading the accounts of the book one thing we haven't really touched on is the espionage side of things

[00:32:14] we talk about spy movies here all the time we're getting into the behind the scenes of the movie but one thing the book points out and the film dives into a little bit more probably a little bit of a lie in that sense

[00:32:26] is the Ian Fleming connection to all of this and one thing you talk about in the book is Ian Fleming taking some of his inspiration for James Bond from March Phillips and from Lassen the film portrays Ian Fleming as she has him as a character in the film

[00:32:40] for a few scenes not too much there's a mother films recently that have had a ton of Ian Fleming for some reason and I just was curious from your side what do you think Ian Fleming what was his extent of his involvement with all this in reality

[00:32:54] and what do you think he actually took from these stories and put into the character of Bond so Fleming was the immediate boss of the postmaster team and of course he was the boss of the postmaster team you know SSRF SOE whatever you want to call them

[00:33:12] he was their immediate boss at the Abriltees so he tasked them with their operations and he'd come to March Phillips on several occasions before with really really cracking ideas for operations and every single time they'd been stymied by high command and sat on torpedoed

[00:33:28] and eventually they got Operation Postmaster 3 because Churchill backs it and he was a photo fit and he's a photo fit of several individuals one of them is March Phillips another is a guy called Wilfred Biffy Dundadel who was the MI6 intelligence chief in Paris

[00:33:46] and to this day he's a legendary figure in British intelligence circles and Dundadel he had it all the champagne, the fantastic clothes the long cigarette holder Dundadel, Biffy by the way the very boxer son of a shipping magnate, very high born and Fleming also

[00:34:06] worked closely with Dundadel throughout the war as well so he kind of pulled together these various characters and that became Bond, Bond was kind of a mishmash of two or three and then the missions that Bond undertakes in the early books they are based upon genuine SOE operations

[00:34:26] but obviously Fleming could never have written about them as truth because they were top secret at the time so he did the next best thing and thank God he did and how successful he was he turned them into cracking fiction stories but the inspiration behind them are

[00:34:40] true stories It does make you genuinely wonder to what level some of these missions were then because obviously some are very strange like Moonraker and such but some are far more grounded even stuff like Diamonds of Forever and Casino Royale that could definitely have happened

[00:34:58] it does not seem anywhere like is a fictional story so yeah I could totally buy that and you can see, especially from the leadership qualities of Lassen and March Phillips where that sort of leading man quality about Bond comes from and the confidence in himself

[00:35:14] sort of comes from there I would have thought Well getting back to the film right about 2015 or so Paramount, Bruckheimer who will get involved it's not until 2021 that Guy Ritchie is announced as the director I was curious and so was my co-host what was sort of

[00:35:34] the cause of the lead time between those two things what was happening in those six years obviously COVID at one point COVID scripting it went through various script iterations and then it was a question Guy Ritchie bought with him simplifying as much as I can

[00:35:52] a great access to the cast those guys, Cavill in particular Henry Cavill in particular but some of the other guys as well they've worked with him on several great movies and so they kind of come as a package if you like so getting Guy on board meant that

[00:36:10] you could access that great talent and that's one of the key things that came to the fore and Alan Ritchie hot on the heels of the brilliant portrayal of Reacher a child adaption he was the kind of I know he's not necessarily I don't think I say

[00:36:32] physically, Adam Lassen but in spirit he's a great Lassen in my view I remember when I met Alan Ritchie first off on the set of HMS Belfast and in London where they're filming some of the maritime scenes and so Alan Ritchie I know is 6'4 probably and about

[00:36:54] as wide as that horizontally massive guy and I'm 5'6 so I was gazing up at him thinking yeah not quite so I said to him I said you know what's it been like playing Alan Lassen who's kind of 6'4 if that and whip it slim and speaks

[00:37:16] English with a strong Danish accent and he laughed and he said well speaking English like I'm a German he said that's the best accent I could do and of course twice his size but all that matters is I'm damn good with a bow and arrow

[00:37:32] and I was like yeah it gave her enough and he proved it on the screen so yeah really it was bringing those key players into the mix which made the movie kind of viable if that makes sense I think it does and I think the casting

[00:37:48] especially of March Phillips and Lassen is spot on what I would have pictured from reading the book and listening to it and you speak of Richardson being slightly larger I think Lassen feels despite him actually being quite a whip thin guy he does in sort of the story

[00:38:06] sound like he is just this huge mountain of a man like he feels the room with his personality is almost the right choice anyway Lassen was a tearing figure there are only three statues of SAS individuals at Heriford the SAS base one is David Sterling

[00:38:26] the guy founded the SAS the other is Paddy Mayn he went and commanded the SAS during the war and the third is Anders Lassen so he's the only member of the British SAS he was Danish but he was serving in the British SAS

[00:38:38] ever to win the Victoria Cross so he's an absolute legendary figure and you can see when you read the book his men would have followed him anywhere they worshipped him and he worshipped them it went both ways that was the camaraderie and yeah you're absolutely right

[00:38:54] do you remember that scene where he knocks out Jellico the commander of the SAS just punches him for almost no reason and knocks him out and Jellico is like I can't discipline him I can't call him because he's too valuable I mean the men will follow him

[00:39:06] anywhere so he just goes and lets him off Lassen was a force of nature I mean I almost used the phrase about Lassen the good psychopath because I think psychopath is a spectrum like many of these things bad psychopath and Lassen's kind of

[00:39:22] on the good end I mean there are those so many key moments in the book where Lassen it's a standout quality about the man and it kind of redeems him on many levels that the amazing relationships he develops with the local people within him

[00:39:38] he operates like when they're on Crete for example you know and when he goes to such lengths to try and stop the Germans carrying out these savage brutal horrific reprisals against you know Crete and villages you know he feels this in his heart you know I mean

[00:39:54] Denmark's occupied you know his country has been taken over by the Nazis so he's got that commonality but it's more than that he has this innate instinctive you know griller war their savviness about him which means he knows the hearts and minds of the locals is absolutely vital

[00:40:10] and one thing I think jumps across as well is I think despite him having quite a good upbringing which I think he tried to keep secret but he did feel like a man of the people and you know you mentioned about like Denmark being invaded

[00:40:22] by the Nazis and also he's trying to liberate you know Greece at that point there is a sense of they're both going through a shared sort of a shared moment there and they're going for it together so I can understand why they really sort of

[00:40:34] celebrated him and adopted him in many ways wherever he went basically all the stories seem to be that he was always invited in yeah yeah there's that very early on there's that kind of so Lassan was a massive womanizer as well I mean women just loved him

[00:40:52] let's just be frank about it so there's that moment right early on on postmaster where he sent up country in Nigeria to to work out to build the charges to blur up the anchor chains for the mission and do you remember he falls in love

[00:41:06] with the you know the Nigerian local chief's daughter and it basically cuts a deal with the chief for the diary and he's going to marry her and eventually because of the mission and the way the mission you know gets carried out and the fact they're all arrested

[00:41:22] at the end and all the rest of it he can't actually go ahead and marry his Nigerian bride and bring her home but that's Lassan through and through he just gets right in there you know with the locals and realizes that in their kind of warfare

[00:41:34] you know there are any two ways you can carry out these kind of operations anywhere in the world there are any two environments which can operate the first is someone like the Sahara wide open desert no one lives there so you can just operate there willy-nilly okay or

[00:41:48] you have to operate in places where the locals are sympathetic to your operations and you know will feed and clothe and hide you and provide you with intelligence only in those two situations can it work and Lassan understood that instinctively from the get-go

[00:42:04] yeah for sure and I think you know looking at the the film version of this story it does go for a couple of changes Operation Postmaster the Fernando post-sider stuff gets expanded a little bit from the reality of what happened but you know Guy Ritchie

[00:42:20] is on the project at this point in the sort of narrative we're talking about here and you mentioned going to HMS Belfast you've gone to the set to talk to people but how involved are you at that stage you're an exec producer on the film

[00:42:32] are you being brought in on scripting giving notes on that how involved are you yeah so um I um had some kind of really crazy experiences on that level so like I remember maybe a dozen times at least so I'm so I would be sat here

[00:42:52] you know endorse it in my study writing I get it very early to write it's best time in the day to do so so I'll be six o'clock writing away I'm in some World War II story or maybe it's a rack in 2000 and 2001 whatever it may be

[00:43:10] and I'd get a WhatsApp message pinging on my phone it would be Chad Aiman the producer he'd be on location and he'd say we need your input into these three pages of the script like Churchill's speech or what lesson saying here whatever it might be

[00:43:24] can you just kind of make that sound like it would really sound give it the authenticity and I'd be like yeah okay three pages right like like give me a deadline when he'd say we start shooting at nine okay no pressure there

[00:43:40] you're joking no no we start shooting at nine that happened quite quite irregular I got to stage I was like yeah you need it at nine don't tell me I can't I'm on it so that was my steep learning curve

[00:43:56] in terms of how they put these things together and then the other thing that I kind of got very involved in is you know at the end of the movie they have photos with the real bios of the real individuals so when we had the

[00:44:14] sample screenings in front of a sample audience you know months before the final cut in London in a Mayfair hotel 200 audience and it's the first time I saw the movie actually and the really really fascinating thing was it actually was very powerful after the movie

[00:44:34] they had like feedback session with that sample audience and everybody man woman you know doesn't matter what their age was everybody said oh my god it's a true story I can't believe that's a true story they were just blown away by it

[00:44:48] so we then realised and we didn't have that much in there about them actually so we then realised we really had to drill down into that and get those absolutely spot on and expand them because that aspect of it really hit people

[00:45:00] I mean people were saying why don't we know about this it's amazing it's a true story how could we not know about this so yeah I had quite significant you know involvement in making sure that side of it really kind of you know really worked

[00:45:12] and there is actually because I helped the guy do it so there's a filmmaker friend of mine who did an amazing interview with Jack Mann the one survivor from this unit that we mentioned earlier beautifully filmed it's documentary style but it's beautifully filmed it looks you know

[00:45:30] it's really great anyway I did say let's put some of that film at the end let's just put a few clips of that film because it would have been great to actually hear and see one of these guys is still alive that never made

[00:45:42] the cut but you know that kind of thing if there are sequels I'd love to have something in there you know Jack speaking from you know one of the real guys that just makes you that's a real show stop by my view well it's

[00:45:56] I think I can't remember it was a week ago I watched the film now is there a title card at the beginning saying this is based on true events based on true story yeah I think even

[00:46:06] at that point a lot of people were quite skeptical because we've been lied to before as film goers where this is based on a true story and it's a complete fabrication of a true story but this is actually pretty pretty damn close to the truth

[00:46:18] that's why you had to have those photographs and those bars at the end it's like it just hits you we interrupt this program to bring you a special report Red Alert, Spy Hards we are shaking things up over on the Patreon page

[00:46:34] that's right we are launching an exclusive new show where we tackle the exploits of the small screen's greatest secret agents like Jack Bauer George Smiley and beyond and don't forget every month you also get two agents in the field episodes where we decode the adventures

[00:46:52] of your favorite spy actors in their biggest non-spy movies but cab tell the people what we have coming up next seeing as how Scott and I are partying it up in Las Vegas at this very moment now is the perfect time to catch up

[00:47:06] with our big July episodes that's right reviews of Sam Peckinpah's Cross of Iron and X2 X-Men United as well as of course our coverage of the 1992 lifetime TV movie remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious one thing that wasn't necessarily as close to the truth

[00:47:36] now I wonder what your involvement was in this as I mentioned the sort of expansion of the Fernando Poe story there and you've got because there was an operative helping them on Fernando Poe he did it organize the casino night but there wasn't two concurrent parties

[00:47:50] a fancy dress party a sing along all that sort of stuff but that's more to add intrigue and more of an island based thing to give them a location to work with and to build up the suspense in Fernando as the boat

[00:48:00] is coming and I imagine from a story screenwriting perspective that's why that's in there but was that an idea that came across from you or from the writing team and were you involved in sort of expanding the Fernando Poe side of things

[00:48:12] so that idea came from the writing team I mean in truth there were two parties they just didn't have at the same time do you remember there was a dress rehearsal they were going to work and did the real thing so that kind of actually you know that's

[00:48:28] the inspiration behind it the most kind of outrageous and brilliant thing the SOE did on the ground in my view in terms of Fernando Poe was the way they blackmailed the Spanish Governor do you remember that part of the book where they didn't they catch him in a

[00:48:46] compromising situation like from Rushard with Love Style and they find he's got a local mistress they photograph him through the window in a compromising situation they basically say right the photographs are going to go everyone includes your family or you we own you and

[00:49:04] we're going to use your aircraft to fly over Fernando Poe and take the photographs we need so we can do what we're intending to do and he actually had to play along that's the real essence of SOE that's real dark arts that they used

[00:49:18] and without that the chances of the admission actually succeeding would have been far far less because you needed those reconnaissance photos to plan it properly and there were other things that they did in Fernando Poe in terms of the SOE side of it which didn't make the cut

[00:49:32] didn't make film but you know were just that kind of intrigue and doing the unthinkable to the tea well there was also the story I believe of the chap that is featured in the film is also in the story and it stays around

[00:49:46] after the mission and has to row boat his way out of there a couple of months later and that was again a broken arm or something like a broken hand perhaps and this is again a real story and a harrowing one at that

[00:49:58] doesn't make the film but they inject drama in their own way and one way the film injects a bit of drama into that side of things is by having sort of an antagonist in Heinrich Lue played by Tilszweiger on the island there was a

[00:50:14] I do remember there being a German commander of one of the boats on the island I'm not sure is that the same character was the person I've made for Gottenstern or was that a completely fictionalised commander on the island I think that guy is just a construct

[00:50:30] there was a German commander there he's the guy who actually stormed into the British embassy after the operation and tried to beat up the British consul and the British consul actually was an SOE agent you know and beat him up instead and throw him out

[00:50:46] and got him arrested but the newer character in the movie is someone they just felt they had to have there you needed something to add some stakes to the two agents you had on Fernando Poe it makes complete sense

[00:51:00] I suppose I wanted to ask you from that side of it because the rest of the story is pretty true to life what were your thoughts on how they brought that bit the Fernando Poe side of it to life and were you happy with sort of the changes

[00:51:12] yeah the only thing that I think this is from a kind of technical perspective I guess it's great but I guess it kind of works but it doesn't work technically if it works emotionally and if it works filmy it doesn't work technically

[00:51:30] so you know when there's that moment and Issa Gonzalez the female SOE agent let me say she in my view is brilliant she's a showstopper her performance is fantastic and there's that moment where she discovers the fact that the boat's got a layer of armor and it's unsinkable

[00:51:48] well that wouldn't make a boat unsinkable it just isn't like that the reason why they had to steal the boats and not sink them in the harbour apart from the fact they didn't want to sink them because it leaves more of a signature it was British operation

[00:52:04] but actually the reason was because the harbour was too shallow so if you sunk the boats they'd just sit on the bottom and they could refloat them yeah so that idea that you know you've doubled the thickness of the harbour you can't blow them up

[00:52:16] well you can you just you know increase the size of the charges you can blow anything up you've got enough explosives so it's kind of a bit of a non-sequitur but I think they get away with it I don't think I rubbed up against that

[00:52:28] in any tragedy imagination I think from someone who's sort of seen both versions of the story I think that flows perfectly well one thing I did have questions about and I think it was more just a case of because it's a film and it's a fun

[00:52:44] role like a sort of a drama I think unfortunately a lot of the other team of the made honour apart from Lassen and March do kind of take a bit of a because I think there was definitely a few of the old favourites in there too

[00:52:56] to talk about a bit of a backseat to the rest of it because it is really Henry Cavill and Alan Richardson's film I think it is a shame you don't see as much of them because if there are sequels you will be seeing a lot more of them

[00:53:10] and I think if you can read up on what happens to some of the perhaps March Phillips in the future I don't know what you would be doing with that character but you would be seeing a lot more of the other soldiers on the boat Yeah absolutely yeah

[00:53:22] so Appliard for example I agree I think he sits a bit in the background and Appliard as the book empty demonstrates becomes a seminal figure in that raiding unit him and Lassen are absolute partners in crime so yeah I mean you have got to bring

[00:53:42] those other characters more alive and yes it is led very much by Henry Cavill, as Gus March Phillips and Alan Richardson as Lassen and they are such compelling characters that they kind of overshadow the rest of the cast but Iza in my view as well also

[00:54:02] manages to pull herself out of their shadow and become a glittering star of the movie I think she is fantastic so you know hopefully there will be more of her to come in the future as well for sure I think the reality

[00:54:14] was that person she is based on does marry Gus March Phillips it did marry I should say there is still more to come there and I suppose then holistically looking back on the film a few months ago now it has just come

[00:54:28] to streaming on Prime Video as well so more people will be checking it out hopefully because the releasing of this film is a bit of an interesting because of Guy Richie's contract with Amazon and how his distribution works so some of the world

[00:54:42] haven't quite seen it yet so I am glad more eyes will finally get to see the Ministry of Ungently Warfare but for you you have been with this story for 9 or in a decade it has now been brought to life on the big screen how do you feel

[00:54:54] about it do you feel like it was done well are you happy with the finished product yeah so I when I first saw it in the movie theater Chad Aiman the producer said actually we never met before we have been on zoom loads of times

[00:55:10] he is in the state time here so we met in London for the first time and I said Chad you look really you look really unwell I mean you look like you don't look happy and he said

[00:55:18] you are not going to like the movie and I was like really? he was like yeah no, we went and watched it and I came and said Chad look it's pretty damn good I said let me go away and digest it but yeah I kind of

[00:55:32] and when I heard all the people say at the end gosh it's based upon a true story and they were just blown away that kind of did it for me and then I was sent to copy and I sat down at home with my kids and my wife

[00:55:46] and I have got a 15 year old daughter and 19 year old son and 21 year old son and we sat down to watch it and the point about it is this is when it really hit home for me they all loved it

[00:55:56] they didn't love it because it was dad's book so to turn a World War 2 story about black operations into a piece of rollocking great family viewing that everyone could enjoy that's a hell of an achievement and then the next weekend or the weekend after we sat down

[00:56:12] to choose a movie and my daughter who's 15 chose the imitation game you know the Bletching Park story so that's what it did for her well you know look if the minister and generally warfare can take this story to far wider audience millions

[00:56:30] and get more people to read the book or just look into this part this era of World War 2 and more depth that's fantastic and you know not to kind of bring it down but I think it's worth saying we live in a very insecure world

[00:56:44] there are things going on at the moment that should worry us all democracy is under assault we've seen it in Ukraine we've seen it in France with Le Pen democracy is under attack and we seem to forget the lessons of history so easily

[00:57:00] these people paid the ultimate price for our freedom that we enjoy today I was a war reporter I've been to bad places I know what places are like where you do not have democratic freedoms and they are not nice

[00:57:12] so I know what it's like but most people don't so if we can just remind people by things like this movie that this is what people gave the ultimate sacrifice for and again I don't always bring people down at the end of the show but it's true

[00:57:24] every single person in that movie was dead by the end of the war all the team died not one of them survived they all gave the ultimate sacrifice so the fact that they volunteered for hazardous duties knowing they were going into these suicidal missions

[00:57:40] well actually none of them actually survived the war I think what I believe it was your daughter you said kind of rings true and does give me a little bit of hope there that you know she saw this and then thought there's more here let's go and explore

[00:57:54] and if this is the foot in the door for people to learn a little bit more about history and maybe learn a few lessons along the way maybe that will change and shape voters and consciousnesses and minds of the future and that's

[00:58:10] I mean the old saying is if you don't live from history do them to repeat it that's never ring true other than now and I won't get too on my soapbox myself I easily couldn't have in the past but I completely agree with you

[00:58:22] let's put it that way a couple of questions left for you to wrap us up you've mentioned seeing this as more potentially there are far more operations in the book to talk about and there's far more years left of the war where we leave off our

[00:58:40] ministry of un-gently warfare at the end of the film what do you see as the next mission they're going to go on potentially and what are the chances of getting the next film have you heard anything from Richie and the team how's that looking

[00:58:54] so when I met the guys on set the other thing that Alan Richardson said to me it was really edifying actually I didn't prompt it at all he just said it off the cuff he said you know something he said let me tell you about the mission

[00:59:08] I'm really looking forward to playing next he said you know the raid on Heraklion I've been on the base three times to get all the aircraft he possibly can and he's yelling at orders in German because he's fluent in German to confuse the enemy

[00:59:22] he said it's just like nothing else on earth I am so looking forward to playing Anders Lassen in that scene so I would imagine it's got the right elements why was Heraklion such a key raid because Malta was about to fall and Hitler basically if Malta falls

[00:59:42] the enemy will win the Mediterranean and Churchill said if Malta falls the enemy will win the Mediterranean it was absolutely pivotal and the only way to stop Malta falling was to get the convoys through the only way to get the convoys through

[00:59:56] was to make sure the German aircraft stayed on the ground because they were blown to smithereens so it's got the same kind of stakes as a Fermanando poem mission and it's equally extraordinary and unbelievable in terms of what they do there

[01:00:08] so yeah that's where they will go next where it's at well I think Jerry Brookham has been on the media talking about it and doing the sequel so I hope it's going to happen and I'd be disappointed if it doesn't they've got a brilliant cast to bring back

[01:00:26] for more missions and they've got a great set of characters in terms of what they go on to do through the rest of the war so yeah fingers crossed I think Heraklion is a great way to do the next one it's got a bigger scale

[01:00:40] the whole air field and a lot of incursions and a big mission to get there in the first place sort of what to see in a sense you're going all the way behind enemy lines you've got a lot going on there, I think that's a great choice

[01:00:50] and I would love to see that and I'd love to see Richardson come back and do that role and flesh out the rest of the team a bit more as well I think it would be great to see the rest of the boys now I feel a bit

[01:01:02] bad in a way because you've done more than one book I'm going to put some links in the show notes below people can go to your website and find out more about what you've written but the second to last question is what are you working on currently

[01:01:14] Damien, what have you got coming up? So I'm working on a book about really Paddy Main Colonel Blair Paddy Main who was the commander of the SS for most of the war after David Stirling was captured and it's his operations in France and Germany so 44 and 45

[01:01:32] so it's you know the operations and then the march into Germany actually the SS go on to be the first to liberate Belson concentration camps that ends up in a pretty dark place hell of a story, immensely compelling my book about Josephine Baker who was the black female

[01:01:50] superstar before the war with them became the absolute amazing superstar, super spy for the allies so as in Josephine as it's called in states or it was called the flame of resistance here supposedly being made into a streaming series and Janelle Monnet is attached to play Josephine

[01:02:06] she would be amazing, she would be a fantastic perfect fit and there's various other books in various stages of movie and streaming adaption and I've got books that I'm under contracts right until 2027 so I am going to be busy for a while but yeah, it's not a

[01:02:26] job what I do is a vacation I'm extremely lucky and I love every day that I'm here at the keyboard writing well I've loved everything that I've read so far I would urge people to go and check out the book The Ministry of Ungented Money Warfare

[01:02:40] and check out the film now it's on streaming Prime Video I think mostly worldwide by the sounds of it so if you haven't seen it in theatres originally check it out definitely the last question Damien I have for you and this has been asked to every single

[01:02:52] person that's ever been on the show so be remiss if I didn't we talk about spy movies here every week I need to know Damien Lewis what is your favourite spy movie of all time my favourite spy movie of all time I probably have to say Casablanca

[01:03:08] but that's probably been said a million times before surprisingly not actually it's not a frequent choice no really? no, one of a handful it's such a you know it's just such a classic and I've actually written about Casablanca

[01:03:22] at that time in one of the books I've written about so I kind of came back to and watched it several times over whilst I was doing that so yeah it just is one of the best we haven't actually tackled it yet on the show but I can

[01:03:34] tell people ahead of time it's one of my personal favourites so yeah I'm with you there I can't fault that choice wonderful Casablanca Damien Lewis I absolutely love it and I've loved talking to you about the Ministry of Ungentsimally Warfare available on Prime Video now

[01:03:48] Damien it's been an absolute pleasure yeah thank you very much take care of yourself I'll speak to you soon thank you cheers there you go folks that was our chat with Mr Damien Lewis I want to thank Damien once again for sitting down

[01:04:02] with us and I want to thank you all for listening we hope you've enjoyed our deep dive into the Ministry of Ungentsimally Warfare certainly an interesting film I'm glad it's now on Amazon Prime for people to check out around the world

[01:04:16] and see what sort of spy jinx, Guy Ritchie, Henry Cavill Isaac Gonzalez and Alan Richardson can get up too but that wraps us up for ministry but moving on next week what can you expect we will be taking a look at 2015's Hitman Agent 47

[01:04:34] the follow up to the Timothy Olyphant Hitman film that came out a few years before we've got a really fun episode on the film and a great interview coming later next week as well so your mission should you choose to accept it

[01:04:48] is to join us next week as we take a look at Hitman Agent 47 and we hope you've enjoyed what you heard on this episode if you did please consider joining us over on our Patreon make sure of course you follow us discreetly on social media that's SPYHARDS

[01:05:04] but until next time folks you'll find me practicing my bow and arrow skills with Anders Lassen