The Spook Who Sat by the Door (1973) on Netflix
PG19731h 42mActionCrimeDramaWar
A senator's wife proposes a publicity stunt: point out how few Black agents the CIA has. Dan Freeman, secretly a Black nationalist, is the only recruit to finish the agency's training.
- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb7.2/101,961 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes70%
Trailer
Plot summary
In early 1970s Chicago, a U.S. Senator running for re-election is warned that his law and order speeches have cost him support among African-American voters. His wife suggests a publicity stunt: he should point out how few Black agents the CIA has. The agency answers that pressure by recruiting African Americans for its training program, while secretly taking steps to make sure none of them can finish. Dan Freeman, secretly a Black nationalist, is the only candidate who does.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Spook Who Sat by the Door (1973)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The film was pulled from theaters soon after it opened because of its politically controversial message, and the author, Sam Greenlee, believed the FBI helped suppress it.
- For years the film could only be seen on bootleg video until 2004, when the actor Tim Reid tracked down a remaining negative stored in a vault under a different name and released it on DVD.
- The film was mostly shot in Gary, Indiana, rather than Chicago, because its themes of racial strife did not please Chicago's then-mayor Richard J. Daley.
- Director Ivan Dixon said United Artists would not show the film in a way that let its political message come through when clips were screened before the public release; he said the studio was stunned by a "Panavision version of political Armageddon".
