Hot Enough for June (Blu-ray Review)
Director
Ralph ThomasRelease Date(s)
1964 (March 25, 2026)Studio(s)
Rank Organisation (Imprint Films/Via Vision Entertainment)- Film/Program Grade: B
- Video Grade: B+
- Audio Grade: A-
- Extras Grade: A-
Review
[Editor’s Note: This is a Region-Free Australian Blu-ray import.]
Far superior to director Ralph Thomas’s later Some Girls Do (1969), recently reviewed here, Hot Enough for June (1964) is one of the better spy spoofs, and one of if not the earliest to be influenced by the emerging James Bond craze. When it was made, only Dr. No (1962) and From Russia with Love (1963) had been released in the U.K., the latter the Number One film in theaters while this was in production. However, the 007 craze didn’t peak in their global influence until around the end of 1965, just prior to the release of Thunderball, the fourth Bond movie. The previous entry, Goldfinger (1964), really established the template for Bond movies and imitators to follow, what with its high-tech gadgetry, a more humorous swagger, and Bond going through women like so many pairs of socks.
Much has been made of Hot Enough for June’s Bond references, real and imagined: frequent 007 series art director Syd Cain worked in the same capacity, with Robert Morley’s “M”-like character operating out of an office nearly identical to Bernard Lee’s in the Bond films. Co-star Sylva Kocsina had been considered for the leading female part in From Russia with Love, etc. Not usually mentioned is that Richard Vernon plays a role here similar to his part in Goldfinger, while Eric Pohlmann, a supporting character in Hot Enough for June, did the voice of Ernst Stavro Blofeld (uncredited) in both From Russia with Love and Thunderball. However, almost all of this is merely coincidental considering Britain’s tight-knit film industry, though the film does make a Bond connection in the opening scene.
Very loosely adapted by Robert Aldrich favorite Lukas Heller from Lionel Davidson’s 1960 novel The Night of Wenceslas, the movie opens with MI6 employee Roger Allsop (John Le Mesurier) turning in the belongings of a deceased agent, placed in a drawer marked “007.” He and his “M”-like boss, Colonel Cunliffe (Morley) now need a replacement for an assignment in Czechoslovakia, and settle upon naïve, unemployed, but Czech-speaking writer Nicholas Whistler (Dirk Bogarde), who thinks he’s being recruited by a glass company. Cunliffe sends Whistler behind the Iron Curtain to meet an agent in Prague, who will respond to Whistler’s coded remark, “Hot enough for June,” and hand him some top-secret info.
However, the Czech Secret Police are already on to Cunliffe’s plans, with counterpart Simenova (Leo McKern) assigning agent Vlasta (Koscina), coincidentally his daughter, to masquerade as Whistler’s driver and guide. After meeting with glass factory president Galushka (Pohlmann), Whistler clumsily manages to obtain the secret information from a washroom attendant responding to the code, he actually a British spy. But then Whistler is arrested immediately, Simenova offering him a choice: sign a confession or suffer a fatal “accident” from his hotel suite.
Hot Enough in June—not a good title—only uses Davidson’s non-spoofy novel as a springboard for the basic plot. Unlike most such genre spoofs, which invariably are neither funny enough to work as comedies, nor suspenseful or action-filled enough to work as spy films, Hot Enough for June is more akin to light Hitchcock thrillers such as The 39 Steps and North by Northwest, with an ordinary man thrown into extraordinary circumstances. In that sense the film is serviceable, not particularly memorable, but just good enough to be moderately entertaining.
Having actors like Bogarde, Le Mesurier, Pohlmann, and especially the irreplaceable McKern that could pivot from comedy to drama effortlessly (or do both at the same time) helps a lot. McKern, particularly, manages to be both credibly menacing yet his character also has a sense of humor. At 43, Bogarde was not only ready to move away from such trifles but also too old to be playing such a naïve young man, yet he makes his perpetual bewilderment reasonably believable. Sylva Koscina, for her part, is gorgeous, though her voice appears dubbed, as in all those early Bond Girls. The film was shot extensively in Padua, Italy, unconvincingly doubling for Prague, but it’s likely 1964 didn’t care or notice the difference.
Australia’s Imprint Blu-ray release is uniquely odd. The 1.78:1 widescreen image (approximating the 1.66:1 original) alternates between razor-sharp with superb color clearly drawn from the original camera negative about three-fifths of the time, with much grainier, duller film, likely derived from an inter-negative. Usually in these composite transfers the inferior film material constitutes an entire missing reel or reels (usually 10 minutes of film), or where the original negative is damaged at the head or tail of reels. In this case, however, the good and bad material dizzyingly switches from shot-to-shot. One possible explanation is that Hot Enough for June was shorn of 20 full minutes for its U.S. release (under the title Agent 8 ¾), nearly two years later, and perhaps Rank gave or mistakenly gave the U.S. distributor access to the original camera negative. Whatever the explanation, the effect is jarring, with positively pristine footage schizophrenically alternating with other material that resembles a just-okay DVD. Still, one assumes licensor ITV Studios did the best restoration job possible, and to their credit Hot Enough for June looks great some of the time.
The LPCM 2.0 mono is excellent and supported by optional English HOH subtitles, and the disc is Region-Free.
The good supplements consist of a new audio commentary by writer Matthew Asprey Gear; a new interview with journalist Matthew Sweet; a trailer; and three image galleries.
Mild but not unappealing, Hot Enough in June is reasonably good, and a veritable Citizen Kane compared with the many dozens of terrible spy spoofs that followed it. Recommended.
- Stuart Galbraith IV