Death of a Citizen
Much of this article appeared in a previous incarnation on Teleport City. It has since been revised and rewritten, so if you read it before, read it again!

"I was taking a martini across the room..."

If this was the be-all and end-all of the Matt Helm novels, there never would have been much conflict between the long-running series of hard-hitting potboilers and the breezy, goofball films that sport the same Matt Helm name. The movies certainly took swank martini culture to heart, as embodied by the casting of Dean Martin as the lead. The book kicked off by this line and the series kicked off by this book, however, continues by saying Helm is taking the drink across the room to his wife. Things get darker and more violent from there.

Matt Helm was the creation of author Donald Hamilton and the central character in the author's long-running series of espionage-action novels all revolving around the missions of Matt Helm -- not a spy, but an assassin. The first book, Death of a Citizen, establishes the background and character of Helm, a former secret agent during World War II who, upon retiring from his top secret organization, sought to put his cold and bloody past behind him in favor of building a new life in Santa Fe as a family man, author of Western adventure novels, and part-time freelance photographer. Of course, dark and violent pasts never stay in the past. Matt's previous identity rears up to reassert itself and draw the retired agent back into its dark shadow. Pressed back into service against his will, Matt sees everything he treasures torn away from him. His home, his wife, his children, and the entire life he'd work so painstakingly to build for himself, vanish in the muzzle flash of a pistol and the appearance of an old cloak and dagger partner. Throughout subsequent novels, Matt is portrayed as a bitter man, resentful of what his past has cost his future, doing his job only because he's been left with nothing else beyond the sinking feeling that he'll never escape it anyway. He's suitably ruthless, calculating, sometimes heartless, and always determined to complete his mission even when the costs seem too great.

1960's Death of a Citizen sees Matt pulled back into the service in order to track down a scientist who has become the target of an assassination attempt. The duty of bringing Matt back into the fold belongs to Tina, an old flame and former partner in espionage and assassination work against the Nazis. Matt is not happy to see her, nor is he happy to find his old ways weren't as dusty and rusty and not so far behind him as he had hoped. The citizen facing death in the book's title is twofold: on the one hand it's the potential death of a civilian scientist who suddenly finds himself in the crosshairs of international intrigue. On the other hand, the citizen is Matt Helm, his civilian self gunned down by the return of the man he once was.

Death of a Citizen is notable for a few reasons, not the least of which is the fact that it's simply a tightly told, thoroughly compelling adventure novel. But more importantly, although Ian Fleming's James Bond books certainly opened the door for the publishing of a myriad of spy novels, Hamilton's Matt Helm is closest to the spirit of Fleming not because it imitates them so well, but rather because it doesn't imitate them at all. The James Bond novels were something unique and new and inventive, and most of the spy novels that came in their wake, like most of the movies that came in the wake of the Bond films, were happy to ape the style of Fleming, spinning further yarns of a veritable army of smirking, suave, playboy spies jetting from one exotic locale to the next. Matt Helm, on the other hand, shares the literary Bond's ruthlessness but plays an entirely different game. One might say it's much more realistic. Helm doesn't jet set, and he's not a playboy. Death of a Citizen takes place in the sprawling, dusty American southwest and covers most of its miles not in a jet or Aston Martin, but in a beat-up old pick up truck. And while Helm certainly gets his share of the dames, he's no skirt-chaser. And he always assume s-- correctly -- any women who shows an interest in him is an enemy agent.

It's these elements, this low-key decidedly unglamorous aspect of Helm's adventures, which make him unique amid the throng. While all the Bond wannabes are checking into posh hotels and swinging in exclusive nightclubs and casinos as they mimic the more bombastic aspects of Fleming's creation, Matt Helm has to stay at the Budget Lodge. His experiences and adventures are decidedly more real world, and the most compelling aspect of the Matt Helm stories is that they take generally familiar settings and peel away layers to expose all manner of dirty work beneath. Sure it's kind of cool to read about or watch all these spies rubbing elbows with counts and world leaders in the globe's most eye-popping hot spots, but it's even cooler to read about Matt Helm having to unravel some dastardly plot that's being spun right next door. Sure he gets to go to Sweden sometimes, or Mexico, but he's never among the richest of the rich and always in surroundings that are gritty and real. In many ways, he has more in common with the hardboiled detectives and film noir private eyes than with the contemporary spies populating other books from the 1960s. In fact, he's very much cut from the same cloth as Raymond Chandler's Phillip Marlowe -- tough, world-weary, but still unable to let go of his grasp on hope, however tenuous that hope may be. Although he walks the edge and lives on the shadow, he refuses to take that final plunge that will turn him into a nihilist.

Death of a Citizen is a noteworthy way to kick off the series, and upon reading it you'll be hooked not just for the book itself, but for the whole series. Helm is complex and authentic, not a cartoonish caricature like superspy Nick Carter. The situations in which Helm finds himself are desperate and moving. The final chapter of Death of a Citizen, in which to save the life of his wife he must reveal to her by way of example everything he used to be, is heart-wrenching. He knows once she sees the monstrous things of which he is capable, she'll never be able to look at him again, that he will in fact have to kill off his once happy life with her if he wants to keep her from being killed. There are plenty of entertaining pulp novels and heroes, but few if any contain anything as powerful as this moment. It sets the mood for all the stories to follow, and this is one more thing that makes Death of a Citizen and subsequent Helm books so much better than the rest of their pack.

The character arc presented to us in Death of a Citizen draws from Chandler, but it also owes an obvious debt of gratitude to Ian Fleming's Casino Royale, the first of that author's many James Bond novels. Though the bulk of the stories are different, the final pages of both Death of a Citizen and Casino Royale reveal the death of one man and the birth (or rebirth) of another. However, the similarities between Bond and Helm come less from Hamilton attempting to mimic Fleming, and more from the fact that both he and Fleming continued to weave from the rich tapestry of the hardboiled fiction of the 1920s and 30s. It's Chandler and Phillip Marlowe that seem to have the greatest influence over Donald Hamilton's Matt Helm. Helm is grim, angry, ruthless, but beneath all that his overwhelming emotion is one of sadness, loss, and melancholy. He's not the happy-go-lucky superspy who lets everything roll off his back without a care for yesterday or tomorrow, nor is he a Bond-like bastard with a streak of manic-depressive insanity running through him. He's the proverbial warrior with a broken heart as described in Chogyam Trungpa's Sacred Path of the Warrior. "In order for a man to become a true warrior," writes Hugh Gallagher in reference to Trungpa and how he connects to another warrior with a broken heart, Theo Kojak, "he must embrace the sorrow of the earth. The death, the pain, the loss which we cannot control must be faced squarely. Denial of these great forces inhibits all who wish to become warriors, for the true warrior must gaze unblinking into the abyss of human suffering. He must expose his heart, raw, to the pains of the world. He must let his heart be broken, so that in this way he may gain compassion for all souls. When death is acknowledged as a force vital to life, then life can be lived without fear. However, there is a price for that acknowledgement; that price is heartbreak."

For Matt Helm, his heart broke when he had to kill in front of his wife -- kill and torture in the most brutal way he could imagine -- revealing to her the well-trained beast he'd hidden for so long and thought dead. In doing so, he knew he would lose everything. But it was the only direction allowed him by the path. And while Matt Helm is often described as callous, heartless, cruel, and icy cold, the fact f the matter is that every time he reminds us of his own lack of emotion, Donald Hamilton seems to be asking us not to believe him. Frequently, Matt will remark about how he doesn't let himself get attached to other operatives because he knows he might have to walk away from their death, or send them to it. But he never seems to believe his own words. Frequently we see him do exactly what duty demands of him, and rather than letting it flow over him without effect, he tends to dwell on these deaths, remember them, and become deeply affected by them even as he explains to us how he never lets such deaths affect him. In Murderers' Row, for instance, the death of a female agent at the beginning of the book should be handled by Matt as unfortunate, but part of the job. And that's what he claims to feel, although he spends the rest of the book ruminating on her death and trying to figure it out. So while he may walk away from death, he never forgets, and each body seems to leave another mark on him. Matt Helm isn't heartless; he's heartbroken. He's seen the worst of people, but he still fights on. For a callous man with no emotion, he sure does have a weakness for helping people out.

This depth of character remains unique among the spy heroes of the 1960s. Ian Fleming's James Bond shows it from time to time, especially in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, in which his wife is murdered, and the subsequent You Only Live Twice, which sees an emotionally devastated Bond who can barely function, but Bond has a much greater selfish streak that Helm. Matt Helm is different. He carried the weight of his melancholy from the beginning and must always live with it. Rather than finding himself incapacitated by his loss, it becomes his underlying, motivating force behind everything he does. He's a shadowy figure whose past is not just dark; it is also sad. If he has any true contemporary in the world of 1960s spy literature and film, it would be Len Deighton's beleaguered blue-collar spy Harry Palmer from The Ipcress File. Like Helm, Palmer was a spy against his will, living in a relatively low-key world where a guy still had to cook up some breakfast for himself and drive a crappy car. The two probably would have gotten along famously.

In 1966, someone finally decided to adapt the Matt Helm stories for the big screen. The spy craze was in full swing, and though the success and high quality of the Matt Helm books would seemed to have made them obvious choices, four years passed after the spy craze was kicked off by Dr. No before Helm found his way to movie theaters. Perhaps screenwriters had a difficult time reconciling Matt Helm's low-key, unglamorous adventures with the swinging eye candy and over-the-top bombast that quickly became the standard for spy films of the era. Even James Bond films started getting wackier and wackier, and by 1965's Thunderball they'd become larger-than-life cartoon epics.

Although Hamilton's novels had garnered a sizable following (by 1966 the series was up to its tenth installment), enthusiasm over the movie was tempered when it was announced that notorious Rat pack lush Dean Martin would be taking on the role. Although known primarily for his act alongside fellow Packers Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin was no stranger to dramatic roles, nor was he bad at them. But years of Martin and Lewis comedies meant people couldn't -- and perhaps didn't want to -- see Martin as anything other than his signature character: the cool, laid-back boozehound with a great crooner's voice and a twinkle in his eye. Dean Martin ambled through almost fifty movies after his split with Jerry Lewis, generally playing the same character in them -- a character instantly identifiable as Dean Martin. A consummate actor, Martin shone in dramatic roles on the rare occasion he was given the opportunity, but he was better known as a loveable lush with an eye for the ladies. It certainly wasn't what people thought of when they thought of Matt Helm. But maybe these film producers would give Martina chance to do something more than be silly. Dean Martin had certainly led the sort of life that gave him enough experience to conjure up a tortured, complex secret agent.

Well, whether or not Dean Martin could have pulled it off (and I think he could have) will remain a mystery. When The Silencers opened in 1966, its plot a combination of elements from Death of a Citizen and The Silencers novels, it was clear that the filmmakers hadn't even bothered to try. This Matt Helm was basically Dean Martin as he was known. The film was goofy, full of juvenile sex jokes, mod costumes, silly gadgets, and Dino gliding through a flippant parody of spy film heroes. He was in sharp contrast to Donald Hamilton's creation, and fans of the books were aghast at this freewheelin', smirking lush armed with corny one-liners and an insatiable appetite for booze and chasing the skirts of nubile young ladies. They decried the movie as an unabashed fiasco (though reportedly, Donald Hamilton thought the first film was all right). Fiasco though it may have been, it didn't stop The Silencers from oozing with sly -- or drunken -- Dean Martin charm and charisma, making for an inarguably silly -- but also fairly entertaining -- espionage romp.

The film was a success, a big success, despite the departure from the books. Perhaps because of it, in fact. People may not have been ready for something as hard-hitting as the Matt Helm represented in the books. A sequel was a given. And another. And another, each rather more slapdash and shoddier looking than the last, until the final film -- where it seemed they'd abandoned entirely the concepts of acting or having a script, in favor of just dressing Dean up in a turtleneck and letting him goof off for a while.

Myself, I was familiar with the movies before I'd ever read the novels. It was while researching the movies that I discovered how fabulously different they were from the books from whence they came, and that got me interest in the books. Frankly, I rather enjoyed all four films, even getting a kick out of Dean Martin's terminally sloshed and casual performance in the final film, The Wrecking Crew. I think working backward, from film to books, made it easier for me to enjoy both. Yes indeed, Donald Hamilton's novels are tough, merciless, thrill-a-page actioners with engrossing plots, complex characters, and a style all their own when so many others were happy to turn in nothing more than sleazier imitations of Ian Fleming. And yes, judged purely on artistic merits, I'd argue that Hamilton's books are far more essential than Dean Martin's movies. But that doesn't mean the movies aren't a lot of fun, so long as you don't make the mistake of expecting them to be like the books. What film adaptations ever are? Even the Bond films often only took the title of the story and the most superficial elements and grafted it onto an entirely new plot. Read You Only Live Twice and then compare it to the movie of the same name. It's much the same effect as reading The Silencers and Death of a Citizen then watching the movie The Silencers.

It's an interesting journey, from Donald Hamilton to Dean Martin, and I thought it would be amusing to trace Matt Helm's journey from book to movie. The two are often so different that comparing them seems almost a futile exercise. Of course, futility has never stopped us before...

Labels: Espionage