Onscreen and Undercover: The Ultimate Book of Movie Espionage

by Wesley Britton

Wes Britton's Spy Television (2004) was an overview of espionage on the small screen from 1951 to 2002. His Beyond Spies in Fiction and Film (2004) wove spy literature, movies, radio, comics, and other popular media together with what the public knew about actual espionage to show the interrelationships between genres and approaches in the past century. Onscreen and Undercover , the last book in Britton's Spy Trilogy, provides a history of spies on the large screen, with an emphasis on the stories these films present.
Since the days of the silent documentary short, spying has been a staple of the movie business. It has been the subject of thrillers, melodramas, political films, romances, and endless parodies as well. But despite the developing mistrust of the spy as a figure of hope and good works, the variable relationship between real spying and screen spying over the past 100 years sheds light on how we live, what we fear, who we admire, and what we want our culture―and our world―to become.

Onscreen and Undercover describes now forgotten trends, traces surprising themes, and spotlights the major contributions of directors, actors, and other American and English artists. The focus is on movies, on and off camera.
In a 1989 National Public Radio interview, famed author John Le Carre said a spy must be entertaining. Spies have to interest potential sources, and be able to draw people in to succeed in recruiting informants. In that spirit, Wes Britton now offers Onscreen and Undercover .

232 pages, Hardcover

First published October 30, 2006

About the author

Immerse yourself in an extraordinary universe revealed by the most original storytelling you’ll ever experience. “Science fiction yes, but so much more.”

Besides his 33 years in the classroom, Dr. Wesley Britton considers his Beta-Earth Chronicles the most important work he’s ever done. “I suppose an author profile is intended to be a good little biography,” Britton says, “but the best way to know who I am is to read my novels.”

Still, a few things you might like to know about Wes include the fact he’s the author of four non-fiction books on espionage in the media, most notably The Encyclopedia of TV Spies (2009). Beginning in 1983, he was a widely published poet, article writer for a number of encyclopedias, and was a noted scholar of American literature. Since those days, for sites like BlogCritics.org and BookPleasures.com, Britton wrote over 500 music, book, an movie reviews. For seven years, he was co-host of online radio's Dave White Presents for which he contributed celebrity interviews with musicians, authors, actors, and entertainment insiders.

Starting in fall 2015, his science fiction series, The Beta-Earth Chronicles, debuted with The Blind Alien. Throughout 2016, four sequels followed including The Blood of Balnakin, When War Returns, A Throne for an Alien, and The Third Earth. Return to Alpha will be the sixth volume of this multi-planetary epic.

Britton earned his doctorate in American Literature at the University of North Texas in 1990. He taught English at Harrisburg Area Community College until his retirement in 2016. He serves on the Board of Directors for Vision Resources of Central Pennsylvania. He lives with his one and only wife, Betty, in Harrisburg, PA.

Find out more about the Beta-Earth series on the official website -- http://www.drwesleybritton.com

Reviews

[Steven · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mix of the fascinating (such as Hollywood's fascination with sympathetic Confederate spies in the Twenties), the banal (The 70s featured cynicism and moral ambiguity? Gosh!) and the outright wrong (not just actors' names, but even plots in some cases).