Earliest film/tv example of the engineered super-spy/assassin trope?

August 26, 2024 7:23 AM

I've been watching Hanna and now I'm wondering about the earliest example of an engineered spy/assassin training program in Film and/or TV. Think Bourne movies, Marvel's Black Widow program. Not a spy agency, plenty of those from the 60s... it's the chemical/genetic engineering plus the specialized training that's the key difference I'm after. La Femme Nikita (1990) is the earliest I can come up with. Please no books or comics.
posted by kokaku to Media & Arts (15 answers total)

Best answer: The Six Million Dollar Man?
posted by praemunire at 7:36 AM on August 26, 2024 [6 favorites]

I did hear someone on a podcast suggest Sherlock Holmes as a sort of an early version of this- in his case, the chemical engineering was the most modern drug of the time, cocaine.
posted by BungaDunga at 8:14 AM on August 26, 2024

though I doubt the cocaine made it into any of the early movie adaptations...
posted by BungaDunga at 8:16 AM on August 26, 2024

Best answer: The Manchurian Candidate (1962) (Fanfare)
posted by thecaddy at 8:22 AM on August 26, 2024 [4 favorites]

Holmes's cocaine use was outside of cases - if anything, he was self medicating his rampant ADHD (paradoxical reaction to stimulants included), and anyway not TV - first proper movies would be the 1921-1923 silent ones, I guess.

I'd also vote Manchurian Candidate, and the original Mission Impossible for TV. This is very much a Cold War trope.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 8:42 AM on August 26, 2024

Response by poster: also Sherlock Holmes was an individual not a government/organization run program
posted by kokaku at 8:49 AM on August 26, 2024

Response by poster: is there anything in film after Manchurian Candidate and closer to the more recent versions?
posted by kokaku at 8:57 AM on August 26, 2024

Perhaps adjacent, but Universal Soldier (1992) has basically trained assassins.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 9:09 AM on August 26, 2024

I'm not sure Shaw in Manchurian Candidate had any sort of genetic/chemical/bionic "supersoldier" engineering done to him, just brainwashing. But it's been a very long time since I saw the movie.
posted by praemunire at 10:27 AM on August 26, 2024 [1 favorite]

The Boys from Brazil (1978) though the "specialized training" is very specialized indeed.
posted by credulous at 10:38 AM on August 26, 2024 [2 favorites]

I was disappointed this weekend to discover my DVDs of the TV series Dark Angel aren’t readable anymore. It was allegedly loosely based on Heinlein’s Friday novel about a genetically modified super spy, written in 1982.
posted by funkaspuck at 11:50 AM on August 26, 2024

Praemunire, you're correct—there was no "supersoldier engineering" but the brainwashing did rely on chemicals, and when he's in his programmed state he is ridiculously talented and skilled. Brainwashing is definitely a big part of the superspy trope later (e.g., Bourne), so I think it's definitely a predecessor.

The trope gets supercharged in the 70s after the disclosure of MK ULTRA—now it's our side doing the brainwashing, not just the communists—but even then it doesn't start making it into films until much later in the 80s (I know you're not asking for books, but MK ULTRA-like programs are all over Stephen King's early works).

There is also The Parallax View (corporate training of assassins, no engineering) in 1974 and Blade Runner in 1982 (Roy Batty is an engineered soldier with some solid spy skills), even if neither are exactly what you're looking for.
posted by thecaddy at 12:14 PM on August 26, 2024 [1 favorite]

There was a WWII-era serial about Captain America, which you could certainly argue counts as a GM super-soldier. He was less the assassin certainly, but he was also going behind enemy lines to do sabotage etc. Doc Savage may be worth looking into for this trope as well - he wasn't modified but raised to superhuman. He had serials and such as well.

Nice mention of Parallax View - a really interesting (and relevant) take on this.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 12:56 PM on August 26, 2024 [1 favorite]

The Little Drummer Girl is an interesting 1984 film about a random tourist groomed to be an undercover agent. There's also a 2018 TV series that I haven't seen. (uh sorry no chemical gunk, just psychological stuff)
posted by ovvl at 5:38 PM on August 26, 2024

Taking “engineered” more literally than you intend it, you could say saboteur and insurgent false Maria from Metropolis in 1927.
posted by ejs at 5:01 AM on August 27, 2024 [1 favorite]