Code name - Blockbuster: Poonam Saxena on Bollywood’s infatuation with the spy

Secrets, lies, guns and gizmos… the spy captivated the box office this year. But the infatuation began 55 years ago, with a hit film by you’ll-never-guess-who.

Since spy films have been the ticket to box-office triumph this year (I’m looking at you, Pathaan and Tiger 3), I couldn’t help but go back to a spy thriller from a different era. Released 55 years ago, it was a pioneer of the genre, the biggest hit of 1968, and made by the last man you would associate with guns and bombs.

The man in question was born Chandramouli Chopra in 1917 (though he would later change his name).

Farz, which released the year before Ankhen, and Humsaya, months later, don’t really compare with Ramanand Sagar’s spy saga.

Ankhen was by no means the first spy film made in India. The James Bond-inspired Farz, starring Jeetendra (as Agent 116) was released a year earlier. And in 1968, months after Ankhen, came Humsaya, with Joy Mukherjee (who also directed the film), Mala Sinha and Sharmila Tagore.

In both Farz and Humsaya, the enemy state is China. The Farz villain is a stiff, robotic Chinese man nicknamed Supremo, who marches about like a wind-up toy, and barks staccato orders such as “Kill Sunita!” “Load poison powder!” and “Ruin India!” In Humsaya, the villain is a Comrade Chen (Madan Puri), who hatches an elaborate plan to infiltrate the Indian Air Force. The 1962 war with China was still clearly fresh in everyone’s mind.

But these two films bookending Ankhen never quite matched Ramanand Sagar’s spy outing. Spy films would continue to pop up in subsequent years; the vanquishing of a sneaky infiltrator became a popular plotline. Today, it has hit pay dirt. Over and out.