Over at Slash Film, Ethan Anderton proposes a list of the 15 best movies spies. I have no substantive objections to most of the people on the list. But I must strongly agitate against the inclusion of Inglourious Basterds' Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Krueger). She was, in fact, a terrible spy.
Consider: when first we meet Miss von Hammersmark, she is holed up in a tavern awaiting the arrival of Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) and his Basterds. But not just any tavern: a death trap of a tavern. "You didn't say the goddamn rendezvous was in a fuckin' basement," Raine spits to the Brit who has led them there, wisely pointing out that "fightin in a basement offers a lot of difficulties, number one being, you're fighting in a basement." And it's true: Even I, a lowly film critic and editor, understand that waging war in a spot that has just one entrance and exit and is easily surrounded is a bad idea. Or, as Raine puts it, "Ya don't got to be Stonewall Jackson to know you don't want to fight in a basement."
To this, Reine's interlocutor responds that she wasn't looking for someplace to fight. She was looking for someplace free of Germans. Which brings us to mistake number two: The basement death trap tavern wasn't free of Germans. No: There were a whole bunch of Germans there! And not just the random Germans celebrating the birth of a child, but an officer, one, presumably, who goes there all the time. So many fails in such a short period of time.
But this is nothing compared to her final failure: She leaves evidence of her existence all over the bar, even after everything goes to hell! To wit:
And
What in the ever-living Christ did she think she was doing? Answer: She wasn't thinking! She just wanted to get out of dodge. She didn't consider all the angles. Why? Because she's a terrible, terrible spy.
Von Hammersmark would later compound the problem by trying to pass off a bunch of non-Italian speakers as her guests at the climactic movie premiere; despite her suggestion that Germans have a bad ear for the language, they were immediately revealed to be frauds. (WRONG AGAIN, IDIOT.) Fortunately for the world, a duplicitous Nazi was the one who sniffed out her ruse and he allowed the plan to kill Hitler to go on unimpeded.
Now, some would suggest that Bridget von Hammersmark was simply unlucky, that her plan merely met an unfortunate series of accidents. But we make our own luck in this world. And part of being a great spy is having a solid awareness of your situation, something von Hammersmark clearly lacks. As a result, I have no choice but to demand Anderton amend his list and remove this dope from his list of the best movie spies.