The Spook Who Sat by the Door, based on the book by the same title by Sam Greenlee, is a film that is tied to the moment it was released — just a few years earlier, uprisings lit up cities across the country as Black communities rebelled against police terror, economic underdevelopment, redlining, and demanded revolutionary change. In the film, the CIA is forced to hire its first Black agent, who resigns after being recruited in order to use his training to develop an organization with revolutionary aims. Banned soon after its first screening, this film has been celebrated by radical activists and anti-racist organizers as much as it has been panned by the CIA itself — although, author Sam Greenlee claims that his book was required reading at the CIA after its publication.
1973 | USA | Ivan Dixon | 102 minutes
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