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The Spy Who Came in from the Cold | Year: 1965 Classification: Action/Adventure Directed: - Martin Ritt Actors/Actresses: - Richard Burton - Oskar Werner Cold-Blooded Fever Inside a grim little room in the empty countryside somewhere east of the Berlin wall an East German agent is interrogating a defecting British spy. The defector is anxious and weary. He wants his money now. Prompting the Communist agent to say this : "You are a traitor, the lowest currency of the cold war. We buy you, we sell you, we lose you, we can even shoot you. Not a bird in the trees would stir if we did just that." Except that Alec Leamas(Richard Burton) is not really a defector, he is only masquerading as one. On his last assignment for the British Secert Service, he is to pretend to be burnt out and jobless. Never faraway from a bottle he walks around the streets of London cynical and depressed, his "masterstroke" in this act is an ugly fight with a shopkeeper who refuses to give him credit. This ofcourse attracts the attention of the East German agants who view him as a potential defector because of his dire need for cash and his embitterment towards the British Agency for abandoning him. It is a credit to Burton's brilliant and painfully realistic performance that you are pretty sure his embitterment in not entirely an act. That he really is a drunk. That he wholeheartedly agrees with the German when he calls him "the lowest currency of the cold war", even if he is not a defector. To him, all spies, on both sides, are scum. John Le Carre was an ex-British intelligence officer when he wrote the celebrated novel on which this film was based. It was called "the finest spy story ever written" by the writer of The Third Man, Graham Greene. And in a sense, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold starts where The Third Man left off. The lead character has already lost any faith he had in humanity. I suspect that the only reason Leamas hadn't really defected is because even money has lost its lure. Surprisingly the most sympathetic characters in the book(and the film) are the communist spy Fiedler(Oskar Werner) and naive communist librarian Liz Gold(renamed Nan Perry in the film and played by Claire Bloom), and both pay dearly for it. In the world of The Spy Who Came In From The Cold idealism is not merely misguided, it is pathetic. When Fiedler sincerely asks Leamus "How do you sleep at night without a philosophy?". Leamus's typically jaded answer is "I don't believe in God or Karl Marx. I don't believe in anything that rocks the world. I reserve the right to remain ignorant." In adapting the novel, scripters Paul Dehn and Guy Trosper retained the icy restraint of the novel. Director Martin Ritt(who made the better known but inferior Norma Rae) shoots the film in a harsh black and white. Accompanied by a sad violin score, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold is finally a sentimental film about unsentimentality. Ridiculously Burton lost out on the Oscar infavour of Lee Marvin in the frankly ridiculous Cat Ballou. The film was nominated for just one other Oscar which was for Art-Direction. A shame. With its moral and asthetic complex Still gritty, still gripping, cinematic fable... THE SPY is a minor masterpiece. The acting is superb.The screenplay--by Paul Dehn and Guy Trosper--is utterly faithful to the disturbing cynicism of John Le Carre's acclaimed novel. Technical execution--art direction; bleak black, murky white photography;and pacing,simultaneously direct and labyrinthine--is faultless. This may be Richard Burton's finest role as Alec Leamas; bitter,decidedly unglamorous, unsuper-SPY of the equally unglamorous British SIS.The latter is incarnated in the marvelous cameo of Cyril Cusack,the MI-6 CONTROL,who without qualm or conscience sends his transparently convictionless Field Man back into THE COLD for a final WICKED ACT of ultimate treachery. Claire Bloom is excellent as crucial pawn in the British Spymaster's gambit against East German Communist SD commanded by ex-Nazi Hans-Dieter Mundt essayed with icy venom by Peter Van Eyck. As noted, the singularly sympathetic character in the story is played by Oscar Werner,a Communist idealogue who attempts to use Leamas to ferret-out a traitor within the Communist Intelligence apparat. If you know the story, you will not be disappointed in its unfolding as "untragic" tragedy.There is no heroism. The "hollow man" quality of principal characters strikes too close to home in characterizing "Democratic" vacuity in principle-less<BR>decadence. Leamas unfeigned scorn for himself is overwhelming. Director Martin Ritt cuts no slack on viewer sensibilities in presenting amorality of COLD WAR pretensions to preservation of the Good and Just. Irony of Bernard Lee--who played "M" in 007 films for more than 20 years--playing a hard-working, grocery store proprietor whose generosity to a drunken Leamas gets him viciously assaulted by THE SPY conveys an anti-Good Samaritan parable uncomfortably consonant with Post-Modernist power-trip philosophies proposing "good guys are saps". The COLD WAR may be over, but this film...beginning with gunning-down of would-be heroes fleeing to freedom; ending with should-be heroes being gunned-down climbing(The Berlin Wall)back...proposes that battles<BR>for freedom are spiritual struggles and when the good guys "give-up", God help peoples or nations that do not recognize or remember what SPIRIT is or value the heroism required to defend it. A great picture; a cinematic fable. Scary black and white film.... The world John Lecarré describes is without mercy and forgiveness. The films based on his books are not nearly as terrifying, though they are frightening enough. THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD is an early adaptation of one of Lecarré's books by the same name, and in it he introduces albeit briefly, the character George Smiley. The three main characters in this production Alex (Richard Burton), Nan (Claire Bloom) and Monque (Oskar Werner) were all very fine actors in the 1950s and 1960s. This film was one of the last Burton made (965) and in it he plays a "burnt-out" spy who has been the operations officer in Berlin for 15 years of the Cold War. Alex was recruited by British Intelligence shortly after WWII just as the East Bloc began to descend behind the "Iron Curtain" according to Western leaders like Churchill. The CIA was also spun from military intelligence during this period, and there is a brief interaction between Alex and a CIA officer at the beginning of the movie as Alex awaits a defecting East German spy at the infamous "Checkpoint Charlie". SPY is shot in Black and White which enhances the spooky subject. Night time scenes with flashing lights and rainy London weather add to the atmosphere. I first saw this film in the theater, and I was so young I could not figure out what was going on. The plot is complex, but not as complex as that of later adaptations such as SOLDIER, SAILOR...,or SMILEY'S PEOPLE which were given ample air time for the unraveling. It is a frightening film, and some one my age might wonder why anyone would ever become a spy. Buy The Spy Who Came In From The Cold at Amazon.com Buy posters at Allposters.com Jamster - the latest ringtones for your phone!  Search with Walhello on the Internet on The Spy Who Came In From The Cold Search with the Priority Search Engine on The Spy Who Came In From The Cold This page in other languages: Suomeksi | Nederlands | Deutsch
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