The Spy Who Came In from the Cold

This depressingly bleak and highly complex screen adaptation of John le Carré’s acclaimed Cold War spy novel was showered with awards upon its release, including BAFTAS for Richard Burton (‘Best Actor’), Oskar Werner (‘Best Foreign Actor’) and ‘Best British Film’.

Burton delivers a career-best performance as Alec Leamas, an Irishman and former station chief working for the West Berlin branch of MI6 who is recalled to London after the brutal killing of one of his operatives. Penniless, without work and full of self-pity the gets a job working as an assistant at a library though what he doesn’t know is that this cleverly orchestrated change of direction is all part of an elaborate plan masterminded by ‘Control’ (Cyril Cusack), the Secret Service head honcho. Meanwhile Leamas (who very obviously has a drink problem) makes friends with fellow librarian Nan Perry (Claire Bloom) – an enthusiastic member of the British Communist Party – and soon the two are romantically involved. Meanwhile, Leamas’ alcoholism worsens and when, in a drunken stupor, he beats up a local shopkeeper who won’t give him credit he finds himself locked up in Wormwood Scrubs Prison on an assault charge – an incident that soon comes to the attention of the East German Intelligence Service…

Barely out of the slammer, Leamas is greeted by Ashe (Michael Hordern), a homosexual who’s in on the game (no pun intended). Leamas: “Do you always hang around park benches waiting for men?” Soon the embittered and increasingly cynical Irishman finds himself surrounded by vultures – that is to say intelligence operatives who send the potential defector on one final mission, playing Leamas (who is willing to sell British secrets for hard cash) into the hands of the East German Intelligence Service. In no time he’s on a flight to the Netherlands where his first port of call is the house of an agent named Peters (Sam Wanamaker), a man who seemingly never stops asking questions. Satisfied with the answers, Peters decides that Leamas’ next stop will be East Germany. Here he makes the acquaintance of Fiedler (Oskar Werner) who further interrogates Leamas. Once satisfied, Fiedler then gives Leamas carte blanche to proceed with his secret mission, involving the sharing of top secret information which will implicate a high-ranking East German intelligence officer (and former Nazi member) called Hans-Dieter Mundt (Peter van Eyck) as being an informant for the British. Although Leamas has his doubts (then again, why would he care seeing as how he’s on a mission that will pay him much needed money) Fiedler claims to have strong evidence that would indeed implicate Mundt. As the conversation continues, Mundt arrives at the compound out of nowhere and immeditaley has both Fiedler and Leamas arrested for plotting his downfall.

Meanwhile back in London, the naïve Nan receives a surprise visit from George Smiley (Rubert Davies), an apparent friend of Leamas who coaxes her into a ‘cultural exchange visit’ to East Germany but there are also payments involved which later will implicate Leamas. Back in East Germany a harrowing ‘secret’ tribunal takes place during which Fiedler, Mundt and Leamas verbally throw dirt at each other. Just as it looks as if Mundt is about to receive the short end of the stick along comes Nan who has no idea as to why she really has been brought to the Communist country. Oblivious to what’s going on, her testimony sees Mundt walk free while she and Leamas find themselves arrested… As for the unfortunate Fiedler (who has been telling the truth all along), he’s up for execution. In yet another unexpected twist Mundt arranges the escape of Leamas and Nan over the Berlin Wall. While the pair drive to the border in a borrowed car, Nan expresses her deep disappointment that her lover is involved in an operation which culminates in the calculated murder of Fiedler. He snaps back by explaining that the British Intelligence Service sacrificed a Jew (Fiedler) in order to save an ex-Nazi (Mundt), continuing: “Yesterday I would have killed Mundt because I thought him evil and an enemy. But not today. Today he is evil and my friend.” Of course, had Leamas been completely on the ball he should have known never to have trusted an ex-Nazi – a serious lapse of judgement that will have a fatal outcome for both him and Nan…

The spy business is a dirty business and no one understood this so well as John le Carré – himself employed by MI5 and MI6 before he traded the profession of an intelligence officer with that of a novelist. If his THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD is a novel grim in tone than this 1965 film adaptation is the perfect match. There are no superheroes a la James Bond in this sordid tale of betrayal and backstabbing where loyalties shift at a frightfully fast rate. We don’t even get a remotely sympathetic ‘anti-hero’ like Harry Palmer for example. Instead, this is a world inhabited by deeply flawed and highly unscrupulous individuals where everyone has an agenda that you can’t see coming, well, at least not straight away!
It’s ironic that Richard Burton wasn’t even director Martin Ritt’s initial choice and the two famously didn’t get on that well on set, especially when Ritt instructed his main man to (quite literally) tone down his powerful Welsh voice: “A secret agent always behaves obscurely and acts low-key.” Further tensions arose when Claire Bloom (Ritt would have preferred the considerably less attractive Rita Tushingham) was cast as Burton’s love interest, seeing how the two had an off-screen affair some years prior to this. Although both actors were determined to be professional throughout the shooting, things weren’t helped by the fact that Burton’s ultra-glamorous wife – Hollywood star Elizabeth Taylor – stayed with him in a hotel. Bloom herself wasn’t short of bitchy remarks: “There is a difference between a brilliant actor and a superstar. Richard Burton seems to confuse the two.” Meow! And it would appear that Burton repeatedly hit the bottle during filming not because the script required it but because he was a notorious chain smoker and drinker (his chronic alcoholism contributed to his death), with director Ritt referring to him as a ‘bum’.

THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD is presented on Blu-ray for the first time in the UK and the release includes the following Bonus Material: audio commentary, trailer, illustrated collector’s booklet and a new video essay by David Cairns.