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Having just read LeCarré's first novel, 'Call for the Dead', I am now appreciating his third novel 'The Spy Who Came in From the Cold' even more. This film adaptation directed by Martin Ritt is a fine preamble to the masterful BBC series 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy' and 'Smiley's People'. One of the joys of LeCarré's novels is that many characters return again and again. Mundt, the "villain" in 'Spy...' first appears in 'Call..' and as usual LeCarré wraps up a few loose ends from the previous story.

This black and white film recreates the sullen atmosphere of cold war espionage in a way that color seems to diminish for some unexplainable reason. Those were black and white kinda times in my memory. Depressing, frightening and dour.

George Smiley makes a small appearance, albeit very important as a character in the plot line, and is nicely played by Rupert Davies, capturing the diffident and wry Smiley as effectively as Guinness did later on and Denholm Elliot even further on in the TV film 'A Murder of Quality'. Cyril Cusack's Control could easily be the younger version of Alexander Knox's masterful rendition in the Smiley TV shows. The continuity suggested in all of these films is very satisfying. It's a shame so many of the other versions of LeCarré's novels are so mediocre... ie 'The Little Drummer Girl' with a totally miscast Diane Keaton, and 'The Russia House', too Hollywood by half.

Richard Burton turns in just about the greatest performance of his life here. He is the embodiment of the disillusioned, bitter and down-trodden ego-maniac that seems to be the basic cocktail for a spy's personality, according to LeCarré.

I've seen this film many times but just recently spotted LeCarré himself (at least it certainly looks like him) as an extra in a short scene. As Leamas is making his roundabout way to Smiley's house at 9 Bywater Street, he is exiting the first of 2 taxis. As he does so a tall, lean man in black is walking towards him. Ritt seems to be focusing the camera on this "extra" actor who actually makes furtive glances at Leamas. It is later revealed that Leamas has been followed by the Communists. Could LeCarré be playing that non-speaking, uncredited part of the Eastern "watcher" trailing Leamas to Smiley's house? Wouldn't surprise me in the least. It's a part LeCarré would have enjoyed playing, I think.

And, like Hitchcock, LeCarré has appeared in film adaptations of his books before.

Claire Bloom is excellent as the naive English communist who hasn't got a clue as to what she's supporting. The end of this film is always shocking to me. The ruthlessness of the spy-masters, the lies, the back-stabbing.... There is nothing over-blown in this film. It's all very subtle and intriguing and with the passage of time just gets more and more fascinating.

Highly recommended to fans of this genre, especially LeCarré fanatics. If you haven't read his books you are missing out on perhaps the finest living writer of the English language. Some "experts" think his writing style is out of date because the plots are so involved and the prose so full of humor and political incorrectness; I read something to that effect in the most recent edition of the 'Halliwell' guide. Perhaps the editor of that book has A.D.D. or something, or perhaps he's just seen to many glitzy, empty flicks designed to entertain the gawping masses, I don't know. To me, LeCarré will never go out of style and it is to be hoped the film adaptations of his books will continue to be made. A few remakes wouldn't be out of order either.

It's truly refreshing to see a spy movie which does not involve fast cars, bikini clad women, super heroes etc. This movie shows how spies are used and discarded. The main character cannot perform stunning stunts while doing one hand push ups. He is just your average Joe who drinks too much and knows that there is no escape from his profession which he seems to hate. The idealism of young people seems to depress him even more which he rips apart towards the end (the highlight of the movie). The bleak look of the movie (it's in B&W) gives it even more of an authentic look and sets the mood for the viewer.

There are no explosions, no car chases, no sweeping a woman off her feet......just plain, simple story telling.

You can check my voting history to see how rarely I give out perfect 10s. But this film truly deserves the honor.

I hesitate to call it a spy movie because it's nothing like any spy movie I've ever seen. There are no hi tech gadgets, shoe phones and sexy Russian agents. There are no fantastic plots to recover microfilm hidden in the crown jewels. The hero doesn't even carry a gun. Instead the battle is fought with pure intelligence, political manipulation and trickery. This is what true espionage is about, the way WWII history books tell us. In the same way Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" broke the rules of the scifi stereotype, this film did the same with the spy genre.

I won't say anything about the plot except that it requires your full attention. Things are not spelled out for us, and it requires a bit of work to piece it together, but that makes the payoff all the more stunning. This movie reads as if it were a book (which may be good or bad depending on how you like your movies). But I assure you it's not boring. I found myself whispering after every scene "This is so freaking cool! How much cooler can it get?" The answer: much.

The acting is flawless. Richard Burton is perfect as the cynical, faithless enigma who hides his mission so well even we can't guess what he's up to. Claire Bloom is equally convincing as the clueless but intelligent bystander. Oskar Werner, in the greatest role I've seen him play, is both chilling and magnetic as the interrogator. Even the minor roles were expertly played.

The script is so clever I highly recommend watching the film with subtitles so that you don't miss any of the great lines and wit. It may also help you keep up with the plot which, as I said, can be tricky.

Sol Kaplan's musical score is sparse but very effective in maintaining the heavy mood. The piano pieces really make you feel the weight of the dreary, cold war era. And the lack of music during tense scenes is equally powerful.

And that brings me to my favourite part of the film: the amazing camera work, cinematography and lighting. This is one of those films that makes you realize that black&white isn't just a choice of film; it's an entire art form unto itself. Darkness and light, sharpness and haze, shadows and contrast are used to the fullest. But it's not obnoxiously done like a 2nd year film student might do. No, everything flows naturally so a layperson can enjoy the scenery just as much as a cinema geek.

And there you have it; nothing but praise from me. The only problem is that it has ruined all the other spy films and political thrillers for me.

The Spy Who Came In From the Cold stars Richard Burton as a world-weary, defeated, cynical and alcoholic ex-agent. It is the performance of his life. It is astonishing to think he was only 40 when he starred in it, as he looks so much older, perhaps from the five-pack-of-cigarettes and three bottles of hard liquor a day that was his habit then.

The movie is from the John Le Carre novel and is a hard-nosed look at the world of international espionage and double agents, as different from the Bond movies as night from day.

Stripped of glamour and endless sunshine, Martin Ritt, the director, uses black and white, rain and wind to enhance the story. One could say the cinematography is a character in itself.

There is no distinction here between the good guys and the bad guys. Spies are of themselves irredeemably evil men in the game for their own nefarious purposes, divorced from all that is decent and humane.

Burton's eyes constantly reflect this as he manages to infiltrate the East Communist Bloc and plays the game instigated by his "Control" in London.

Claire Bloom portrays his innocent young girlfriend, naive and pliable. Oskar Werner and Peter Van Eyck play the East Germans fighting for control of Burton's memoirs and each other.

It is hard to be believe that Burton lost his Oscar to Lee Marvin (in Cat Ballou!!) when he so richly deserved it for his once in a lifetime performance in "The Spy--" Cyril Cusack has a wonderful supporting role as "Control" and just about steals his two scenes from Burton. He never disappoints.

I loved this film in the theatre when it was released and subsequent viewings never fail to enthrall me.

8 out of 10.

The movie is one of those ultra-serious spy thrillers that were made, and probably watched, as an antidote for Bond fever that was sweeping the world in the '60s with the release of "Doctor No". I had heard that "The Ipcress File", with Michael Caine, was the anti-Bond, and perhaps it is, in the sense that Harry Palmer and James Bond are opposite sides of the same coin. "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold" can hardly be mentioned in the same sentence as either.

For starters, it is shot in black and white, making everything look stark and cold. Michael Caine could easily have played James Bond, but Richard Burton looks like someone who wouldn't waste his time with rubbish like that. He is utterly believable as a real-world spy, as are his colleagues. This is a deadly serious job, and it's no place for heroics, nor levity.

But what is the movie actually about? It has a typically confusing plot. Burton is a British spy somehow involved in tension between East and West Berlin. He becomes a double agent by attempting to win the trust of Communists - I believe - and ends up on trial by one side or the other. I wasn't sure.

It's hard not to appreciate a movie as well made and well acted as "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold". And it's hard not to appreciate an attempt to make something that flies in the face of the trends of the time. But for a thriller, "Spy" has next to no thrills, perhaps owing to a plot that is hard to understand.

The last reviewer wrote: Burton is cast as Alex Leamas, a nerve-dead, aged secret operative operating out of West Berlin. After a routine assignment goes awry, Leamas is sent home and out of the service. He struggles to try to live a normal, average life as a librarian's assistant, but he can't make it work for him (something that is not helped by his chronic alcoholism). This fact is made forcefully clear when he winds up beating a local grocer and is sentenced to jail time. Slowly but surely, he allows himself to be pulled back into the Cold War he operated in, not suspecting or maybe not even caring that his superiors are setting him up for a fall.

I think this is wrong. I believe the Burton character, Leamas, working with his UK spy agency, pretends to be kicked out of the spy service and acts as if he is going to seed so he can be "turned" by the enemy and complete his secret mission.

Regardless, it's a great film with a great performance by Burton as the world-weary spy who has seen it all, and Claire Bloom as the idealistic UK communist party member who has no idea how ugly it is out there.

"Alec Leamas" (Richard Burton) is a spy for the British who is given an assignment that involves implicating a high-ranking East German agent named "Hans Dieter-Mundt" (Peter van Eyck) for treason. Knowing that Mundt's subordinate, "Fiedler" (Oskar Werner) despises his boss the British cleverly concoct a plan which sends Alec under false pretenses straight to Fiedler with enough false evidence to have Mundt executed. But there are several variables which make the mission extremely perilous. Now, rather than give any more details and risk ruining it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that this movie captures the Cold War climate extremely well. Not only was Richard Burton nominated for an Academy Award for his performance but Oskar Werner also won a Golden Globe award for his performance as well. Further, the cinematographer (Oswald Morris) also won a BAFTA award for his work. Yet, in spite of all of these awards there were still some parts which were a bit too slow and dull which I felt lessened the film's overall effect. Accordingly, I rate this movie as slightly above average.

I have unreserved enthusiasm for this film having watched it on many occasions and yet to find a fault. Indeed it only gets better. It is so atmospheric, with Director Martin Ritt, his designers and photographers, all superb. You really feel you are either in a typical 1960's corner shop in London, a prison in East Germany or a communist safe-house in Scandanavia.

It has always been my view that once it is established the leading actor in any film is on top form, which certainly applies to Burton and the script is accepted as good, then it is the support actors who determine whether a film is going to reach excellence. The Spy Who Came In from the Cold has an absolutely first-class range of actors at the very top of their profession. The casting is magnificent and each of them has a meaningful part to play in this film, enabling them to bring their own special qualities to every role.

The list of talent is endless and includes Claire Bloom playing the naive young communist, Nan, who befriends Leamas, Michael Hordern, Robert Hardy, Sam Wanamaker, Peter Van Eyck who was very good as Hans Dieter Munt, the very sinister head of the East German Secret Police, the brilliant Cyril Cussack and Bernard Lee. My own particular favourite in the film, however, is the excellent Oskar Werner who portrays Fiedler, Deputy to Munt, who despite this and his fanatical belief in communism, is suspected and despised by his own organisation because he is Jewish.

But of course it is Burton who is the central part to the film and he plays the downbeat spy, Alec Leamas, to perfection, in what must be one of the best performances of his film career. Burton is Leamas and Leamas is Burton. He is brilliant and I cannot imagine the author of the book, John Le Carre, being anything than very impressed with Burton's interpretation of his character.

The film is well worthy of being watched either by those who have not seen it before, or by others who have to appreciate it once again. It is of course from a by-gone era when communism was an ideology followed by millions and opposed by many millions more besides. It was perceived by many as a fight to the death, hence the tension which Martin Ritt and his team magnificently captures.

It may well be a film depicting another era but I have no doubt there will be many operators just like Alec Leamas in our modern-day secret service, just as cynical about making a living in the seedy world in which they inhabit. The story comfortably defies the passing of time, while the quality of acting will be appreciated indefinitely such is the very high standard.

Michael Dixon, Sunderland, England.

It was 1965. The Cold War was raging. Espionage was in its heyday. That year not only saw another James Bond movie ("Thunderball"), but also the first Harry Palmer movie ("The Ipcress File"), the first Derek Flynt movie (I can never remember which came first), and the debut of "Get Smart" (an add for that one even called Maxwell Smart "the spy who forgot to come in from the cold"). So it's no surprise that "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" got released that year.

I will say that this movie overall is a little confusing, with Richard Burton as a British agent taking on a dangerous mission in East Germany. But there were some things that I noticed in the movie that may back up everyone's stereotypes about the west. Someone tells Burton about the notion that the west is never the aggressor. The people in various colonized countries know that to be entirely untrue. Also, Burton says that it is our right to be ignorant; we've unfortunately overused that right.

But I digress. I liked the movie, even if it was often hard to follow. Far from the idealized, sex-centric world of James Bond, "TSWCIFTC" shows the ugly side of espionage. And it does a very intense job of it. Also starring Claire Bloom, Oskar Werner and Bernard Lee (I believe that he's the same Bernard Lee who played M in the James Bond movies).

Black and white, made in the Sixties, a spy film without gadgets - has bummer written all over it, right? Well, no. Forget all that James Bond cack and the good guys in the West vs. the evil guys in the East schlock, once you have seen The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, you feel you know the seedy world of spying inside-out. Well actually, for all I know Spy is just as much fantasy as all that ridiculous James Bond glamour. But that isn't the point. Spy is, after all, only a film, but it is a film which carries a hell of a punch. No, I really do not know whether this portrays the real world of spying, but I have strong suspicion that it does. There are no good guys and bad guys in Spy (and possibly in the real spy world), just intelligent, devious and utterly ruthless men and women who simply want to make sure that the other side doesn't get to win. That, it would seem, is the one principle dear to both sides: make sure you don't lose. In the process of not losing, people are highly expendable. Yes, I'm sure that some agents occasionally use guns and bombs to kill people, but I'm even more sure that the most effective weapon either side has is intellect. Spy is a joy. It takes a little while for the essential story to begin, but that is necessary. If you are reading this before deciding to see it, see it and stick with it. You ain't seen deviousness until you have seen the ruthless deviousness portrayed in Spy. As for the film itself - I have rather been rattling on about spying in general rather than the film - there is not a weak performance in it, and Burton is outstanding. Make time to see it if you can.

This film was part of an anti-Bond spy film cycle. The content, tone and style could not have been any more different. Where Bond depicted spying as a glossy, colourful and glamorous business, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold suggested it was in actuality a drab, down-beat and cynical profession. As a result it is a film that lacks the narrative drive and visual excitement of the Bond series. But what it did have was psychological depth and realism that those films certainly lacked. It also explored the moral dilemmas at the heart of spying, difficult questions that the glamorised spy film never entertained. Not only that, but the world depicted here is clearly set against the ideological background of the cold war. East Germany is explicitly the enemy and the political situation in Berlin is paramount. This sort of reality is a far cry from the distance given by the fantasy world of SPECTRE depicted in the Bond movies.

In The Spy Who Came in from the Cold characters consistently behave in a psychologically believable way. This is a drab and austere place that is captured perfectly by the black and white photography. It is a joyless world, full of weary and cynical individuals who know all too well the nasty nature of the secret service that they are a part of. Alec Leamas is about as far removed from James Bond as you can get. He is an unglamourous and unheroic spy, who does dirty work for his employers. Richard Burton is perfect in this complex role. He captures the sadness and resigned despair of this morally troubled man. Leamas role in the story epitomises the morally equivocal nature of the secret intelligence service. No side in this war is shown to be good. Both are as under-hand as the other. There are no ideological certainties in this film. The tone of the film is unremittingly bleak. The music reflects this with a mournful jazz inflected score. While the acting is universally strong, with everyone excellent. Other than Burton, Claire Bloom stands out as especially good as the only truly sympathetic character in the whole film.

Overall this is an excellent picture. Despite the grimness it is never less than compelling. In fact, the bleakness of the presentation is one of its chief strengths. It makes for a great alternative to Bond. A view of the spy game that was a lot closer to the reality.

On paper, spy stories should be intriguing and thrilling - except when le Carre is putting the words on the paper. The writer is far more interested in the minute, boring details of spy work than in telling a good story. And so it goes here, with spies, counter spies, double agents, counter double agents, counter-counter tinker-tailer, etc. embroiled in a dreary and muddled story about the cold war. This snooze fest came out the same year as "Thunderball," which, while not a great movie by any means, is at least fun. The romantic subplot between Burton (looking bored) and Bloom (looking lovely) is so poorly developed that it's hard to believe she would be so devoted to him.

I read the book about three years ago and was prepared to be disappointed with the feature as it's a grim book and I thought they'd soften it a little, the movie is excellent though, they made a couple of changes but all for the best, anyone who thinks spying was/is a glamorous occupation should check the film out, LeCarre actually worked as a spy too which adds weight to his dark and realistic (in my opinion)view of this filthy job. My favourite feature of the film is the contempt with which each of the communist spies treats his inferiors as the chain of command is followed, it's a beautiful touch which I don't remember from the book, and by the time Leamass starts laughing at it I was right there with him. I loved this film and can't recommend it enough, Burton is brilliant, some of his cold stares as things start going bad are magnificent, and of course he plays a great drunk... it's a nice script too.

So many poor Cold War spy movies were made in the 1960s, ranging from shtick to schlock. This one is a standout -- great acting, great atmosphere, great plot. It's darker, grittier, and more realistic than any other films of this genre from the mid-60s, and wears even better with age (no "mind control machines" or other ridiculous retro gadgets).

Le Carré is often credited for making the spy novel transcend genre fiction and enter into the realm of literature. It is apt that a similar statement can be said about a movie based on Le Carré; it moves beyond "spy movie" into brilliant cinema. Heavily recommended.

I had a relative who in the fringes of their job came into contact with people from the intelligence services.

They always said real spies were less James Bond and more Alec Leamas.

Middle aged, bitter, alone, likely to be divorced, drink too much, politically slightly left of centre.

John Le Carre's The Spy Who Came In from the Cold is noted for maybe showing the true face of spycraft.

On the fringes it has characters like George Smiley. As it goes on, the only person in control is Control. His talk to Leamas about the dirty things the spy services have to do. It is not small talk. It is the literal truth.

Alec Leamas (Richard Burton) messes up an operation in Berlin and is recalled to Britain.

He has been given a new assignment. Leamas has to pretend to have been thrown out by the security services.

It is a ruse for Leamas to come into the attention of British communists and East German intelligence. Be seen as a potential defector.

Leamas is meant to bring down an East German high ranking intelligence officer named Mundt. Leamas finds himself deep of a complex and messy espionage game.

American director Martin Ritt seems to be at ease with such complex material. He makes sure to include a pivotal scene where an important plot point is explained. So many times, espionage films want to leave it dense.

Ritt was left wing and a victim of the McCarthyite witch hunts. Maybe that explained why he was able to identify with an outsider like Leamas and the complex manoeuvrings of the intelligence agencies.

As for Burton, he was already halfway there as the self loathing alcoholic Leamas. The rest was courtesy of a good script and his acting ability.

It seems to me as though no one remembers this film. In fact, I think that it would be fair to say that I wouldn't have become intrigued enough by it to finally rent if I hadn't seen just the briefest of clips of it on an ABC news broadcast. When I think about it, I realize why should anyone remember it? This was made during the Golden Age of Bond, which this film acts as a dark mirror to. More's the pity, actually, as this was one of Richard Burton's finest performances.

Burton is cast as Alex Leamas, a nerve-dead, aged secret operative operating out of West Berlin. After a routine assignment goes awry, Leamas is sent home and out of the service. He struggles to try to live a normal, average life as a librarian's assistant, but he can't make it work for him (something that is not helped by his chronic alcoholism). This fact is made forcefully clear when he winds up beating a local grocer and is sentenced to jail time. Slowly but surely, he allows himself to be pulled back into the Cold War he operated in, not suspecting or maybe not even caring that his superiors are setting him up for a fall.

One will never mistake Alex Leamas' grey, rainy world for the sunlight universe of James Bond. It offers what is probably the ugliest depiction of the Great Game on film: drunkards, ex-Nazis, Jews, and die-hard Communists swimming like sharks through a fish pond, all of them devouring any who get in their way. None have any more than lip-service loyalty to their fellow operatives, their countries, or maybe even their own ideologies. At it's center stands Burton, playing Leamas as a walking dead man, festering with hate, resentment, and cynicism at the system that eventually sends him into the gutter. His devastating parked car monologue alone is worth the price of renting this one from the local video store.

It's bitter cynic tone may have been the film's undoing; rarely have I seen a film so downbeat in it's depiction of humanity. Still, it is not one that deserves to be forgotten.

"The Spy Who Came In From the Cold" works really hard to be a grim, merciless expose of the harshness and amorality of espionage. The movie works so hard at this that it ends up being a rather remote exercise in nihilism. Characters who could have been allowed human depth lack it. Everyone on screen is meant to be a mere puppet in the hands of Cold War puppet masters. Rather, though, everyone on screen is a puppet in the hands of novelist John Le Carre and Martin Ritt, the director.

An example: even a very minor character, Miss Crail, a librarian, played by Anne Blake, is made to read her very few, neutral lines as if she were a Austin-Powers style villain bent on destroying the world, when, in fact, she's just a librarian hoping for an orderly card catalogue. Nan (Claire Bloom), the communist, is made out to be an empty shell who's been impregnated with silly, ditzy, empty ideals. Every time two men interact in front of a third, one dominates and insults the other, as when two spy recruiters meet with a likely candidate at a strip club.

The plot is not at all complex: an aging spy master, Alec Leamas, is lured into a final mission in East Germany. There he learns that things are not as he had been lead to believe. The twist is not all that interesting or shocking. The ending is, though; it's one of the grimmest endings I've ever seen.

In fact, the film works so hard to be unnecessarily abstruse, and to convey an impression that there is no real humanity on planet earth – that we are all just unpleasant insects scurrying around a heartless hive – that the viewer wonders why she should care about any of these spy v. spy shenanigans going on on screen.

Given the technical excellence of the film, I couldn't help but reflect on how much better it would have been had the filmmakers even attempted to convey some element of humanity. I'm not asking that the characters be more likable; I'm just wishing that they had been more three dimensional, more human. I would have cared about them, then, and the film would have had more of an impact.

Claire Bloom, years before this film, had lost her virginity to Richard Burton, a rising star, married, then, to Sybil Burton. Burton was a dog to women and broke Bloom's, and many others' hearts. By the time she starred with him in this movie, she had come to regard him as a "practiced seducer" Her character's name had to be changed from "Liz" to "Nan," because, of course, Burton was, by this point, married to Liz Taylor. Some of Bloom's and Burton's lines carry a double entendre. His character says of hers, "She gave me free love. At that point, that was all I could afford." The best scenes in the movie are between Burton and Oskar Werner, who was never boring on screen, and who should have made more movies. Burton is, as ever, volcanic and intense, while Werner steals their scenes. How he does it, I cannot say, because with Werner you don't see the gears.

The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. 9/10.

For those of you who haven't seen this movie and are looking for a review, well….. This is a movie I had to watch twice. The first time I saw it, many years ago; I didn't like it at all. It was on broadcast television and it was live, no tape, no tivo, just straight through. I couldn't make out what the big deal was about this film. I had some difficulty understanding the dialog and I also had some trouble in putting names with faces. I was more than a little bit frustrated with not having enjoyed it when so many others had.

Cut to ten years and one tivo later.

I love this movie.

This is a movie that will stay with you long after the credits have finished. If after one viewing you feel that you didn't like the movie, don't abandon it quite yet. I realize it's not the kind of movie you'll want to watch back to back, especially if you didn't like it the first time, but take some time away from it and then watch it again. I believe after a couple of viewings you'll really start pick up on a lot of nuance around the characters. And you'll start to understand the dialog better; at least this is how it has played out for me.

For those who have seen this movie, and are looking for a review to see what others may have picked up on…..check out the IMDb review from Richard Tunnah or burgbob975. I liked their reviews for this movie the best.

I don't feel I can add too much more to this review that others haven't already written, other than just pointing out the performances from Richard Burton, Claire Bloom, Cyril Cusack and Oskar Werner as being absolutely magnificent. I especially liked Oskar Werner.

My Favorite scene from the film happens towards the end when Leamas and Nan Perry are driving to meet up in a rendezvous with a person who is to help them escape the occupied territory. While in the car Leamas spills out to Perry all of his pent up venom for his profession and self-loathing. He describes his profession as people who are just a lot of "drunkards, queers and hen-pecked husbands" who protect the "moronic masses". It's the one scene where you feel a genuine release from the tension that has built up through the movie.

Unlike Alec Leamas, you won't be on the fence for this one. You'll either hate it or you'll love it. After two viewings, I've come back to loving it. 9/10.

Clark Richards

"The Spy Who Came in From the Cold" is perhaps the best of the Cold War spy movies. Good writing coupled with brilliant performances make it that rare film based on a novel that is the equal of its predecessor. The uncompromising complexity of its story requires some effort on the part of the viewer but staying engaged in this great picture is well worth the effort.

An aging British spy, Alec Leamas (Richard Burton at his most world weary) is assigned by his chief Control (Cyril Cusack) to dangerous mission. Alec becomes involved in a fiendishly complicated plot to get an ex-Nazi spy chief called Mundt (Peter Van Eyck). The Brits expect Mundt's second-in-command, an East German Jew named Fiedler (Oskar Werner) who hates his ex-Nazi boss, to be the unsuspecting accomplice in this plan. Meanwhile, twist piles upon twist as Alec attempts to infiltrate the East German agency. Alec faces one initially unintended obstacle, namely his relationship with a librarian named Nancy "Nan" Perry (Claire Bloom). It plunges you knife-deep into actual Espionage, it gives you the dirt as well as the dazzle, here is excitement sheer and naked and unforgettable !. The man qho knows all the dirt !.. Sheer and Naked !. Brace yourseld for greatness the book the world could not lay down is now a motion picture !. The book the world could not put down is now a great film !

This acclaimed movie is a cold thriller with plenty of suspense, mystery, tension, a little bit of violence and emphasis on de-glamorizing espionage. This is first movie to show the dirtiness and squalid side of spying, as opposed to the luxury and spectacular world of James Bond. Gritty and superbly realistic with a documentary style which hampered it at the boxoffice. A story that's more monstrously complicated than our starring imagines it to be. The storyline by Paul Dehn and Guy Trosper, adapted from the novel John Le Carré, is razor sharp and especially acute in its observations of nature humane. The film is pretty well, though it results to be some confusing and hard to follow at times, though the story gets several ingredients for entertainment enough. A decent and attractive spy movie that will appeal to good actors lovers, including a large number of familiar Brit secondaries, such as: Sam Wanamaker, Rupert Davies, Cyril Cusack, Michael Hordern, Bernard Lee, Esmond Knight, Robert Hardy, Walter Gotell, Niall MacGinnis, the Austrian Oskar Werner and German Peter Van Eyck.

Including a suspenseful and intriguing musical score by Sol Kaplan, as well as evocative and atmospheric cinematography in black and white by cameraman Oswald Morris. This is one of many adaptations based on John Le Carré novels , this 'The Spy Who Came in from the Cold' (1965) is considered to be one of the best ones.

Here shows up the usual character George Smiley well played by Rupert Davies, this role also appeared in 'Sidney Lumet's The Deadly Affair' in this film, James Mason was the second actor to play John le Carré's famous George Smiley character on screen and TV and adding the excelent series 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy' (1979) the acclaimed BBC production of John le Carré's classic spy story starred by Alec Guinness, Michael Jayston and Ian Richardson.

The flick belongs to spies sub-genre developed during ¨Cold war¨ and its maxim representations are John LeCarre's novels rendered to cinema in movies as ¨The spy who came in from cold¨ (by Martin Ritt with Richard Burton) , ¨The Kremlin Letter¨(John Huston with Nigel Green), ¨Russia House¨(Fred Schepisi with Sean Connery), ¨The Tailor of Panama¨(John Boorman with Pierce Brosnan), and ¨Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)¨ (by Tomas Alfredson with Gary Oldman, Tom Hardy, Simon McBurney), these films get similar atmosphere and twisted intrigues about spies among East and West World, but with no relation to spies from James Bond novels by Ian Fleming . The Spy Who Came in from the Cold(1965) has a rating: 7/10. An above average flick with the greatest Britih actors giving stand-out performances in a film as ingenious as it is bitter.

I suppose this is a movie of its time. The acting is not as ham-fisted as the '40s but it is far from subtle.

Richard Burton is - Richard Burton. I've never watched him in a movie and felt anything other than I'm watching Richard Burton acting - invariably his regular role of a morbid drunk. The other actors mostly provide characitures, except fine roles by the shopkeeper and by the 'queer' who we first see waiting outside the prison.

I read the book many years ago and enjoyed the character development and the unfolding of the story. In the movie the plot seemed rushed and disjointed.