A Murder of Quality

A murder of an instructors' wife (at a seemingly second rate public school in England) brings out George Smiley. The plot gives the director the chance to bring out the best and the worst of the British class system. All delivered in quick, almost incomprehensible-to-American-ears, English. Very intellectual - very elegant. And Denholm Elliott (as Smiley) was such a superb actor, you wonder how he could live with himself!

This movie is a fine work of art. Changes to the original story are very scarce and the acting is quite flawless. So is the period feel as well as camera and directing. Denholm Elliot was magnificent as Smiley. "So sad - so few of us left" (Shane Hecht in the novel, for those who have not read it.)

John LeCarré has been lucky in the adaptations of some of his books on to film. 'A Murder of Quality', though quite different from 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy' and 'Smiley's People', not to forget 'The Spy Who Came in From the Cold', is a perfectly crafted murder mystery.

Denholm Elliot's George Smiley does not try to imitate the famous portrayals by Alec Guinness but creates a similarly fascinating character out of LeCarré's most famous creation. Glenda Jackson plays his spinsterish "pal", Ailsa Brimley, a former colleague of Smiley's from The Circus during the war years. She is akin to Connie Sachs, memorably played by the great Beryl Reid in other LeCarré adaptions. Both Ailsa and Connie were in love with George and enraged at his reprobate wife, Ann. This and other LeCarré themes are used in 'A Murder of Quality' to their usual intriguing effects; the inclusion of homosexuality, misogynistic tendencies in some of the male characters and the hint of Smiley's darker, perhaps murderous past.

It is good to see Joss Ackland and Thorley Walters, old hands from earlier LeCarré adaptations. There isn't a weak link in the cast. Christian Bale makes a sexually tantalizing school boy, complete with his "criminal mind" and vulnerable consciousness. Diane Fletcher, the Lady Macbeth-like Mrs Urquehard from 'House of Cards' appears here as the tough dramatic arts mistress, the archetype gorgon, hearty and heartless.

Billie Whitelaw is a poignant mad-woman, Ronald Pickup a wonderfully spineless worm who lives with his "manly" sister, Fiona Walker. Matthew Scurfield is a fascinating police chief, a working grunt with many-faceted depths to his personality.

The cinematography is on the dark and gloomy side, as befits the story and setting. The music is superb, another wonderfully evocative score by the late great Stanley Myers.

This is now available on DVD from Acorn Media and I urge all LeCarré addicts to get it.

Great television like this is extremely rare, and getting scarcer all the time.

SO I just watched the film version of Jean LaCarre's *A Murder of Quality*. I liked the way the book ended better. However, it did prove something I had been saying for a long time: that Gary Oldman made a TERRIBLE George Smiley. He does not look right and he does not act right. You see, I'm a HUGE Smioley fan and, like most, I'm a fan from the books. Smiley is described as a funny little man and a disheveled Oxford Don. He has great humor about him that masks a great rage, and his rage is righteous, almost zealous. He is a champion in a battle between good and evil, and he hates the fact that he is constantly doing evil in the name of good. Oldman was wrong physically and was wrong in temperament. Eliot, a great if often overlooked British Actor, plays that switch between humor and rage perfectly, and he looks like a funny little Oxford Don. When I read that Elliot played smiley in this version I knew it would be great, because his turn as Marcus Brody in the Indiana Jones movies had all of Smiley's humor and the Oxford don clichés without his cunning or his rage.

In addition to Elliot, the movie has a terrific cast, including Joss Ackland at his sonorous best, Glenda Jackson, and a very young Christian Bale in a pivotal role (this was right before Newsies and a couple years after Henry V). It has that typical made for TV British mystery plodding, and one or two incredibly poor digital mats, but I really liked it.

My favorite DVD bar none. Denholm Elliott's Smiley was a brilliant interpretation in the shadow of Alec Guinness, not a surprise if one remembers his role in Woody Allen's "September." Glenda Jackson and Diane Fletcher might have been given more screen time. Christian Bale was smartly cast.

I've watched the DVD perhaps 30 times, more than either Tinker Tailor 1979 or Smiley's People 1982 (but they are several hours longer, I'd have to reload the DVD player for these, and each have gotten 10 or more viewings). To digress, Bernard Hepton's part in Smiley"'s People is scary good. To digress again, Cyril Cusack's "Control" in Spy Who Came in from the Cold" is chilling (though the style of the film is badly dated).

Is this program a mystery at all? I think "A Murder of Quality" is mostly a commentary by Le Carre on the sins and pretensions and hypocrisy of the decayed British Empire of the 1950's. To me, the mystery is much in the background - it provides a great format. In contrast, Tinker-Tailor and Smiley's People use the complex mystery to illuminate the hypocrisies of the East and West, but are strong core mysteries.

When I first viewed "A Murder of Quality" I was slightly put off by the structure, particularly the quick scene changes. I now think it was clever and possibly the reason I view the story over and over. I'm not sure who might get my credit/praise. Perhaps it's J Le Carre himself since he has screen writing credit.

On my DVD, Diane Fletcher's photo appears for Glenda Jackson in her (Glenda's) biography. There is no Diane Fletcher biography.