The Human Factor

Nicol Williamson remains restrained throughout the film, yet his face is so expressive that it does mirror the emotions and thoughts of his character. His admirable performance elevates this otherwise flat, talky thriller, which definitely tries to be a non-taditional spy drama, in the spirit of "The Ipcress File", but doesn't even have the elementary excitement we expect from the genre. (**)

Maurice Castle (Nicol Williamson) is a bland mid-level bureaucrat in British intelligence. The only notable fact about him is his African wife Sarah (Iman). His superiors suspect a leak in the firm and decide to quietly eliminate the mole to avoid any publicity. Castle's office mate Arthur Davis (Derek Jacobi) becomes the main target of investigation.

Otto Preminger directs this realistic espionage thriller from a Graham Greene novel with many veteran British actors. With such great pedigree, I expected a great classic but this is definitely second tier level. It does get better in the second half. The first half is a slow slough. Maurice's blandness works against the film during that first half. In fact, he's a side character in his own movie. The production value is limited. This looks more like a TV movie. Preminger is really struggling even considering the budget. The filming is not imaginative and very static. It's almost a throwback to the early black and white movies. The only salvation is the Graham Greene writing which has a sense of realism which is very intriguing. This is a little disappointing.

'Sr Moreno' dismisses the Preminger film adaptation of 'The human factor' very intemperately: The clincher of his argument - which consists largely in being rude to Iman (she was perfectly adequate in her role, and certainly believably a beauty whom a career diplomat might have risked his career for) - is Graham Greene's own declared dislike of Preminger's version.

While obviously his own direct collaboration with Carol Reed made 'The Third Man' into the definitive Greene adaptation for the screen, and a classic sans pareil, there is still no need to be unduly respectful of his impatience with this version of his 'The human factor.'

After all, Greene had a well-known falling-out with Mankiewicz during the filming of the 1959 version of 'The quiet American,' but no-one else thinks that was a bad movie!

Few filmed adaptations are entirely successful - probably without the original author's close collaboration they will inevitably be more-or-less diminished versions of the literary form. And while Grahame Greene was perfectly entitled, with the status of 'onelie true begetter' to be hyper-critical of any lesser recensions, that is not a sensible reason for the rest of us not to enjoy and appreciate what is a perfectly intelligent and involving film in its own right.

There are few enough thrillers around on the TV today which do not involve various forms of adolescent excitability and excess that I should have thought the BBC were perfectly justified in giving it an airing recently on their 'thoughtful' channel.

This is no 'The third man' to be sure - but then, what is? This remains a film with, clearly, much in it to admire.

Surely, if every film has to achieve the status of 'masterpiece' before it can be accepted at all - as 'Moreno' appears to believe - then would there not be a certain danger of an unbridgeable culture-gap developing between the extremes of 'art-house film' and 'teen-flick'? Fortunately, audiences - and film-makers - are still quite willing to 'give it a go,' even if the results are 'merely' intelligent, rather than the absolutely brilliant - and still quite rare - product of genius!

Really, I feel most strongly that 'Moreno''s strictures represent exactly the kind of intellectual snobbery which can only tend to alienate cinema audiences even further from any more sober and challenging films.

There really are enough points of worthwhile discussion raised by this film of 'The human factor' for it to be impossible to dismiss in a single paragraph of supercilious contempt: 'Terrible' does not amount to a review, but only to intemperate spleen, I'm afraid.

Tom Stoppard's adaptation, and Preminger's direction, seem to have produced a stylish and grown-up filmed interpretation of Greene's sardonic yet moving condemnation of the cruelty of the Cold-War, during which both the Left and the Right have forgotten 'The Human Factor.'

Both the West and the Soviets are portrayed as they execute a risibly elephantine yet humanly appalling dance of death over the crushed lives of ordinary, decent people.

This remarkably accomplished and understated politico/moral thriller is a far more effective translation of an immeasurably greater book than is the more recent film of John Le Carre's original novel of 'The Tailor of Panama.' The latter film in particular entirely fudges the politics of Noriega's Panama, and the United States' role therein. Preminger's film, by contrast, is amazingly honest and balanced, for its period, about the protagonists of the fraught global struggle of its time. In this it is faithful to Greene's intentions.

No doubt the earlier film was critically sunk by its evident contempt for the received political 'wisdom' of its age. And by its willingness to entertain the possibility that the 'democratic' West could quite easily countenance Nazi-style medical research, both for the removal of inconvenient individuals like the wretched Davis, and for sale to strategic allies like apartheid-era South Africa in the form of a poison gas 'cordon sanitaire' between them and black Africa. Certainly, even the best American reviews (which always heavily preponderate on this Website), while they 'condemn with faint praise,' studiedly avoid any mention of the political and moral core of the film. This is to circumvent, and to radically subvert, the integrity of a serious work.

However, anyone who has actually grown up since then should enjoy and appreciate this rather brilliant - if neglected - film version of a Grahame Greene classic: Script, performances, design and filming are uniformly excellent. It is far, far more than a spy-thriller. Greene's original is faithfully followed into areas that Le Carre merely touches upon.

Special praise and thanks, therefore, to BBC4's original and brave choice to programme it on their new British channel, recently! Naturally, it is not commercially available in Britain. American capitalism, however - to its partial credit! - is capable of allowing this film to exist at least as a product, relying on dialectical hostility to effectively police the public's exposure to such an evidently heretical viewpoint! Sufficient numbers of people will always helpfully parrot the 'official line' that is peddled by our cultural 'commissars' in order to prevent such views spreading in the wildfire manner which a truly free exchange of ideas would permit. Their critical contempt for the viewing public is obviously justified, I regret to say.

I must confess that this was the first Otto Preminger movie I've seen, so I cannot comment it as an Otto Preminger movie, but rather just a movie among others.

I'm very much a fan of both cold war spy movies and 70/80s Great Britain, so the elements were in place for me to enjoy this. I had never heard of this (I'm yet to go through Preminger's movies) and I quite randomly picked it from the online service as it seemed pretty interesting.

And it was interesting. Very subtle and talkative, I have to say I really really liked it. The story itself wasn't too exciting, but interesting nonetheless. It's about the secret service and an apparent leak of information - possibility of double agents and so on. Very gripping, yet quite slow paced - no action. I just watched le Carre film "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" and they are quite alike in style, altho I have to say I enjoyed this more. Even if it's not necessarily as well made, this wasn't quite as heavy-handed.

The acting is great for the most part. Nicol Williamson was a name I hadn't heard of before, but his presence really made this movie. Very understated and brilliant character, just like anyones neighbor or work colleague. There's a weak link too unfortunately and that's Iman, she's horribly wooden and unnatural in her acting most of the time.

I'm dropping one point because of sloppy cinematography too - lighting in particular and a few shots that look really staged. I'm not sure why some scenes were so horribly set up, the lights almost looked as if they just flipped a few spotlights over and pointed them at actors faces.

Despite these few flaws, it's a really enjoyable spy movie for anyone into cold war spy stories in style of le Carre etc. Grab a whisky and time machine yourself back into cold war era. This doesn't seem to be too well distributed tho so it may be a bit hard to find.