O Espião que Saiu do Frio

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.

Back during the Cold War, people actually bought into the bleak misery that was brinkmanship & actors actually took chances, & their agents let them.

Richard Burton is Alec Laemmas, John Le Carre's reluctant spy, whose disillusionment is turned against him to save one last informant: hard to believe that Mr. Burton was then still in the throes of his public romance with Liz Taylor. Grim's the word here: from the opening Checkpoint Charlie Berlin scene to the Dutch shores to the East German countryside--the Cold War's done nobody any favors. Moreover, this harsh treatment of spies & their back-stabbing, double-dealing ways was made just after Ian Fleming's suave James Bond had become a pop movie icon (Bond's "M," Bernard Lee, as a grocer here ["T'get a proper credit, y'need a banker's reference."], gets the crap pummeled outta him by Burton).

Anyway, "Spy" is movie stripped of glamor: everyone gets usurped by people with power. Burton's Laemmas is sent to salvage the good guys' chief informant, a senior GDR official; Claire Bloom's Commie idealist Nancy is called to East Germany under the ruse of cultural exchange, to aid in the hoax. Oscar Werner is mesmerizing ("Were you present for ziss...Sanksgiving?") as the no. 2 man in the Abteilung, on the trail of no. 1, Peter van Eyck, until Laemmas shows up to thwart his plans.

If old cold warriors were only half as conniving as they appear here, whither did they go after the fall of the Soviet Union? Something to which nobody with nanogram of sense has paid much attention.

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.

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.

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.