L'espion qui venait du froid

Original title: The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

IMDb RATING

7.5/10

20K

YOUR RATING

British agent Alec Leamas refuses to come in from the Cold War during the 1960s. But his next mission may be his final one.

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Spy Drama Thriller

Instead of coming in from the Cold War, British agent Alec Leamas chooses to face another mission.Instead of coming in from the Cold War, British agent Alec Leamas chooses to face another mission.Instead of coming in from the Cold War, British agent Alec Leamas chooses to face another mission.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.5/10

20K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Nominated for 2 Oscars
- 10 wins & 5 nominations total

Videos2

Trailer 1:31

Trailer

Trailer 1:53

The Spy Who Came In From The Cold

Trailer 1:53

The Spy Who Came In From The Cold

Photos62

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Storyline

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Trivia
After Richard Burton became a superstar, he insisted on casting his friends from his days at the Old Vic and West End (London's equivalent to New York City's Broadway). Friends of Burton's cast in this movie included Michael Hordern and Robert Hardy. Burton's former leading lady (on-stage and in two movies) Claire Bloom, however, was cast by Martin Ritt. This caused friction for several reasons: Burton had wanted his wife, Dame Elizabeth Taylor, in the role, and he and Bloom had been an item in the 1950s. John le Carré remembers that "off-screen Bloom preserved a dignified distance in her caravan".

Goofs
At the beginning of the film they say that Leamas has been waiting for days for the arrival of Riemeck. This behavior doesn't make sense, as it gives away the arrival of a defector to the opposing side.

Quotes
Alec Leamas: It was a foul, foul operation, but it paid off.
Nan Perry: Who for?
Alec Leamas: What the hell do you think spies are? Moral philosophers measuring everything they do against the word of God or Karl Marx? They're not! They're just a bunch of seedy, squalid bastards like me: little men, drunkards, queers, henpecked husbands, civil servants playing cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten little lives. Do you think they sit like monks in a cell, balancing right against wrong? Yesterday I would have killed Mundt because I thought him evil and an enemy. But not today. Today he is evil and my friend. London needs him. They need him so that the great, moronic masses you admire so much can sleep soundly in their flea-bitten beds again. They need him for the safety of ordinary, crummy people like you and me...
Nan Perry: You killed Fiedler!
Alec Leamas: How big does a cause have to be before you kill your friends? What about your Party? There's a few million bodies on that path!

Connections
Featured in Great Performances: Richard Burton: In from the Cold (1988)

User reviews167

Featured review

8/10

Is that right?

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.