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Tom Wambsgans, international spy? If the latest John le Carré adaptation hoping to make it to the small screen has its way, we'd be nearly halfway there. That's right, Successionstar (and many people's favorite Darcy) Matthew Macfadyen is attached to star in the latest mysterious spy thriller story writ large by the prolific and beloved le Carré. Legacy of Spies, based on the author's series of George Smiley-fronted novels, is said to be the latest project from independent production studio The Ink Factory.

According to a report from TheWrap, Macfadyen will play the iconic George Smiley in a series that will ultimately be executive produced by the highly-regarded writer and executive producer Graham Yost. With several scripts already ready to go, it seems as though The Ink Factory is excited to get this series green lit for a network or streamer. And it makes sense: John le Carré's work...

Matt and Amy Roloff's relationship is in a Cold War phase - they hurt each other covertly. Matt's decision to list part of Roloff Farms for sale made him seem shady, like a double agent who sells out their country. Is Matt really all about his kids? Maybe not. The show's future is uncertain as Matt, Zach, and Tori Roloff navigate their strained relationships. The cold may become too painful to bear.

Do you know what love is? I'll tell you: it is whatever you can still betray.

John le Carr, The Looking Glass War

Little People, Big World stars Matt and Amy Roloff are in the "Cold War" phase of their relationship - things are tense even though both have moved on with other partners. Matt's going to marry Caryn Chandler - Amy already wed Chris Marek. When the USA and Soviet Union had their "Cold War," each nation used shady tactics,...

The Circus, the Showtime docuseries that presented the chaotic world of politics in a weekly narrative, is ending its run after eight seasons and 130 episodes.

The show, with regular host correspondents are Mark McKinnon, John Heilemann and Jennifer Palmieri, will have its final episode on Sunday on Paramount+ with Showtime and Showtime linear.

Showtime decided not to renew the series amid changes at the premium network. One of the big champions of the show, David Nevins, departed last year.

The Circus is ending just on the cusp of the 2024 presidential cycle, in what might be a fight-to-the-finish rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, the latter of whom is likely to spend the better part of the year in court facing criminal charges.

The show’s hosts haven’t foreclosed the possibility of continuing on another platform, but they gave credit to Showtime for embracing the idea for The Circus and staying with it.

Under the non de plume John Le Carre, David Cornwall penned a series of best-selling spy novels including “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold,” “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” ‘The Little Drummer Girl’’ and “The Russia House,” that are cerebral, unadorned, gritty. The antitheist of Ian Fleming’s suave James Bond. In fact, his most popular character George Smiley just blended into the crowd: “Obscurity was his nature, as well as his profession,” Cornwall described him in “A Murder of Quality.” “The byways of espionage are not populated by the brash and colorful adventure of fiction. A man who, like Smiley, had lived and worked for years among his country’s enemies learns only one prayer; that he may never, never be noticed. Assimilation is his highest aim.”

Before his death at the age of 89 in in December, 2020, Cornwall sat down for a rare interview with award-winning documentarian Errol Morris...

"When I was in MI6, it wasn't enough for me - so what I did is reinvent the secret world and fill my own people with it." Very intriguing... Apple TV has unveiled the main official trailer for The Pigeon Tunnel, the latest documentary film made by the one-and-only Errol Morris. This will be premiering at the 2023 Telluride Film Festival this weekend, with stops at the Toronto and New York Film Festivals this fall before it's out for streaming on Apple TV+ in October. The doc spans six decades as the iconic British author John le Carré gives his final and most personal interview, interrupted with rare archival footage and other dramatic anecdotes. It is set against the stormy Cold War backdrop that extends into the present day. Le Carré passed away in 2020 at the age of 89. His novels which have been adapted for film or TV include The Looking Glass War...

Earlier this week, all across the world, fans of Johnny Depp celebrated the veteran actor's career by watching some of his best movies as part of a 24-hour social media event. From the start to the end of the day on Dec. 17, fans on social media were encouraging each other to watch one or more Depp movies to help support the actor after what has clearly been a particularly difficult year for him. Using the hashtags #DeppMovieNight and #Deppcember, thousands of posts sprung up online with fans already watching several famous Depp movies.

"Get ready for the #DeppMovieNight celebration on the 17th of #Deppcember. 24 hours of streaming your favourite Johnny Depp movies with your friends and families to show that #WeStandWithJohnnyDepp," one fan posted, including a virtual ticket for the Depp movie marathon.

Get ready for the #DeppMovieNight celebration on the 17th of #Deppcember...

John le Carré, the famed British author of espionage novels including “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold” and “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” died Saturday after battling pneumonia. The writer, who was born David Cornwell, was 89.

Le Carré’s longtime agent Jonny Geller broke the news in a statement on Sunday: “It is with great sadness that we must confirm that David Cornwell — John le Carré – passed away from pneumonia last Saturday night after a short battle with the illness. David is survived by his beloved wife of almost fifty years, Jane, and his sons Nicholas, Timothy, Stephen and Simon. We all grieve deeply his passing. Out thanks go to the wonderful NHS team at the Royal Cornwell Hospital in Truro for the care and compassion that he was shown throughout his stay. We know they share our sadness.”

Geller, who represented le Carré for nearly 15 years, called him “a mentor,...

John le Carré, whose bestselling novels about the chilly world of Cold War espionage were the basis for a long series of popular film and TV adaptations, has died of pneumonia. He was 89.

Le Carré’s literary agency, Curtis Brown, announced his death on Dec. 13 via Twitter. The beloved storyteller, whose real name was David Cornwell, was a favorite among writers and screenwriters for the naturally cinematic touches and propulsive narratives he delivered over a career that spanned a half century and 25 novels, the most recent of which was published in 2019, three days after his 88th birthday.

“It is with great sadness that we must confirm that David Cornwell — John le Carré — passed away from pneumonia last Saturday night after a short battle with the illness… We all grieve deeply his passing. Our thanks go to the wonderful NHS team at the Royal Cornwall hospital in Truro for the care...

On Watchmen, VFX supervisor Erik Henry was presented with a project of incredible ambition and scale, finding in the series the opportunity to bring myriad worlds and time periods to life, while offering a fresh take on an iconic comic book world.

Based on a DC Comics series created by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, Damon Lindelof’s drama takes place in an alternate version of the 20th century, in which vigilantes—once celebrated as heroes—have been outlawed, due to their violent methods of extracting justice. In this version of America, episodes of racial violence erupt in Tulsa, Oklahoma, as yellow-masked police officers face off with a white supremacist group known as the Seventh Kavalry.

A two-time Emmy winner, Henry found Watchmen to be quite the page-turner, as well as a project that allowed for ample experimentation. “As a visual effects supervisor, you get these moments where it’s like,...

Washington — The recently completed season of Showtime’s “The Circus” ended with the episode “Their Brand Is Crisis,” delving into how President Trump and the White House are coping with the protracted Russia investigation — which is to say, they’re attacking its credibility.

Mark McKinnon, co-host of “The Circus” along with Alex Wagner and John Heilemann, tells Variety that the context for Trump’s constant attacks on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation as a “witch hunt” have a lot to do with making sure that the president can maintain a political advantage, particularly if Democrats win back control of the House.

“If there is a Democratic House, which is certainly a possibility, and Bob Mueller lays out something, it doesn’t matter what that something is, I guarantee Democrats are going to move to impeach,” McKinnon says. “So Donald Trump knows in the long range, what he needs is...

Frank Beddor’s The Looking Glass War series, a dark fantasy look at Alice In Wonderland, has had a strong spinoff life in comics with Hatter M, the story of Hatter Madigan who is the bodyguard to the Queen of Wonderland and head of the elite security force known as the The Millinery.

Beddor has debuted a new Young Adult prose series at BookExpo America, Hatter Madigan, which shows his early days at the Millinery. And to mark the occasion, fan of the series Whoopi Goldberg will be highlighting the series and characters on The View on Friday. Beddor literally brought his characters to life on The View by inviting a team of cosplayers dressed up as his characters to appear on the show. “The audience exploded when they saw them come out. Fantasy rules reality. The reaction was amazing.”

The new book, Hatter Madigan: Ghost In the H.A.

Actor Christopher Jones has died at age 72. Once touted as the heir to James Dean, Jones boasted a handsome face and the same type of brooding intensity that had made legends of Dean and Brando. Jones got his first big break in the 1960s Western TV series The Legend of Jesse James but the show lasted only one season. After appearances on The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and Judd for the Defense, Jones graduated to feature films. He starred in the little-seen 1967 drama Chubasco (click here for review), the hit 1968 Roger Corman production of Wild in the Streets (in which he played a rock star who becomes President of the United States), Three in the Attic and the spy thriller The Looking Glass War. His most high profile role was as a British army officer who falls in a forbidden love affair with an Irish girl in David Lean's 1970 film Ryan's Daughter.

‘Ryan’s Daughter’ actor Christopher Jones dead at 72: Quit acting following nervous breakdown after Sharon Tate murder, in later years turned down Quentin Tarantino movie offer Christopher Jones, who had a key role in David Lean’s 1970 romantic epic Ryan’s Daughter, died of complications from gallbladder cancer last Friday, January 31, 2014, at Los Alamitos Medical Center, approximately 35 km southwest of downtown Los Angeles. Christopher Jones (born William Franklin Jones on August 18, 1941, in Jackson, Tennessee) was 72. After growing up in a children’s home, joining the army at 16 and then going Awol, being handpicked by Tennessee Williams for a small role in the playwright’s The Night of the Iguana in 1961, and starring in the television series The Legend of Jesse James (1965-1966), Christopher Jones began getting film roles. His first was the title role in Allen H. Miner’s 1967 clash-of-generations drama Chubasco, in which Jones plays a misunderstood youth...

His star burned briefly but bright. Christopher Jones was a counterculture cult hero in the James Dean mold, starring in Wild In The Streets (1968) as Max Frost, the 22-year old rock star millionaire president of the United States who locks up everyone over 30. The same year he played Paxton Quigley in Three In The Attic, a hit about free love in the swinging sixties costarring Yvette Mimieux and Judy Pace. The big studios took notice and David Lean cast him as the romantic lead in the big-budget drama Ryan’S Daughter (1970). It was on the set of this epic that Jones reportedly suffered a nervous breakdown. His part had to be dubbed and he suddenly dropped out of show biz after only a handful of credits. Quentin Tarantino approached him in 1996 and offered him the role of Zed in Pulp Fiction, but Jones turned him down (Zed would be played...

Christopher Jones, an heir apparent to James Dean who starred in such films as The Looking Glass War and Ryan’s Daughter before quitting show business at the height of his brief but dazzling career, has died. He was 72. Jones, who also toplined the Samuel Z. Arkoff cult classic Wild in the Streets (1968) and played the title character in the ABC series The Legend of Jesse James, died Friday at Los Alamitos (Calif.) Medical Center of complications from cancer, Paule McKenna told The Hollywood Reporter. McKenna had four children with Jones. Photos: 35 of 2014's Most Anticipated Movies

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0:00 - Intro 9:00 - Review: The Last Stand 47:20 - Headlines: Jurassic Park 4 Announced, Zack Snyder to Direct Star Wars Samurai Movie?, A Good Day to Die Hard Rated R, Terminator 5 Writers 1:04:10 - Other Stuff We Watched: Seven Psychopaths, Django Unchained, The Watch, Midnight Run, Punch-Drunk Love, Les Miserables, The House I Live In, John Dies at the End, West of Memphis, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Crime Story, Miami Connection, Looper, The Campaign, No Crossover, Skyfall, Designing 007: 50 Years of Bond Style, The Looking Glass War, Raw Deal 1:52:10 - Junk Mail: Combined Top 100 Lists, Lack of Animated Movies in Top 100s, The Demise of HMV, Horror Premium Podcasts, This or That 2013 Edition, Director's Cuts, Unrated Editions of Comedies 2:29:35 - This Week on DVD and Blu-ray 2:31:40 - Outro

Film Junk Podcast Episode #402: The Last Stand by Filmjunk...

Hollywood director and screenwriter who won an Oscar for Dog Day Afternoon

In Sunset Boulevard, William Holden's character remarks: "Audiences don't know somebody sits down and writes a picture. They think the actors make it up as they go along." Given the difficulties in quantifying their contributions, screenwriters seldom get the recognition they deserve. Frank Pierson, who has died aged 87, wrote the screenplays for 10 films but his reputation rests on Cat Ballou (1965), Cool Hand Luke (1967) and Dog Day Afternoon (1975), all of which gained him Academy Award nominations, with the last of them winning the Oscar for best original screenplay.

Yet most of the plaudits for Dog Day Afternoon went to Sidney Lumet, the director, and Al Pacino, the star. Pierson, whose work had as much to do with structure and character as dialogue, shaped the script from a Life magazine article about a bungled bank robbery that took place...

It would be enough for anyone’s obituary to contain the fact that they wrote the script for Dog Day Afternoon and won an Oscar for it. But Frank Pierson’s life included much more than that, encompassing other big writing jobs, directing and being the president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. He died yesterday at the age of 87.Pierson worked in movies and TV for more than 50 years, starting his career in advertising before moving to work on the Western series Have Gun Will Travel.His early efforts in movies saw him make a name for himself almost immediately, crafting the script for 1965’s Cat Ballou and 1967’s The Happening. And then he jumped to the next level, co-writing Cool Hand Luke with novelist Donn Pearce.The director’s chair beckoned for the adaptation of John Le Carre’s thriller The Looking Glass War, and...

Writer-director Frank Pierson died Monday at the age of 87, according to The Hollywood Reporter. In addition to winning an Oscar for his “Dog Day Afternoon” screenplay, Pierson was very active in the industry, with stints as president of the Writers Guild of America, West, president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and artistic director of the American Film Institute. Additional writing credits of Pierson’s include “Cat Ballou,” “Presumed Innocent,” “Cool Hand Luke,” “In Country” and “The Looking Glass War,” which was also his directing debut in 1969. Pierson was also very active in TV writing and directing, on shows and films such as “Have Gun Will Travel,” “Naked City,” “Truman” and “Citizen Cohen.” Read the full THR obit. Update: AMPAS has just released this statement from the Pierson family: Oscar-winning screenwriter...

 

With the success of the big screen adaptation of John Le Carre's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, it's ironic that the DVD of the 1970 film version of The Looking Glass War has been allowed to go out of print. Granted, the film was not well-received at the time, but writer Kimberly Lindbergs posts a defense of the production on the Movie Morlocks web site. The movie starred Christopher Jones, Susan George and young Anthony Hopkins. Click here to read...

The film adaptation of John Le Carre's classic Cold War spy novel "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" is already a success story.

The reviews out of the festivals have been raves, more regular critics have been giving it 4 & 5 star reviews, and the box-office is promising after a strong No. 1 opening in the UK the other week. I myself saw a sneak preview of it tonight and am certain it'll be on my 'best of the year' list, it's a superbly executed and quite loyal adaptation.

Now, The Guardian reports that the film's producer and financier Studio Canal is keen on making this their first franchise and are expected to make an announcement next week in Paris about development of a sequel.

Le Carre wrote eight books with the George Smiley character, played by Gary Oldman in the new film, including the likes of "Call for the Dead," "A Murder of Quality...

… and John Patterson should know. He's spent the summer watching John Le Carré adaptations

To while away the time until the release of Tomas Alfredson's remake of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, I've spent a happy summer immersing myself in John Le Carré's back catalogue. It hardly feels like work at all.

Few novelists manage to see three of their novels filmed within a span of five years. It happened to Le Carré after The Spy Who Came In From The Cold became a worldwide bestseller in 1963, and Martin Ritt's classic 1965 film adaptation, with Richard Burton and Claire Bloom (Rupert Davies as Smiley), offered a bleak and morally complex alternative to the James Bond ethos.

The Deadly Affair, Sidney Lumet's adaptation of Call For The Dead appeared in 1966. James Mason plays Smiley (renamed Charles Dobbs) with the same bespectacled, hang-dog mien he wore in Georgy Girl the same year,...

Award-winning actor with a fastidious intelligence and a hint of inner steel

Anna Massey, who has died of cancer aged 73, made her name on the stage as a teenager in French-window froth. She then graduated, with effortless and extraordinary ease, to the classics and to the work of Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter and David Hare. In later years, she became best known for her award-winning work in television and film. What constantly impressed was her fastidious intelligence and capacity for stillness: always the mark of a first-rate actor.

Born in Thakeham, West Sussex, she was bred into show business although, in personal terms, that proved something of a mixed blessing. Her father was Raymond Massey, a Canadian actor who achieved success in Hollywood; her mother was Adrianne Allen who had appeared in the original production of Noël Coward's Private Lives. Anna's godfather was the film director John Ford.

Since...

 

Well it looks like another John le Carré novel is about to be adapted into a feature film. In 1965, Martin Ritt directed the first film adaptation of a John le Carré novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. In 1966, Sidney Lumet directed The Deadly Affair. In 1969, Frank Pierson directed The Looking Glass War. In 1984, George Roy Hill directed The Little Drummer Girl. In 1990, Fred Schepisi directed The Russia House. In 2001, John Boorman directed The Tailor of Panama. In 2005, Fernando Meirelles directed The Constant Gardener, and just last year it was announced that Peter Morgan and John le Carré were writing a cinematic adaptation of the novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

Now according to THR, director Anton Corbijn (The American) will bring us the ninth adaptation. Corbijn has signed on to direct A Most Wanted Man from a screenplay by Andrew Bovell (Edge of Darkness). The tale is loosely...

After concept work on Battlefield Earth, Red Planet, two Star Wars prequels and The Astronauts Wife, poor old Stephan Martiniere sure could use a break. Okay, that's not entirely fair - he also got to contribue to I, Robot which ended up being quite a clever film, at least in terms of it's imagery. One of his assignments appears to be character designs for a film of The Looking Glass War, the Frank Beddor Alice in Wonderland spin off that Charles Roven is currently shepherding towards the big screen. After the break, some big and frightening pictures of some dudes in armour that seem to be spoiling for a right royal ruckus, as well as Alyss Heart, Beddor's heroine. These four characters are identified only by a card suit, respectively Club, Diamond, Heart and Spade. This refers to their class in the heirarchy of Wonderland. I think these are simply...

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In 1970, the charismatic actor Christopher Jones (then starring in David Lean’s epic Ryan’s Daughter) turned his back on movie stardom to lead a life of almost total anonymity. Today, Jones is a working artist who specializes in paintings with a classical antiquity theme and in portraits of Hollywood legends such as James Dean – to whom Jones once bore a striking resemblance.

Having studied at the Actors Studio and perfected his craft on episodes of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Naked City, the extraordinarily handsome, Tennessee-born actor moved steadily up the Hollywood ladder through the late sixties. He starred in The Legend of Jesse James – a TV western that lasted through the 1965-66 season – and three B-pictures: the love story Chubasco (in which he appeared with then-wife Susan Strasberg); the sex romp Three in...