The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965)

"She offered me free love. At the time it was all I could afford.”

Wow. That was bleak. More so, in fact, than the BBC’s superb version of Le Carre’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy which I am certain to blog at some point. And that Richard Burton is awfully good at this acting lark.

I was twelve when the Wall came down; I remember the Cold War. But the world of half a century ago seems a strange place in many ways. The leading man can sneeringly refer to a “queer”, labour exchanges advertise “jobs for men” and even a bibulous fellow like myself raises an eyebrow at the sheer amount of alcohol consumed. And Nan refers to her Hungarian goulash with Portuguese wine as a “Communist dish with a totalitarian wine”; no one seems to regard the tyrannies of the Eastern Bloc and Salazar’s fascist state as equally vile. It’s all a game and, as Control says, while one side supports freedom and the other does not, the methods used by both sides are equally abhorrent. No wonder it’s so easy to become burnt out and turn to drink.

(“Control”- I now get certain sketches from A Bit of Fry and Laurie more than I did...)

This is a thriller, of sorts, but one uniquely suffused with a profound sense of moral disillusionment and ennui. Leamas is younger than I am now but certainly doesn’t feel it. The final twist is clever but morally bankrupt and the unhappy ending, when it comes, is not unexpected. An excellently downbeat counterweight to the sort of spy film we usually see and a real acting triumph from Richard Burton.