The Spy who Came in from the Cold
and which has Brian Cox in the role portrayed by Richard Burton in the film. It was as consequence of watching a TV showing of the Spy that I embarked on getting the DVD’s of the Smiley series to add some other Le Carré books and DVD’s I had already acquired after the
Disappointment of the film Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. I have the film now ion DVD but have not viewed until doing with the sound turned off while I listened to the radio play which is provided on three DVDs. I then decided to also watch the film with the sound so as to establish the differences if any between the two as well as to reappraise the emotional and intellectual impact of both. Had I not such a long reading list before I would add the Spy such is the importance previously given to this work and reinforced by my experiences overnight.
The Spy who came in from the Cold provided audiences in the 1960 with reality of this work in the Cod War. There is an important discussion early on about the nature of the occupation in which unknowingly the main character Alec Leamas a wartime hero and until recently head of the Berlin Station is told by Control (head of service) that although while the soviets and others are aggressive in their approach to international relations, in the UK the policy is a defensive one, that the reality of the situation meant that the UK was required to adopt methods which at times were little different from those of our enemies. While as the book, and Radio play progresses it is evident that Leamas is told the full nature of the part he is to play or believes he has been told the part in full, we only know at the end that he has not and it is his reaction to this which stunned and affected cinema audience at the time and I assume those who had read or who went to read the book.
The Spy was a great success for Richard Burton as Alec Leamas and his co star Claire Bloom as the 23 year old communist who works for a small private library in which Burton is assigned by the Unemployment office after he leaves the service to go under cover in attempt to track down Hans Dieter Mundt who beat up Smiley in the first book to Call of the Dead Hans-Dieter Mundt and who turned out to be the assistant of his former friend and spy who dies when confronted by Smiley who then retires from the service.
Smiley is still retired but referred to at the commencement of the Spy and appears to play little part although there are confusing references and differences to his role between film and play which I would like resolved, for after all this book is part of the George Smiley series.
The first difference between film and radio play which I assume follows the book(s) more closely is that Leamas talks to the woman who we see drive over Checkpoint Charlie at the Berlin Wall when he is expecting his organising agent to arrive and who is the lover of the married woman who with her husband is able to cross over for stated reasons not remembered. It is conversation with her we learn that Mundt and Fiedler his number two of Soviet Security in East Germany have been systematically rounding up and killing all his agents. She says her lover will come over later and I found the radio play more intense and dramatic a description of his arrival part way across and being shot than in the film although both rank highly in terms of film openings. It is only later that we learn that his organiser in the East German network was a member of its Presidium and that he had provided us with the highest level of information about the governing Party and through membership of the security committee on security matters,
Leamas comes home and reports back and is asked if he feels burnt out or is willing to stay out in the cold longer and go after Mundt something he is only too willing to do given that Mundt was responsible for the deaths of all his network members in East Berlin, It is at this point Control admit that while the policy is not aggressive sometimes it is necessary to adopt methods like those of the enemy and therefore he has a plan to go after Mundt not through assassination but by discredit and making him look to be a British agent but letting the Soviets come to this conclusion through his deputy Fiedler, a Jew with Mundt was a former Nazi and both known to detest each other.
In the play we learn that the descent of Leamas officially out of the service is carefully planned and executed over a long period of time so that anyone checking would not be able to see that it was designed although whether because of the lapse of time the Soviets would see him as worthwhile approaching know to care about him was a gamble.
At the moment as I write and listen the evidence is that his placement in Library and meeting the young assistant member of the Communist Party CND supporter is not planned and indeed his handler repeatedly tells him not to get involved as he does himself realising that any intimate relationship makes him more vulnerable. It is when reminded of this after the young woman becomes his lover and after she cares for him when he become ill that the decision is taken for him to get himself arrested and sent to prison for three months.
There is a significant difference between the radio play and I assume the book text and the film. In the film Leamas is net by the girl who brings him a packet of sandwiches and says he will be staying her place when she his case. He will be there when she returns from work. There is no contact between him and the girl after he leaves prison.
The second difference is that in the film Michael Horden plays the Soviet contact posing as a representative for the After Care Charity the Link giving the impression of having official contact with the prison authorities and knowing he had refused to be helped by the Prison After Care association or speak to a prisoner. In the play he addresses Leamas by name and it is evident that he is contact on behalf of the Soviets. In both he plays a homosexual although while Horden’s manner is a give away this is not so in the play.
In the film Leamas is taken to lunch visits Control at Smiley’s home to report the contact Horden again for his £5 in case help and to meet his contact played by Robert Hardy as Carlton at a Soho girlie and drink club which is less seedy that reality and with a touch of the Windmill in style of presentation. When he accepts the offer of £15000 for his memoirs and £5000 retainer for availability for a further 12 months he insist on a visit to the girl for his suitcase refusing the demand for immediate availability and this also enables him to go to Smiley‘s House in Chelsea where George is there with control and confirms the plan and also demands that there is no contact between the service and the girl and that all records of her involvement should be removed. He tells he that he has to go away but plans to return and for them to be together.
In the radio play there is no contact between Leamas and the girl at all after he goes to prison although he had warned her that he had to do or finish something and that he would return to her. While he does go to a Soho club it is to meet Peters played in the film by Sam Wannamaker and by Michael Feast, the play who his Soviet contact to tell his story at a beach house somewhere in Holland.
When he visit the House in Chelsea he is told that Smiley is not there because he does not approve of the particular plan to get Mundt.
There is a long sequence which takes up the greater part of the second BBC CD in which the long term plots to get Mundt is first played out. His inquisitor appears to know everything there is about him but the one area of special interest is his role in thee banking section and the two field trips he made to Denmark and Sweden to take money paid into accounts there. He meets Fiedler number two to Mundt and realises that Fiedler is trying to prove that Mundt is a British spy.
The case is that after Mundtler beat up George Smiley and left him for dead in Call of Dead, he somehow managed to escape capture and was back in East Germany within a few days. The case is that during this time he was captured by the British and cut a deal. This is the weakest part of the ploy because turning someone into a traitor who is also professional trained, experienced and become and a senior operative take time as well as skill. Control has explained that the visits to Copenhagen and Stockholm( I passed through in train the first and stayed a few days in the latter) were part of the plan and where it emerges the money was paid and then withdrawn coinciding with visits to both cities by Mundt. Leamas is asked to sign letters to the banks seeking statements and one of these returns to show the amount was withdrawn when Mundt was there. This is the tipping proof for which Fiedler has searched over the previous three years that is from before Leamas agents were killed by Mundt. Leamas lays the role of a sceptic brilliantly Exclaiming that as head of he Berlin station eh would have known if Mundt or anyone had been a British agent above his man and team. Control had gone to Berlin to meet his agent to thank him and they had together for some 15 minutes, 10 in one version during which Leamas had not been present. It then becomes necessary for Leamas to move to East Germany, someone close to the Polish Border because his picture has been placed in he British press as a wanted man for breaking his parole, released after serving two months of his sentence. This was not happen in normal circumstances and still playing the traitor for money Leamas blames the Soviets as a means of forcing him behind the Iron curtain. What Leamas does not know is that Smiley has never left the service but author of the plan to get Mundt) or so it still seemed) and he had visited the girlfriend and offered her support on behalf of Leamas. She had then found that the lease on her flat was paid at a cost of £1000 by a charity which meant she no longer had to pay rent from her small salary.
Dramatically this part of the BBC serial ends as Mundt arrives and arrests Leamas beating him and asking his men to soften him up further before bringing to interrogation.
There is opportunity for Mundt to put his allegations that Leamas is part of a Smiley plot to discredit him before Fiedler arrives with authority for the release of and that a Tribunal is to be convened to hear his case against his boss. It is a persuasive case which eh outlines before calling Leamas as is witness backed up by a file of statements and the circumstantial evidence that Mundt is a traitor and should be executed. In the film the girl friend is approach and congratulated for her work as secretary of the small branch which as she has admitted to Leamas was because the member who proposed her fancied her and the branch only comprised seven members in total. She seeks. We hen see her gaining a holiday from her employer having been offered am exchange visit to East Berlin, The manager says she will not mention the travel is to East Germany to their employer. There is more conversation between her and Ashe from Party with no mention of the Link in the radio play but in both mediums she is not told about being called as a witness for Mundt until finding herself in the Tribunal and seeing Leamas also there. He is emotionally outraged that she has become involved and is warned more than one that further outburst will lead him to being removed and worse. The young woman is confused, afraid more for Leamas than herself and does not know what to say. Given the predicament he knows she is now in he decides to try and rescue her by admitting the truth that he is part of a plot to discredit Mundt. The case against Mundt is dropped and Fiedler is told there will now be an investigation into his conduct.
In the film all Fiedler can do is protest that this is the plan all along and that the traitor is to go unpunished. In the radio play there a calmer talk between Fiedler and Leamas because he has realised that Fiedler is right and that he has been set up not to catch Mundt who is working for the British but to discredit Fiedler because Mundt was turned by Control and Smiley and with their blessing he got rid the East German network in order top protect himself.
In both mediums Leamas is the first to find himself free by Mundt and in the play he has to plead for the girl to be released with him. In both they are given a car and instructions where to go and where they will meet and shown how to get over the wall. In both Leamas is told to go first and both are told not to stop or look back whatever happened and to remember that only some people have been told of the plan to get placements into the West and if there are any problems and delays they will find themselves being shot at by guards under instruction and without knowledge of their protected position.
This leads to one of the most moving powerful final scenes in the a motion picture as the girl is shot down on orders and then Leamas turns back down and is killed with her. In the play there is a conversation involving Control and Smiley over the decision of Leamas not to escape by leaving the girl when he had opportunity. It is Smiley I think who comments that this was his way of coming out of the Cold. Smiley is asked how long will Mundt be kept in place to which the reply is for as long as it serves the British purpose.
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