Few writers have a better shake-up in films than John Le Carey, whose sophisticated novels of the Cold War atmosphere, moral ambiguities and cleverly observed background room maneuvers have long attracted talented filmmakers and leading actors.
Although Alec Guinness’s definitive performance as George Smiley in the BBC mini-series editions “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” (1979) and “People of the Smiley” (1982) is not currently available to stream in the United States, there is still a limit to the quality of the model over a half-century Car adaptations. Some go into the uncivilized lives of British agents, while others follow outsiders – a bureaucracy, a hotel manager, an actress – who are brought into new worlds of intrigue and danger. These seven films and two mini-series give a taste of Le Care’s unique jaundice spy thriller genre.
‘The Spy Who Came In From The Gold’ (1965)
The first Le Car adaptation in any medium set the tone for others who followed, not the spy game as a glamorous and adventurous life, but rather as a world surrounded by paranoia and suspicion, filled with indescribable motives by world exhausted men. The film, which is permanently photographed in dark black and white, stars Richard Burton as a British agent who works as an elaborate rogue in the aftermath of the shooting death of an operator by East German troops. He exhibits outward appearances of dissatisfaction with his station, including a pseudo-depression for desk duty in London, and makes himself a target for East German agents who, falsely, believe there is a flaw in their return.
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‘Deadly affair’ (1967)
Based on Le Care’s first novel, The Call to the Dead, Sydney Lumet’s thriller does not reveal the international intrigue of the author’s works and later adaptations, but it completely reduces any fantastic ideas about how it should be. A spy. While rights issues prevent the studio from using the name George Smiley, James Mason plays a dull cock in the same role as his wife (Harriet Anderson) who hates him, whose job satisfaction hits rock bottom. When a former communist appears to have committed suicide the next day they meet in a park, he suspects a bad game, turns his attention to the hidden man’s widow (Simon Signoret), who does not seem to tell him the truth. Quincy Jones scored lively.
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‘The Russia House’ (1990)
From the outset, Le Car adaptations have always been an indirect condemnation of the James Bond series, which may have been part of their appeal to former bonds such as Sean Connery, who were given the opportunity to evoke 007 unneeded gravity. Connery does not play a spy by trading in the “House of Russia”, but a foreign British book publisher brought in by British intelligence to investigate three notebooks containing Russian military secrets. Cast J.T. Walsh, John Mahoney, Klaus Maria Brandover and especially comedian James Fox are loaded with the cast, but this is Connery’s romantic chemistry with Michael Pfeiffer, as a Russian informs him, making the film stand out.
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‘Tailor of Panama’ (2001)
A year before finishing his own run as James Panda, Pierce Brosnan allowed himself and the series to be subtly interpreted in “Panama’s Tailor”, which gives him the same double enthusiasm and luxurious charm, but the effect of which reduces his delicate figure to humor. Brosnan’s British agent, who was expelled to Panama for his involvement with women and others, finds himself at home in “Casablanca without heroes”, where he must keep the Panama Canal from falling into the wrong hands, but deepen his neck in the city’s widespread corruption. With a half-loving traitor to a hero, director John Burman presents a scathing critique of British and American intervention in other countries.
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‘The Constant Gardner’ (2005)
Director Fernando Myrெllez looks back at the underdogs, but in Africa from the perspective of a medieval British bureaucracy investigating the exploitation of the poor by the poor, in order to follow the “city of God”, the electric treatment for crime organized in Rio de Janeiro Favela. The flashback system of “Constant Gardner” includes the back and forth of an activist (Rachel Weiss) who was murdered in distant Kenya. Her husband (Ralph Fiennes), who works at the British High Commission, initially accepts the official explanation for her death, but as he investigates further cases, he discovers a drug company’s conspiracy to test a free trial drug on Africans. The film is a rumor of a widow’s difficult marriage and an angry critique of First World plans in Third World countries.
‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’ (2011)
In the role of immortal Le Car protagonist George Smiley on screen by Alec Guinness, Gary Oldman is so absorbed in a performance that he almost disappears into the brown, smoky background of the film. When the film opens in the early 1970s, Smiley spent his entire life in British intelligence, but the death of a mentor (John Hurt) in the early 1970s leads him halfway. He soon reappears as part of an effort to find a Soviet mole inside the MI6, which gives him a shot at recovery and an opportunity to summon his expertise in thwarting subtle threats in his midst. This edition of “Tinker, The Tailor” has some difficulty in suppressing its intricate plot, but as a mood, it captures exactly the essence of Le Care.
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‘A Most Wanted Man’ (2014)
With his last lead role before dying in 2014, Philip Seymour Hoffman carries an existential weight common to Le Car heroes who bring the tragic mistakes of the past to dangerous new jobs. That weight is certainly not sour by director Anton Corbyz, who follows Ian Curtis’ biopic “Control” and the spy thriller “The American” with another gruesome story, which is associated with the threat of Islamic terrorism. Hoffman’s German agent, who is working to deal with a bad operation in Beirut, is trying to appoint Muslim double agents in Hamburg to expose a moderate professor suspected of embezzling money to finance a terrorist operation. His goal is to make the world a safer place, but he worries that he is doing deep harm.
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‘The Night Manager’ (2016)
For this six-part series, written by playwright and screenwriter David Barr and directed by Suzanne Pierre, Le Carr’s 1993 novel about the intrigue surrounding a luxury hotel in Cairo has been updated to 2011, sparking protests against Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Tom Hiddleston plays a hotel manager who promises cool to panicked guests looking for the next flight, but access to an arms dealer, played by Hugh Larry, the “worst man in the world”, brings him into a conspiracy to infiltrate. Inner circle. Adding to the success of the best lead shows – three winning Emmys – is Olivia Coleman, Coolhead’s team leader who serves as manager’s handler.
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‘The Little Drummer Girl’ (2018)
A director known for the glossy talents of “Old Boy” and “The Handmaiden”, Park San-Wook seemed to be a negative choice for unlocking the built-in spy craft of a Le Car mini-series. But Park also specializes in the soft band of intricate layers, and pays homage to both his stylistic Prio show Cosmopolitan Player and its tense set pieces. During her advancement in “Mitsommer” and “Little Woman” the following year, Florence Buck was hired as a British actress by a Mossad agent (Michael Shannon) to disrupt a Palestinian terrorist organization in the late 70s. It is the role of a lifetime, but it pushes her into a world of danger and moral compromise.
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