Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1980)

le Carre & Guiness at their peak

George Smiley comes out of retirement to catch a Soviet spy embedded in British Intelligence. Lots of twists & turns & betrayals. Lots of spies' tradecraft.

Alec Guiness plays Smiley. No - he BECOMES Smiley. In the book Smiley is a fat little man. So Alec Guiness, looking like Alec Guiness, becomes a fat little man. He's magic. April 28, 2008

Excellent

The sound quality is not as good as I would like. Otherwise, it is excellent. April 12, 2008

Brilliant writing and acting

A masterpiece but you have to pay attention. Video is fair - audio is adequate except for the first episode. If only Criterion had done the transfer. March 21, 2008

A Classic in the History of TV Movies

It's hard to believe today that John Le Carre's great novel was never translated to cinema, but rather into the form of a low budget BBC serial. And Alec Guiness' career had slowed to near obscurity. There was so little money for production of this that you can hear airplanes flying thru scenes, cars honking inappropriately outside, and clearly tell that "Czechoslovakia" is some place outside London. But no matter! The script, direction and acting are all incomparable, and what a story! This is the all time Cold War spy story. One day when I had a bad cold I watched the entire thing, straight thru, and WOW WOW WOW. January 18, 2008

The Mole Hunt...

The BBC's superb dramatization of John Le Carre's "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" features Alec Guinness in an absolutely pitch-perfect role as George Smiley, a world-weary Cold Warrior called out of uneasy retirement to find a Soviet mole in the British Secret Service.

The movie opens with a secret British mission into Czechoslovakia, in which Control, the head of "The Circus", hopes to find a vital clue to the identity of a suspected Soviet spy inside the Secret Service. The public failure of the mission and the wounding of the British agent lead to the usual housecleaning; Control, and his deputy George Smiley, are abruptly retired.

The plot fast-forwards. Smiley, now in unhappy retirement, is approached by Lacon, a civil servant administrator of the intelligence services, to do an off-the-books investigation of some untidy wreckage of the Czech mission. Under Smiley's patient but ruthless examination, the trail of a Soviet mole becomes apparent, and a clever trap is laid. The climax of the story is a confrontation at a safe house at which the identity of the mole is finaly revealed. Will it be Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, or Spy? Each nickname refers to a prominent member of the secret service whom the storyline is careful to paint as a plausible candidate for mole.

This is a very British production in that the storyline is advanced by conversations between the characters. There are few action scenes. The show demands close viewing; the viewer receives details at the same rate as the characters, building to an almost unbearable suspense as Smiley, assisted by a handful of more or less willing collaborators, closes in on the traitor. John Le Carre fans should rejoice in the preservation of the original atmospheric novel. This movie is very highly recommended to fans of the spy genre. January 14, 2008

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