by Allan Fish
(UK 1979 315m) DVD1/2
Who is Gerald?
p Jonathan Powell d John Irvin w Arthur Hopcraft novel John Le Carré ph Tony Pierce-Roberts ed Chris Wimble m Geoffrey Burgon art Austen Spriggs
Alec Guinness (George Smiley), Bernard Hepton (Toby Esterhase), Michael Jayston (Peter Guillam), Terence Rigby (Roy Bland), Ian Richardson (Bill Haydon), Hywel Bennett (Ricki Tarr), Anthony Bate (Sir Oliver Lacon), Michael Aldridge (Percy Alleline), Alexander Knox (Control), Ian Bannen (Jim Prideaux), George Sewell (Mendel), Sîan Phillips (Ann Smiley), Patrick Stewart (Karla), John Standing (Sam Collins), Beryl Reid (Connie Sachs), Nigel Stock (Roddy Martindale), Warren Clarke (Alwyn), Joss Ackland (Jerry Westerby),
The world of John le Carré’s spy sagas always was a little starchy. There had been a good version of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold in 1965. In the end, however, it was that self-same starchiness that prevented it from quite scaling the heights. Perhaps his plots, as intricate and delicate as a snowflake, required a longer, slower medium to do them justice. Enter then, fourteen years later, this BBC adaptation of the first of the George Smiley novels. It wasn’t the first time Smiley had been depicted on screen – Rupert Davies had briefly played him in the aforementioned Martin Ritt film. Yet to everyone who saw it, there will always be only one George Smiley.
Through various elaborate smoke-screen and red herring plots leading up blind alleys, the core remains this; somewhere in the British Secret Service, known by those on the inside as ‘the circus’, there is a mole selling out information, and thus operatives’ lives, to the Soviets. The ailing head of the Service, known only as Control, has narrowed the list of suspects down to five, and he sends in one of his best scalp-hunters to Czechoslovakia in search of information which may ultimately lead to the mole’s identity being revealed. Unfortunately, the operative is expected by the Soviets and is captured and assumed dead. Soon after, Control dies of a heart attack and it’s left to George Smiley to be invited back into the inner sanctum to seek out the mole.
Those under a certain age might find it hard to settle back into this old style Cold War espionage malarkey. The names of Blunt, MacLean, Philby and Burgess, who surely served as the basis for various characters in le Carré’s shady world, mean less to them than, say, James Bond or Jason Bourne. Even on TV, the spy game more than likely means Jennifer Garner in lots of wigs and sexy outfits and Victor Garber and Ron Rifkin outdoing each other in the stoic poker face stakes. This is very much a different affair, set in old school Whitehall offices. No designer suits here, only overcoats, scarves, old school ties and homely cardigans. We even have a Russian master spy, but we only see him once in flashback. His name is Karla, though it may just as well be Mabuse, Hagi, Blofeld or hell, even Keyser Soze. He might as well be myth.
With a wonderfully detailed, finely sculptured script, its cast respond in turn. There’s not a single performance that isn’t spot on. A supporting cast that contains Woodrow Wilson, Jean-Luc Picard, Winston Churchill, Nicholas Jenkins, Thomas Cranmer, Nicholas II, Francis Urquhart and, briefly in the final scene, as the Messalina of the spy circus, Livia Augusta herself. I only single out Richardson, Bannen, Knox and Jayston due to spur of the moment affection, before moving onto the peerless Guinness. When he returned as Smiley in the inferior Smiley’s People, he was often on autopilot, but in this original and most inscrutable incarnation, there are glimpses of the old genius. It’s a great performance, holding together its many strands with effortless skill. Thankfully, in the age of DVD, one doesn’t need to remember to watch every episode when shown, for missing one, or even a portion of one, can be fatal. And at its essence, behind the code words and operations, it’s about a universal subject; betrayal, a subject that fascinated so many film-makers, not least Orson Welles. “If you can’t beat it, spy on it”, we are told. Watch it, you won’t regret it.
NB: I should in fairness mention the recent 2011 remake. Visually and atmospherically it could not have been bettered, but the pacing, while aiming to recreate that of Lumet’s earlier underrated Le Carré pic The Deadly Affair, occasionally drifts while the nuances of the plot have been perhaps unavoidably reduced. Nonetheless, Gary Oldman is magnificent as Smiley (both referencing Guinness and his own man), with especially fine support from Benedict Cumberbatch, Colin Firth, Mark Strong, Tom Hardy and, in a cameo, Roger Lloyd Pack as a retired Special Branch operative. That would receive **** to the original’s ****½.
