The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965) on Netflix
Alec Leamas runs British intelligence in West Berlin. His agents are being killed, and London sends him into a staged defection aimed at Mundt, the East German officer hunting his network.
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- Rotten Tomatoes86%
Trailer
Plot summary
In the early 1960s, Alec Leamas runs British intelligence in West Berlin, where Mundt, East Germany's counter-espionage chief, has been hunting down and killing his agents. After Leamas witnesses the death of his last operative, Karl Riemeck, at Checkpoint Charlie, Control recalls him to London and offers him one final operation: to destroy Mundt. Leamas appears to leave the service, takes work at a reference library and begins a relationship with Nan Perry, a librarian and member of the British Communist Party. Drinking heavily and short of money, he assaults a grocer and is jailed. Once released, East German agents approach him about defecting, and he agrees. He travels to Holland on a false passport and is introduced to Peters, an East German intelligence officer.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Richard Burton, the producers' eventual choice, butted heads with director Martin Ritt throughout production. The set was tense with Burton's wife Elizabeth Taylor present and a romantic history between Burton and co-star Bloom; Burton had demanded Taylor play Perry, but Ritt insisted on Bloom.
- Le Carré favoured Trevor Howard or Peter Finch for the role of Leamas, but they were rejected for not being enough of a box office draw, and Burt Lancaster was considered and rejected for not being able to put on a convincing British accent.
- Richard Burton demanded that Le Carré rewrite his dialogue on the set, though the effect of the changes was limited. Le Carré wrote in his autobiography The Pigeon Tunnel that Burton had mostly wanted him there as a drinking buddy, and to mediate his clashes with Ritt.
- Several of the key cast and crew were expatriate Americans who had been blacklisted, including director Martin Ritt, actor Sam Wanamaker and composer Sol Kaplan.
- The script was co-written by Paul Dehn, who had worked in the Special Operations Executive as an assassin during World War II before he turned to screenwriting.
- The name of the principal female character in the novel, Liz Gold, was changed to Nan Perry for the film, reputedly because Martin Ritt was worried about confusion in the media with Burton's wife, Elizabeth Taylor.
