The Spy Who Came In From the Cold (1965)

Directed by Martin Ritt

Starring Richard Burton, Claire Bloom, and Oskar Werner 

More often than not, movies made from books make lots of changes. Characters are eliminated. Dialog is deleted and/or simplified, and often the denouements are altered to appeal to the movie crowd. That is not the case with the movie version of The Spy Who Came In From the Cold. The plot is nearly identical. The characters are the same. And the dialog, as near as I could tell, is word-for-word.

With all that good stuff preserved from the book, I had positive expectations. And, indeed, there are lots of cinematic elements to admire. The cinematography is brilliant – the images, the angles – the lighting (B&W) is evocative, and the settings were designed perfectly for the action.

But I was disappointed. The plot of the book was tense, fast-paced, and emotionally gripping. In the movie, it is not. There were moments when I couldn’t understand why certain characters did what they did or said what they said. I didn’t have that feeling reading the book. And the acting ranged from adequate to opaque. This was especially evident with the lead, the great Richard Burton, whose character and motivations were obscured by an over-reliance on scowling. There was none of the charm in Burton’s performance that was evident in the book. I blame all that on the director. Everything the director is responsible for, including the acting, was a bit overdone.

It is not a bad movie. It is certainly better than many. I would recommend it. But don’t expect to be awestruck.

You can watch the trailer here.

From Slant Magazine: “A fabulous, distinctive movie that revels in the precision and density of conversation as warfare.”

From The New York Times, Bosley Crowther: “The film makes you believe it could have happened. And that’s the remarkable thing.”