Working as a lowly library assistant, Leamas strikes up a budding romance with a co-worker, Nancy (Claire Bloom), a member of the British Communist Party. Leamas takes on the guise of an embittered government employee as a means of inviting recruitment by the other side although it’s difficult to know where the act begins and ends, which is not only a credit to Burton’s performance but adds to the level of intrigue that surrounds the well-crafted plot. Tonally focused, this deadly serious mission of deception exhibits a remarkable emphasis on realism and subtle detail, as we the viewer are plunged into the ice-cold heart of espionage, practised between East and West. Available for the first time on Blu-ray in the UK from Eureka Entertainment, seven-time Academy Award nominee, Richard Burton, is at his absolute best as a British agent, Alec Leamas, on a final mission that will take him into East Germany where he’s to sow dissension among the Communist ranks. Regardless, it's a great film with a great performance by Burton as the world-weary spy who has seen it all, and Claire Bloom as the idealistic UK communist party member who has no idea how ugly it is out there.It seemed only appropriate that I usher in the winter months with the bitter Cold War thriller, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, based on the best-selling novel by John le Carré. I believe the Burton character, Leamas, working with his UK spy agency, pretends to be kicked out of the spy service and acts as if he is going to seed so he can be "turned" by the enemy and complete his secret mission. Slowly but surely, he allows himself to be pulled back into the Cold War he operated in, not suspecting or maybe not even caring that his superiors are setting him up for a fall. This fact is made forcefully clear when he winds up beating a local grocer and is sentenced to jail time. He struggles to try to live a normal, average life as a librarian's assistant, but he can't make it work for him (something that is not helped by his chronic alcoholism). After a routine assignment goes awry, Leamas is sent home and out of the service. The last reviewer wrote: Burton is cast as Alex Leamas, a nerve-dead, aged secret operative operating out of West Berlin.
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March 2023
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