The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965)
The Spy Who Shoulda Worn More Layers.
Cold Warrior Alec Leamas (Richard Burton) is brought back to London from West Berlin to do “a very wicked thing indeed.” It’ll appear like he’s been dismissed from MI6. He’ll become disgruntled and alcoholic. He’ll start a relationship with a communist, Nan Perry (Claire Bloom). He’ll be imprisoned for assaulting a shopkeeper. And it’ll all be done to entice East German operatives in London to get him to defect.
Leamas is brought to East Germany and interrogated by Jens Fiedler (Oskar Werner). Leamas provides falsified information to give the appearance that Fiedler’s boss, Hans-Dieter Mundt (Peter van Eyck), is a double agent. Fiedler and Mundt accuse each other of working with the enemy and an East German tribunal is called to figure out who’s the traitor.
The tribunal’s Perry Mason moment comes when Nan, who has been tricked into coming to Germany, is put on the stand. She inadvertently blows Leamas’ cover, which leads to Fiedler’s execution. But, as part of a classic triple-cross, this is exactly what MI6 wanted: Mundt is a British mole and the operation was orchestrated to dispel East German suspicions about his loyalty. Mundt then sneaks Leamas and Nan out of prison and tells them how to get over the Berlin Wall.
During their escape, Mundt’s men open fire, killing Nan—the only civilian witness who could reveal Mundt’s true identity. Leamas is encouraged to go over the wall by both the East and West Germans, but when he goes back for Nan, he too is shot, the end.
Rating: 6/10, like if James Bond was depressing.1
Cast and Crew
Ugh, Richard Burton, dour and self-serious once again. That persona was put to good use in Becket—especially across from O’Toole’s manic Henry II—but he’s just such a drag to watch in this film. Oskar Werner’s performance, on the other hand, is good, and in a role quite different from what we saw in Ship of Fools. Werner’s character is the tragic figure, the one targeted by the triple-cross, and Werner sells the pathos of the outcome beautifully.
The Trivia, Pt. I
The novel “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold” was written by dad book extraordinaire John le Carré. Like his character Alec Leamas, le Carré himself was once an MI6 intelligence officer in West Germany. In fact, he had to write under a pseudonym—his actual name was David John Moore Cornwell.
So here’s what your dad knows about John le Carré: first, one of his main protagonists is George Smiley. Smiley was introduced in “Call for the Dead” (1961), le Carré’s first novel. “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold” (1963) was a sequel to “Call for the Dead,” and Smiley’s in that one too: he’s the spy who intentionally blows Leamas’ cover. Smiley later starred in a trilogy of novels where he squared off with his nemesis Karla, head of Soviet foreign intelligence. Those novels were “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” (1974), “The Honourable Schoolboy” (1977), and “Smiley’s People” (1979).
Some other works to know:
“The Little Drummer Girl” (1983) is about an actress who becomes a spy in the Middle East. It was made into a 1984 movie with Diane Keaton.
“The Russia House” (1989) is about Russia and spies and the stuff that’s in all his other books. Sean Connery starred in a 1990 film adaptation.
le Carré wrote 14 novels after the Cold War ended. One, “The Constant Gardener,” is about a British diplomat in Kenya (played in a film adaptation by Ralph Fiennes) trying to solve the murder of his wife.
Your dad knows that John le Carré is not Tom Clancy, Ken Follett, Ian Fleming, or Robert Ludlum. He didn’t write “The Cardinal of the Kremlin,” “Eye of the Needle,” “The Spy Who Loved Me,” or “The Scarlatti Inheritance.” He thinks it’s crazy you can’t keep these dudes straight.
The Trivia, Pt. II
Let’s talk a bit about the German Democratic Republic (AKA East Germany). At the 1945 Yalta and Potsdam conferences, the Allies agreed to divvy up Germany and Berlin into occupation zones. The non-Soviet occupiers (the U.S., U.K., and France) organized their territory into what became the Federal Republic of Germany (known as West Germany), while the Soviets organized theirs into East Germany.
Check out how Berlin was inside of East Germany.2 That meant that West Berlin, which was part of West Germany, was an exclave. Seems like that must have been tricky, right? Yeah. The Soviets essentially sieged West Berlin with the 1948 Berlin Blockade, and the Allies held out by supplying West Berlin through the Berlin Airlift. In 1949, the Soviets lifted the blockade.
That wasn’t the end of the issues, though. The East Germans built the Berlin Wall in 1961 to prevent their own citizens from fleeing into West Berlin. The most famous border crossing through the Berlin Wall was Checkpoint Charlie; it’s now a tourist attraction. The Berlin Wall is featured at both the beginning and the end of “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.”
The two East German leaders to know are Walter Ulbricht, who was in power from 1950 to 1971 (the Berlin Wall was constructed under his watch) and Erich Honecker (in power from 1971 to 1989). You can see Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev smooching Honecker in this Berlin Wall graffito entitled “My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love.”
You should know some West German leaders too.
West Germany’s first chancellor was Konrad Adenauer. Adenauer’s leadership was key: he was intent on West Germany joining NATO, even if it led to Germany staying divided.3 Adenauer was 73 when he took office but he led for 14 years.
Willy Brandt moved West Germany away from the Hallstein Doctrine, which stated that the FRG wouldn’t have diplomatic relations with countries that recognized East Germany. His new policy, “Ostpolitik” (“Eastern Policy”), normalized relations with Eastern Europe; for this, Brandt won a Nobel Peace Prize. Brandt later resigned after it was discovered that one of his top aides was an East German spy.
The Berlin Wall came down in 1989 and East and West Germany were unified in 1990. West German chancellor Helmut Kohl became reunified Germany’s first chancellor.4
Odds and Ends
The film defines “lycanthrope” as “a man who’s been transformed into a wolf”…Leamas drinks retsina, a Greek wine flavored with pine resin…Leamas flies into Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport on KLM, the world’s oldest still-operating airline…wine gums are English gummy candies named for wines (but don’t contain wine)…East and West Germany used the same flag, except the East German flag also included a hammer, compass and wreath of wheat.
CORRECTION: In our post on The Apartment, we claimed Deval Patrick was governor of Louisiana. Nope! He was governor of Massachusetts. We also claimed Fred MacMurray was in Sunset Boulevard. Nope!! We mixed him up with Jack Webb. Our thanks to the incomparable Yogesh for keeping us honest.
Actually, Richard Burton is not dissimilar to Daniel Craig’s Bond. That’s not really a compliment.
Also check out the city in the South of East Germany: Karl-Marx-Stadt. That city’s name has been changed to Chemnitz.
Adenauer’s opponent, on the other hand, was anti-communist but preferred unification as a socialist nation over division.
Helmut Kohl was preceded as West German chancellor by another Helmut—Helmut Schmidt.
Fun fact: The shopkeeper assaulted by Leamas was played by Bernard Lee, aka M from the James Bond movies. It's hard to believe that this wasn't intentional.