The Spy Who Came In From The Cold (1965)

This film is considered a classic of its genre. I knew this ahead of time, with two consequences:

• My expectations were quite high, perhaps unreasonably so.
• The ending is rather famous, so I was aware of it before I sat down to watch the movie.

I anticipated that the second issue would be a bigger problem than the first, but it was the other way around: The ending (which I won’t mention explicitly in this review) is practically a foregone conclusion that I would have predicted even if I hadn’t known about it. I’ve read that critics were disappointed with it at the time, but I think they missed the point: Large swaths of the plot are all about how individual spies – and people – are expendable, and that it really doesn’t matter how nice you are or what your cause is: the rules of the game state that no one is safe. The film has to end the way it does, to drive home that central message.

That said, the movie isn’t predictable in its entirety. In fact, for a while there I was wondering when the espionage would start. The main character, Alec Leamas (Richard Burton), is a spy alright, but one his superiors consider burnt-out and ineffective. He’s offered a desk job, but he refuses and leaves the agency. Leamas does not adjust well to civilian life; he has difficulty holding down a job, drinks too much, has anger management issues, lands in prison for a short while.