The Spy Who Came In from the Cold (1965)

The Spy Who Came In from the Cold (1965)

The use of black & white sets the perfect tone for this spy drama that leaves a viewer with a cold feeling well measured by the doubts of the Cold War. I saw in this movie why Richard Burton IS considered such a powerhouse actor. His face tells us so much! His inaction confesses a will struggling between good-conscious & just doing his job. Supposedly disgraced as the ex-Section Chief controlling agents in East Germany, Alec Leamas (Burton) seems worn out - can't pay for groceries or rent, can barely keep a job in a library, & is hopelessly down in the bottle. All he has left to sell to anyone asking are secrets. Intelligence secrets the East Germans are anxious to pay for.

Or is it all a scheme? Something developed by Control back at the Circus with the other British Spy-Masters? Is even Leamas being played? What is real? Or does reality, the concrete, ever exist once a person ties on the apron of being a spy? A very delivered story worth all the popcorn you can pop in the microwave.

Unless you don't care for spy vs. spy. Then look at it as a mortality tale. One that tells much of a man trying to find his way in a convoluted society & even more muddled human world. Where truth & certainty are double wrapped in packing paper & sent away to an undisclosed address...