Watch The Spy Who Came in from the Cold For Free

This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

Thanks for the memories!

Redundant and unnecessary.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

******SPOILER******Throughout the entire film the story and Leames's depressed topcoat and Nan's undecided despair love against him are moving in a straight line. The end is so natural, this film could not be considered another ending.

Martin Ritt's cinematic re-enactment of John le Carré's sensational spy novel, is a somber pièce- de-résistance countervails the much sought-after James Bond franchise (which, over 60 years later, is still a juggernaut groovy train), de-glamorizes its Martini, shaken not stirred screen preconception, and adjusts an intractably realistic spin on the treachery and disillusion of the Janus-faced veiled by the Cold War paranoia. One year after the erection of the Berlin Wall, Alec Leamas (Burton, supremely jaded and miffed) is devolved from the head of UK's West Berlin office after one of his best double-agent is shot dead in the chilling opening long shot. Back to London, a dispirited Alec is reassigned as an insignificant librarian, and strikes up a romantic liaison with his younger co-worker, the self-effacing Nancy Perry (Bloom), although they hold different political persuasions, Nancy is a communist, the idealistic type. After an impulsive physical assault on Patmore (Lee, the first"M" in the Bond series), a grocery shop owner who possibly holds a racist animosity towards Alec's Irish lineage, he is put in prison, and after his release, he is contacted by the member of the East German Intelligence Service, deemed as a potential defector on the face of his demeaning situations. Soon the story reveals that everything aforementioned is a front, in fact, Alec is undertaking a clandestine mission designated by Control, the chief of UK's Secret Intelligence Service (an inscrutably poised Cyril Cusack, not minces word about the vocation's seedy modus operandi), to act as a faux-defector to East Germany and deliver incriminating information to frame a high rank East German officer Mundt (van Eyck) as a paid informant, so that Mundi will be executed by his enterprising deputy Fiedler (Werner). So Alec assiduously climbs the pecking order to gain the trust of his enemies (where Ritt knowingly jeers at the callous rank superiority in the communist party) and finally reaches East Germany where he is under personal interrogation by Fiedler, he tactfully doles out spotty disinformation and gradually earns Fiedler's trust. Everything goes well according to the plan, during a secret tribunal where Mundt is tried, Fiedler's impassioned accusation seems spotless, but one person's appearance tips the scale, but that is not all, the film still pulls the wool over our eyes, until a final twist, in the fashion of Billy Wilder's WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION (1957), clears the ulterior motive, and casts an unnerving pathos when Alec delivers the revealing condemnation about the true nature of spy, he and Nancy are given the chance to scramble that damned wall for safety, but at that point, all bets are off. Unflinching in foregrounding its source novel's ingrained skepticism and fatalism, THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD sustains a compelling narrative arc without resorting to action spectacles (gunshots only being fired in two occasions), meanwhile DP. Oswald Morris' expressively noir-ish cinematography and Sol Kaplan's indelibly enthralling score speak volumes of the bleak context where the world is governed by sinister conspiracies and people like Alec and Nancy, however diligent or innocent, are expendable pawns who can never outrun their sorry fate, In retrospect, the film should have been Mr. Burton's crowning point to take that Oscar golden statue which would elude his entire life, he is nominated but loses out to Lee Marvin's Manichaean turn in CAT BALLOU (1965), which as time goes by, looks like a travesty to an increasing extent. Mr. Burton is absolutely at his most impenetrable in limning Alec's flinty carapace during his high-wire act, and most poignant in emoting his smoldering frustration and self-loath when he realizes that he has accidentally consummated his assignment, but at the expense of his conviction to humanity. The supporting cast is also exceptional, significant players like Bloom and Werner, instigate great two-handers - the former plies the story with a tinge of well-balanced warmth whereas the latter is memorably eloquent and radiant to fight for his noble cause, respectively with Mr. Burton, without being overshadowed by the latter's incandescent flair, and a solemn-looking Peter van Eyck ekes out a transfixing about-face moment, with a bloodthirsty dagger nevertheless in his hands. An outright engrossing spy thriller, pulls no punches in challenging its indulgent audience, and steadfastly establishes its growing cachet as a film par excellence in its own genre.

This spy film is an adaptation of the novel by John Le Carre and blows the recent TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY adaptation clean out of the water. It's a dark and dingy movie about Cold War relations and the lengths that either side will go to in order to protect their own operatives and destroy those opposing them.The stark black and white photography is exemplary and gives the viewer the message that this will be a grimly realistic movie about the ruthless nature of Cold War spies. Richard Burton is perfectly cast as the jaded and burnt out agent who tries to live a normal life but is sent to Europe for one last job. The plot twists and turns so much that it's impossible to predict what's going to happen, and although it's very complex it also remains easy to follow from beginning to end.There are some great twists here, and a masterful ending which really says everything that needs to be said about the situation. The all-star supporting cast is also very good, particularly a twitchy Oskar Werner and a fragile Claire Bloom. Best of all is a haunted Burton, playing perhaps the role of a lifetime.

In the 60's, during the Cold War, the operative Alec Leamas (Richard Burton) loses his last agent in East Berlin when he is shot while crossing the border. Leamas travels to London to meet his Chief Control (Cyril Cusack). They have a meeting and Control asks him to lure the East Germans to make them believe that their agent Hans-Dieter Mundt (Peter Van Eyck) is a double agent and use the Jewish agent Fiedler (Oskar Werner), who is under the command of Mundt and hates him, to expose Mundt to get rid off him. Leamas poses of alcoholic defector without any pension that finds a job in a library. Soon he becomes lover of the naive Nan Perry (Claire Bloom), who works with him in the library and belongs to the Communist Party. Leamas is arrested for fighting in a store and when he is discharged from jail, an East German agent recruits him and they travel to Netherlands. Then they travel to East German where Leamas meets Fiedler that uses his information to accuse Mundt. They go to a tribunal and out of the blue, Mundt's attorney summons a mysterious witness. Who might be this witness?"The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" is a film with an amoral spy story of manipulation, seduction and betrayal. The plot point is absolutely unexpected and the explanation of the behavior of a spy of Leamas to Nan is cruel. The performances are outstanding and the conclusion is depressive. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): "O Espião que Veio do Frio" ("The Spy Who Came in from the Cold")