Rating: 
Summary: Black and White It's Not
Review: The grainy greys of the beginning of this masterpiece slowly crecendo to the stark blacks and whites of the Berlin Wall at its end. Some of the scenes are obviously over-exposed to get just the right texture of a world without boundaries - physical or political. Burton displays the torrent of anguish lying just beneath the surface of one who finally comes to recognize there is no country, just the yearning for love. Between "Jump Alec, jump!" and "Mr. Leamus, get back on your own side!" Burton makes the only choice that allows him to defy the masters - to die in between the zones, right on that bright line. Beautifully filmed.
Rating:
Summary: If understood, horrifying
Review: The less I say the better -- I wish they had a place where people who've seen this masterpiece can discuss it. In short, everybody is lying, and the main character doesn't even realize what's going on till the very end. When that end comes, if you believe the world to be the way the movie describes it ... oh, well. Your skin will crawl at the horrific nature of the human condition.
Have fun.
Rating:
Summary: Still gritty, still gripping, cinematic fable...
Review: THE SPY is a minor masterpiece. The acting is superb.The screenplay--by Paul Dehn and Guy Trosper--is utterly faithful to the disturbing cynicism of John Le Carre's acclaimed novel. Technical execution--art direction; bleak black, murky white photography;and pacing,simultaneously direct and labyrinthine--is faultless. This may be Richard Burton's finest role as Alec Leamas; bitter,decidedly unglamorous, unsuper-SPY of the equally unglamorous British SIS.The latter is incarnated in the marvelous cameo of Cyril Cusack,the MI-6 CONTROL,who without qualm or conscience sends his transparently convictionless Field Man back into THE COLD for a final WICKED ACT of ultimate treachery. Claire Bloom is excellent as crucial pawn in the British Spymaster's gambit against East German Communist SD commanded by ex-Nazi Hans-Dieter Mundt essayed with icy venom by Peter Van Eyck. As noted, the singularly sympathetic character in the story is played by Oscar Werner,a Communist idealogue who attempts to use Leamas to ferret-out a traitor within the Communist Intelligence apparat.If you know the story, you will not be disappointed in its unfolding as "untragic" tragedy.There is no heroism. The "hollow man" quality of principal characters strikes too close to home in characterizing "Democratic" vacuity in principle-less
decadence. Leamas unfeigned scorn for himself is overwhelming. Director Martin Ritt cuts no slack on viewer sensibilities in presenting amorality of COLD WAR pretensions to preservation of the Good and Just. Irony of Bernard Lee--who played "M" in 007 films for more than 20 years--playing a hard-working, grocery store proprietor whose generosity to a drunken Leamas gets him viciously assaulted by THE SPY conveys an anti-Good Samaritan parable uncomfortably consonant with Post-Modernist power-trip philosophies proposing "good guys are saps". The COLD WAR may be over, but this film...beginning with gunning-down of would-be heroes fleeing to freedom; ending with should-be heroes being gunned-down climbing(The Berlin Wall)back...proposes that battles
for freedom are spiritual struggles and when the good guys "give-up", God help peoples or nations that do not recognize or remember what SPIRIT is or value the heroism required to defend it. A great picture; a cinematic fable.
Rating: 
Summary: Dark , brooding and ironic ,
Review: The Spy Who Came In From The Cold is a dark brooding spy saga about Alec Leamas (Richard Burton), a burned out, cynical, alcoholic and rather depressed former MI 5 agent, who has been `discharged' from the service.
Working in a library, he forms a romance with Nan Perry (Claire Bloom), a dowdy and rather pathetic young English librarian, who finds meaning in her life, with doctrinaire Communist views, and her activities in the British Communist Party.
Leamas is later asked by the service to help cover for a East German spy, secretly working for the British, and is asked to make contact with East German agents in Holland, before being taken back to Berlin.
A rather ironic and slow moving film, with some brilliant dialogue and little action.
The end gives some more ironic evidence of how the Communists devour their own , how those who devote their lives to `The Party' often end up as it's victims.
Rating:
Summary: Scary black and white film....
Review: The world John Lecarré describes is without mercy and forgiveness. The films based on his books are not nearly as terrifying, though they are frightening enough. THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD is an early adaptation of one of Lecarré's books by the same name, and in it he introduces albeit briefly, the character George Smiley. The three main characters in this production Alex (Richard Burton), Nan (Claire Bloom) and Monque (Oskar Werner) were all very fine actors in the 1950s and 1960s. This film was one of the last Burton made (965) and in it he plays a "burnt-out" spy who has been the operations officer in Berlin for 15 years of the Cold War. Alex was recruited by British Intelligence shortly after WWII just as the East Bloc began to descend behind the "Iron Curtain" according to Western leaders like Churchill. The CIA was also spun from military intelligence during this period, and there is a brief interaction between Alex and a CIA officer at the beginning of the movie as Alex awaits a defecting East German spy at the infamous "Checkpoint Charlie". SPY is shot in Black and White which enhances the spooky subject. Night time scenes with flashing lights and rainy London weather add to the atmosphere. I first saw this film in the theater, and I was so young I could not figure out what was going on. The plot is complex, but not as complex as that of later adaptations such as SOLDIER, SAILOR...,or SMILEY'S PEOPLE which were given ample air time for the unraveling. It is a frightening film, and some one my age might wonder why anyone would ever become a spy.
Rating:
Summary: Scary black and white film....
Review: The world John Lecarré describes is without mercy and forgiveness. The films based on his books are not nearly as terrifying, though they are frightening enough. THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD is an early adaptation of one of Lecarré's books by the same name, and in it he introduces albeit briefly, the character George Smiley. The three main characters in this production Alex (Richard Burton), Nan (Claire Bloom) and Monque (Oskar Werner) were all very fine actors in the 1950s and 1960s. This film was one of the last Burton made (965) and in it he plays a "burnt-out" spy who has been the operations officer in Berlin for 15 years of the Cold War. Alex was recruited by British Intelligence shortly after WWII just as the East Bloc began to descend behind the "Iron Curtain" according to Western leaders like Churchill. The CIA was also spun from military intelligence during this period, and there is a brief interaction between Alex and a CIA officer at the beginning of the movie as Alex awaits a defecting East German spy at the infamous "Checkpoint Charlie". SPY is shot in Black and White which enhances the spooky subject. Night time scenes with flashing lights and rainy London weather add to the atmosphere. I first saw this film in the theater, and I was so young I could not figure out what was going on. The plot is complex, but not as complex as that of later adaptations such as SOLDIER, SAILOR...,or SMILEY'S PEOPLE which were given ample air time for the unraveling. It is a frightening film, and some one my age might wonder why anyone would ever become a spy.
Rating:
Summary: The Spy who Came In from The Cold
Review: This is probably one of Richard Burton's best performances and deserves more attention. It is the story of a Cold War spy sent out to pasture as a clerk in a book store/library. He turns to alcohol to escape the humm-drum existence. The "agency" has one more job for him to do and brings him out of retirement. Is he being set up or is there something deeper afoot. This is NOT the glitzy James Bond spy!! A cold, hard, look at the world of spies during the Cold War Era and the smarmy people in their world. Very thought provoking and a great performance by Burton.
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