The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (Criterion #452). 1965 Paramount Pictures.
Starring: Richard Burton, Claire Bloom, Oskar Werner, Sam Wanamaker, George Voskovec, Rupert Davies, Cyril Cusack
Director: Martin Ritt
Available at Amazon: Criterion Collection #452, or a cheaper non-Criterion edition.

Richard Burton is Alec Leamas, a British secret agent who seemingly loses control of his West Berlin office, and is recalled to London ("coming in from the cold") after one of his operatives dies. Leamas is demoted to a lower-tier section of the agency, feeling depressed and disgruntled while battling alcoholism. He quickly becomes depressed enough that he starts accepting overtures from German communist agents.

Actually, this is a carefully planned transformation of Alec Leamas to pull one over on the East Germans, so he can feed misinformation to the Communists. He appears to have information that will implicate an East German intelligence officer named Mundt (Peter Van Eyck) as a paid informant for Britain, but not enough information, which frustrates "Herr Fiedler" (Werner). All three men are arrested, and later, Mundt and Fiedler find themselves in front of a German tribunal with Leamas as a star witness. Leamas has a bad day in court, topped off by the testimony of his communist girlfriend, Nan Perry (Bloom), and he is exposed as still working as a British agent, which clears Mundt, and sees Fiedler, his credibility ruined, escorted out. He is later executed.

Leamas believes he has failed his mission, and will be executed. Mundt comes around to release him, where he realizes that the plan all along was to discredit Fiedler, and that Mundt genuinely was a British agent, so his mission did succeed. Nan berates Alec, who grows quickly annoyed that she doesn't know about the world he really lives in. Sadly, Nan has learned too much during her time in Berlin, and she is shot at the Berlin Wall. Alec, persuaded by agents on both sides to either return or permanently defect, simply goes to Nan's body, where he is also killed.

This film is dreary, depressing, and brilliant. Highly recommended.