The Spy Who Came in from the (Endlessly Bitter) Cold
John le Carré’s 1963 novel The Spy Who Came in from the Cold broke the spy genre open and distilled many of the attributes that would become familiar themes across le Carré’s career. It is a caustic work, bleak and uncompromising in regards to the null morality of Britain’s Secret Service. But it’s equally distrustful of Communist idealism, and perhaps most disdainful toward the unbothered public that presumes the Cold War must be about something substantial, at the very least. This is a world of obscure intent and brutal exploitations, where a noble cause is little more than mere marketing. Political ideologies may as well be brand loyalties.
The work of le Carré disowns the flashiness of most spy fare, and Martin Ritt’s adaptation of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold is true to the novel’s ethos. Richard Burton portrays Alec Leamas, the British Station Head in West Berlin. After one of his operatives is killed trying to escape from the Soviet-controlled East Berlin, Leamas moves to retire—to come in from the cold, in their parlance.
His superiors convince him to support one more undercover operation, and Alec, as bitter as he feels, acquiesces. He returns to England and works at a low paying job in a small library. Alec spends his spare time inching toward alcoholism and general misanthropy, though a coworker manages to find a sense of humanity. Nan, an idealistic member of the Communist Party in England, brings life out of Alec. Before their budding romance can progress too far, however, Leamas attacks a store clerk and is thrown in jail.
When his sentence is complete, Leamas is approached by a man who offers him food and money on the condition that he meets with another acquaintance. In time, it’s revealed that these men represent East Germany and are pressuring Leamas to defect and share Britain’s secrets. Once again reluctant, he agrees, and he finds himself thrust into a battle within the ranks of the Soviet Secret Service.
Leamas’ pseudo-defection shows that the Soviets are just as prone to bureaucratic infighting as the British—not that he expected much more of them. The whole system is decayed. There is no nobility, no righteous cause at stake. The Cold War is a zero sum game played by world powers at the expense of ordinary human lives.
The acting here is suitably prickly, cold, and natural. Everyone is worn down; few people have the ability to muster up any passion at this point. That can be a tough challenge, but Burton carries Leamas’ disappointment in every gesture and glance. It’s a little off putting to see Oskar Werner (especially so closely after my first watch of Jules and Jim) play a KGB officer and the closest this movie comes to anything like charm. Peter van Eyck is more effective as Mundt, a rival of Werner’s Fiedler and a more intimidating figure. But this is a game where even one’s enemies can’t be trusted as such, and the role that each person plays is persistently tenuous.
The substance of any le Carré adaptation is in how closely it holds to his bitter perspective. They can range in their flashiness and star power, but the question at the root is unchanging: Is hope anything other than naïve in the distorted spy games of a world so distorted? Some remain true and prove powerful; some contort into audience expectations and are swiftly disregarded. Ritt’s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold is one of the most affecting, and perhaps the purest, of them all.
