Wordiezett So much average

ClassyWas Excellent, smart action film.

Glimmerubro It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

Paynbob It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

robert-temple-1 I can't recall how many times I have seen this film, commencing with its initial release, but it gets better every time. Can films mature with age like Volnay and Pommard? I see more in it now than I did before. Does this mean that I no longer have presbyopia? In this latest viewing, I realized for the first time the true enormity of the genius shown by Simone Signoret in her part which has very little dialogue. All she has to do is move her eyes, and we stir with emotion. This film is based on the John le Carre novel CALL FOR THE DEAD, and was the second of his novels to be filmed, the first being THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD (1965), which came out a year earlier. This is very much a film about people, and is only incidentally a spy tale. It is of course brilliantly made, with Sidney Lumet excelling himself, and all the actors at their very best. I spent one day on the set of this film in the spring of 1966, at Twickenham Studios. The only one of the actors who was there that day was James Mason. It was the only time I ever met him. We chatted for a while. For those who are interested, I can say that in person James Mason was exactly like James Mason on screen. What you saw was what you got. He really was James Mason, it's as simple as that. With many actors and actresses you meet somebody else entirely, but with him there was that same soft voice and gentle polite manner, in which he appears to be confiding in you as a dear friend. What a delightful fellow he was. So I never got to meet Simone Signoret, a great loss. I talked for a while with Lumet, who shocked me by saying that he would be happy to abandon celluloid and start making movies on video tape. He was a highly intelligent and very pleasant man. I spent much more time chatting with the cinematographer Freddie Young and his operator Brian West, both of whom I already knew. Freddie talked to me more on that day that at any other time. He waxed lyrical on his theories of lighting, put his hands in the air to show the rays of light coming down at different angles, and even showed signs of excitement. Freddie, who was the most sedate and calmest of men, never usually gave any indication of being excited about anything. He could calm any hysterical actor or actress simply by looking at them and smiling in a friendly fashion. Brian was the same. They were truly The Silent Ones on both set and location. Nervous directors instantly felt at ease in their presence. But what Freddie was most excited to tell me was that he had perfected a new technique on this film. He said that Sidney had wanted to have a visual effect of gloom in the film, and asked Freddie if he knew how to do that. So Freddie came up with what was then a brilliant new idea, though used continually ever since by everyone while celluloid was still in use. I asked him what was this new technique. And he answered with barely restrained enthusiasm: 'The film is 30% flashed.' I said what do you mean 'flashed'? He said that he had taken the celluloid out of the cans and pre-exposed it to light under carefully controlled conditions. He did many experiments and found that 30% exposure was just right. That made the finished film look subtly washed-out in the gloomy way that Sidney wanted, but while retaining its colour sufficiently. He was so proud of this achievement, which was the result of very prolonged experiments over a period of weeks prior to shooting. What fine fellows Freddie and Brian were. 'They don't make 'em like that anymore.' The other person I met that day was the young feminist campaigner, Gloria Steinem, who was visiting Sidney in her role as journalist to write an article about him and the film. She was super-glamorous in those days, really something! Most of the men on set hardly dared look at her, lest their desires overwhelm them. I steeled myself against this onslaught of pulchritude, overlookng the fact that she was irresistible and pretending I had not noticed, so that she and I chatted away for ages, and she was so effusively friendly that she insisted on giving me an introduction to her great friend Bob Brown at ESQUIRE, whom I thus later befriended. But her main enthusiasm was because I had been on friendly terms with her chum from COSMOPOLITAN, Helen Gurley Brown, or should I say Helen Girlie Brown. But then that is another story. You never know what is going to happen on a film set, though the answer to that (if you ask any bored actor waiting between shots): usually nothing. Now as to this film, it is simply superb, and everyone should see it immediately. Sidney also had the exquisite taste to cast the Swedish actress Harriet Andersson as James Mason's young nymphomaniac wife. Those of us who haunted the art houses in those days knew her from the Ingmar Bergman films, and then suddenly there she was in an English language film, and of course she does very well. The recipe for a good film is often: 'throw in one Swede or two Danes, and stir'. Just look at Bergman's protégé Max von Sydow to see how far they can go in the world of international cinema. And it is always good to see the wonderful British character actor Harry Andrews in films, here playing a sleepy retired police inspector who keeps nodding off. It is all just terrific, and every bit a superior John le Carre film. In fact it is even better, being a genuine classic.

Robert J. Maxwell This was released in 1967. It was a decade for spy stories of varying quality, beginning probably with the wildly success James Bond series. Everyone read Ian Fleming's spy novels. President Kennedy was said to be a fan.John Le Carre's spy novels, from one of which this film is derived, were generally gloomier and more serious than Ian Fleming's. Nobody could take Rosa Klebb seriously, but here is Simone Signoret as the sullen widow of a man in British intelligence who appears to have committed suicide but whom the protagonist, agent James Mason, believes to have been murdered.It takes Mason the entire length of the film to pin down the murderer among the ensemble cast. It's something of a clotted plot, with friends or former friends working for and against each other. Unlike the Bond movies, you never quite know what's up and the end comes as something of a surprise.Nor does it have Ian Fleming's sometimes reckless humor. You won't find many tag lines here. "The name is Bond -- James Bond." Or "shaken, not stirred." And none of the girls are named Thumper, Bambi, or Pussy Galore. Director Sidney Lumet doesn't entirely eschew comedy. (If he did, it would be murky indeed.) But, a few witty exchanges aside, the only funny part is in a theater rehearsal of the first witches' scene in "MacBeth." The cauldron doesn't bubble. And when the crew finally gets the dry ice into it, the fire goes out.A particular annoyance: the Big Reveal comes during the performance of a tragedy. A king is stomped to death with a table, and one of his murderers murders another murderer immediately afterward. Okay. I'm sitting there trying to identify which of Shakespeare's plays this is. There's plenty of Grand Guignol in Billy Shakespeare but if my life depended on it I can't remember anyone being killed by a table. A butt of malmsy, heads lopped off, eyes gouged out -- yes, but no tables. Nor could I identify a single line of the play. That's because the skanks were performing Christopher Marlowe's "Edward II" without having even hinted at it. It would have ruined the movie for me had it not come so near the climax. I've been told I missed the shot of the poster announcing the title of the play. That's not good enough. It cost them one star off my review.Speaking of kings, Freddie Young's photography is princely, if consistently dark. The music is by Quincy Jones, a terrific musician, whose score emerges here as Bossa Antigua. Simone Signoret has what may be the best role as a pathetic middle-aged woman broken by her experiences in a concentration camp. But Max Schell is equally good in a complicated role. Everything he does seems to be outstanding. And what long, delicate fingers he has, like a spider's legs but more coordinated and more expressive.There have been more entertaining movies in the genre but this one isn't bad if you have a modicum of patience.

thinker1691 There are many stories which originate from the imaginative pen of famed author John Le Carre. His most intricate spy novel is 'The Spy who came in from the Cold.' Here is another, a very suspenseful thriller which he created called " The Deadly Affair. " Director Sidney Lumet has British spy Charles Dobbs (James Mason) assigned to interview and clear a British Government employee Sammuel Fennan (Robert Flemyng). A simple task which changes overnight as Fennan commits suicide. His supervisor and his colleagues accept it, but Dobbs suspects it was murder. To trouble Dobbs as he investigates, is his adulterous nymphomaniac wife Ann (Harriet Andersson) who is having a sordid affair with his best friend Dieter Frey. (Maximilian Schell) The case become mysterious and ever complicated as more people are killed, so he is aided by retired inspector Mendel (Harry Andrews, who steals the show from Mason). Kenneth Haigh is Bill Appleby who is nearly indispensable to Dobbs. Roy Kinnear appears briefly. The movie is in Black and White as were the last days of the cold war. Superb acting gives this movie a Classic feel and easily ranks as one of Mason's best. ****

ccbc First of all, I liked this movie. I could watch it several more times but there are some irritating things about it. Anyway, this is one of the essential LeCarre spy movies. It is unfortunate that the studio renamed Smiley as Dobbs, but James Mason plays George Smiley, and does so very well. Smiley/Dobbs is a cuckold because his wife just can't help it. This is not very well played out in this film which hints at, oh, impotence and nymphomania (does that still mean anything?). The point, for LeCarre, was that Smiley's betrayed love is a metaphor for the political betrayal that is his stock in trade. Who better to discover a traitor than the betrayed man? The plot is genius: a cabinet minister dies, possibly a suicide, after Smiley/Dobbs interrogates him about possible Communist connections. Smiley/Dobbs thinks there is something more to this; he thinks it might be murder. Assisted by a superannuated cop, he seeks the truth, and finds it. All this is well-done: a good story, good acting, good photography, etc. But! The soundtrack is often terribly inappropriate. Lumet must have known this and at one point the soundtrack ends with a phono needle being scratched across vinyl -- the one truly cool moment in the use of the music. And sometimes the editing is wretched: choppy, major speeches interrupted with meaningless shots -- I don't know who to blame for this except Lumet. Still, with all its flaws, a movie worth watching, especially if you are interested in Cold War spy thrillers.