List Price: $9.98You Pay Only: $7.49 You Save: $2.49 (25%)Prices subject to change.
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audience Rating: Unrated
Binding: DVD
EAN: 9780792198710
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Black & White, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
ISBN: 0792198719
Label: Paramount
Manufacturer: Paramount
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Paramount
Region Code: 1
Release Date: July 13, 2004
Running Time: 112 minutes
Sales Rank: 6952
Studio: Paramount
Theatrical Release Date: December 16, 1965
Related Items:
Editorial Review:
Amazon.com:
John le Carre's classic spy yarn gets a suitably brisk, unromanticized telling in this quintessential Cold War movie. A British agent (Richard Burton) sets up an elaborate cover story for being lured into defecting to the Communists, but he hardly needs to manufacture his disgust and cynicism over spying. The grim business of point-counterpoint espionage has rarely been depicted with less glamour; Burton's great climactic speech on the subject is the definitive take on sinking to the level of the enemy. Claire Bloom is an offbeat love interest, and a bearded Oskar Werner is an East German investigator on Burton's case (the pecking order in the Communist spy hierarchy is a source of black humor). Director Martin Ritt extends his unvarnished approach to the movie's stripped-down look, which means that Richard Burton is constantly in a harsh, unflattering light. He looks terrible, but it's in the service of a fine performance. --Robert Horton
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Superb adaptation
Having read the novel by LeCarre, I can't imagine anyone but Richard Burton as the burnt-out false defector Alec Leamas. The black-and-white of this film underscores the shades of gray in the moral no-man's-land in which Leamas takes on the most difficult, most insidious assignment of his trying career as a spy. The jacket of this edition of the film says "forget James Bond," a very apt line for what's inside. This film is made with raw, real suspense, fine acting, and excellent cinematography. There are no "super-spies," no gadgets, no kung-fu stunts, only the subtleties of people keeping secrets upon secrets. If you want to be cheered or excited, this is not your stop. But if you want to see brilliant work in film, check this one out.
Rating: - grim story accurately portrayed
This is an adaptation of the first popular novel by John le Carre (David Cornwell) who served in MI6 just after WWII. If you are easily depressed avoid this one. Otherwise it is close to the things that actually happened in that time frame.
The woman judge is modeled after a real person. She was from the German Aristocracy and was an opportunist who embraced the communist cause for what she could get from it. In stark contrast, her brother aided MI6 in WWII by being the source of the Oslo Report about German technological develoments.
Rating: - 5 stars for The Spy Who Came In From The Cold
This movie makes you feel like you are back in the cold war era. The main character's life and job are nothinglike James Bond or other fictional glamorous spies. This is a real person, flaws and all, struggling to do his very best to fight for what he believes in. And Richard Burton plays this character perferctly. It shows the changes he goes thru and the how forces he can't see or control affect his life. I highly recommend this movie for someone who wants to experience the cold war instead of a lot of special effects and car crashes.
Rating: - More than a spy thriller
As in all of LeCarre's works, there is a lot more shown than the machinations of Cold War espionage. The human element is always there. As much as the spies try to suppress their more human feelings in order to carry out their difficult missions, sooner or later they have to deal with them. That's what I find fascinating, rather than the plot complications of the spy business. Spy story fans will think differently. Here you don't have to choose--you get both.
Richard Burton gives a superb performance as the burnt-out, cynical spy who has lost any reason to do anything but drink. He claims not to do what he did for idealistic reasons and has nothing but contempt for his trade. He's offered a desk job in London after having been pulled in from active work in Berlin, but the safety of pushing papers doesn't appeal to him, either, so he takes it. He needs money and really has nothing better to do.
In the process of building an identity as a disaffected British spy, ready to defect to the Communists, he stumbles into a job as an assistant clerk in a library. There he meets an idealistic young woman (Claire Bloom) who believes that the Communist party is the answer to the world's problems--his polar opposite. Even as he scorns her naivetee, he falls for her sweetness and caring and promises to return to her after this one last job.
Complications ensue, as they do in complex spy stories and the outcome is truly a memorable one. The librarian's touching ... Read More
Rating: - Gripping Cold War Intrigue
I remember when this movie was first released, a friend saw it and afterward complained bitterly about how boring it was. This was around 1965 and he was expecting something more along the lines of James Bond, Our Man Flint, Matt Helm or any of the other James Bond knockoffs going around back then. But "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" was totally different. No flashy fantasy picture here; this is stark, cold reality showing cold war espionage the way it probably really was.
The movie is shot in black and white adding to the stark reality. The musical score is very subtle and low-keyed and used sparingly as the tension builds, but still manages to set the desperate mood of the story. The acting is superb; Richard Burton and Oskar Werner give outstanding performances. The tribunal and escape scenes toward the end of the movie are some of the most powerful you'll ever see as the many facets of the mysterious Operation Rolling Stone finally come together.
I really appreciate understatement and compactness in film and this is a good example of that. There are absolutely no wasted scenes or dialog, no throwaway gag lines and no laughs. Every minute of this serious film is vital to the story line. The audience must pay close attention. It must have been quite a challenge for director Martin Ritt to film such a complicated story, but he and the screenwriters pulled it off
A blurb in my copy of the book by John LeCarre says this is one of the best spy ... Read More
Browse for similar items by category:
|
