Flint-MI-guy Reviews

Smiley's People (1982)

"Fantastic! George! All your life!"

[10/10 · 5 July 2004]

I won't choose between TINKER TAILOR and SMILEY'S PEOPLE. They're both first-rate. PEOPLE isn't as dark (even though bodies litter the landscape), but it builds to great tension even on repeat viewings.

Master-class performances by Michael Lonsdale (Grigoriev), Michael Gough (Mikhel), Eileen Atkins (Ostrakova), and even the unknown Stephen Riddle (Mostyn). Paul Herzberg's good simple Villem is a treat, and Beryl Reid as Connie Sachs does an even better job than in TINKER, showing Connie's mind a little further gone. Even the bit parts knock it out of the park with authenticity.

I was really glad that the Toby Esterhase character was finally given his linguistic head in this series. His Hungarian-English popcorn speech ("Fantastic! George! All your life!") is brought to life by Bernard Hepton, reprising his role from TINKER and showing himself equal to the novels' original dialog.

The SMILEY'S PEOPLE Special Features DVD has a different interview with John le Carré than the TINKER one does. Be sure to watch them both.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979)

How TV can be way better than movies

[10/10 · 5 July 2004]

Le Carré says on the DVD interview that this production "came as near to my imagining as any film has come" -- and he's had eleven. He says that after Alec Guinness was signed up, getting the rest of the cast was easy: "We could empty the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company." It shows. Some of the best, most subtle, believable, and faithful acting I've ever seen.

One example: Alexander Knox was not my mental image of Control (I pictured someone more like the 70-year-old Joss Ackland), but he was fantastic. He plays a secretive, brilliant man whose mind is declining when he needs it most. The camera stays on him silently for what seems like minutes as he tries to make sense of a catastrophic betrayal. No groans or sighs, just real fear in his eyes; he seems to fight the urge to burst into tears. I could watch his scenes over & over. (And have.)

[Possible spoilers for those who've read the novel & want to be surprised by any differences]

Bernard Hepton is also terrific. His Toby Esterhase doesn't speak in the zigzagging, English-as-a-fourteenth-language manner of the novels' Toby, but as if he were a native Brit. I assume this was due to the clear impression that Toby is treated as an inferior by the other spies and the creators didn't want to make the British spies seem merely xenophobic, just dreadfully classist. Despite the de-colorized language, Hepton's Toby is wonderful. His interrogation by Smiley is a scene worth watching again & again, also.

The only miss in the whole 5 1/2 hours is perhaps Mendel (played by George Sewell). The TV Mendel was compressed from 2 characters in the novel (Mendel & MacFadean) and in the process, I think, lost all personality. Mendel is now a silent, well-dressed, apparently brilliant spy, not a lonely, old, bachelor cop. He has no imaginable history, no wrinkles, no flavor. He's like the nameless FBI agents who come in at the end of a B movie to take the bad guy away. This character-combining also leads to a couple of plot holes (submitted).

Other than Toby's ironed-out speech, Arthur Hopcraft lifted most of the dialog verbatim from the novel. A few new lines (as when Peter surprises George at his house) are perfectly in keeping with le Carré's style and even add to the characters' depth. The novel's timeline was compressed from 18 to 6 months, which leads to a few discontinuities (also submitted), but it still works.

The 1982 sequel SMILEY'S PEOPLE is visually brighter and has a simpler plot. Sort of a 'Tinker Lite', but in some ways I enjoyed it more. It also has great performances.