People sell people, their own country and even their own ideologies. This is one of those ugly depictions of the Great Cold War. Pure astuteness, political manipulation and deceit filled up that era.
This is very pertinently depicted in The Spy Who Came In
From The Cold – 1963; a British Cold War Spy film, directed by Martin Ritt and
starring the ever majestic Richard Burton.
A fair amount of warning - viewing this may need concentration
and intelligence.
The film was adapted from the best seller by the same
name and was written by David John Moore Cornwell in 1963.
Clever script and flawless acting specifically by
Richard Burton, makes this movie a timeless classic.’
Plot {Source : Wikipedia site}
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spy_Who_Came_in_from_the_Cold_(film)
The West Berlin office of "The Circus", under station chief Alec Leamas, has suffered from reduced effectiveness. He is recalled to London shortly after the death of one of his operatives and is seemingly drummed out of the agency. In reality, a carefully staged transformation of Leamas has been arranged by Control, the agency's chief. Appearing to be depressed, embittered, and alcoholic, Leamas takes work as an assistant at a local library. There, he begins a relationship with co-worker Nan Perry, a young and idealistic member of the English Communist Party.
Leamas is approached by a series of operatives, each one passing him up the chain of the East German intelligence service, and he expresses a willingness to sell British secrets for money. He eventually flies to the Netherlands to meet an agent named Peters, who decides that his information is important enough to send him on to East Germany. At a German country house, Leamas is introduced to Fiedler, who becomes his main interrogator. Leamas then begins to carry out his secret mission, which is to share information that suggests a high-ranking East German intelligence officer named Mundt is a paid informant of the British. The evidence is circumstantial, and Leamas repeatedly claims that Mundt could not have been a British agent without his knowledge. However, Fiedler is able to independently confirm and expand upon on Leamas' information and comes to the conclusion that Mundt, his supervisor, has indeed been a secret asset of British intelligence for many years.
Mundt unexpectedly arrives at the compound and has both Leamas and Fiedler arrested for plotting against him. Once Fiedler explains his findings to his superiors, the tables are turned and Mundt is arrested. A secret tribunal is convened to try Mundt, with Leamas compelled to testify. Fiedler presents a strong case for Mundt being a paid double agent. However, Mundt's attorney uncovers several discrepancies in Leamas' transformation into an informant, suggesting that Leamas is a faux defector. Leamas' credibility collapses when Nan, who has been brought to East Germany for what she thought was a cultural exchange visit, is forced to testify at the tribunal and unwittingly reveals that she has been receiving payments from British intelligence. Leamas reluctantly admits that he is still a British agent, Fiedler is arrested as a complicit dupe, and Mundt is vindicated.
Leamas initially believes he has failed in his mission and fears severe retribution from Mundt. However, in the middle of the night, Mundt releases Leamas from his cell and provides an escape plan for him and Nan, who was also being held prisoner. Mundt explains that Leamas' real mission has succeeded; Mundt actually is a British agent, and Fiedler had been the target of the operation all along, as he had grown too suspicious of his supervisor. This comes as a shock to Leamas, and the complex web he has been drawn into and the risk he has been placed in by his own superiors become painfully clear. He explains the entire plot to still-idealistic Nan as they drive their borrowed car toward the border, and she berates him for being involved in what amounts to the murder of a man, Fiedler, who was only doing his job. Leamas, agitated by her naiveté, erupts in an angry, self-loathing confession - excerpts from the film below :
Leamas and Nan arrive at the Berlin Wall and are given instructions to climb over to West Germany on a particular ladder while a searchlight is intentionally turned away. While Leamas is atop the wall pulling Nan behind him, the searchlight suddenly shines directly on them, alarms sound, and Nan is shot dead by Mundt's operatives, silencing the only civilian witness to the operation. Leamas freezes in shock and horror, and is urged by agents on both sides to return to the West. Instead, he climbs back down towards Nan's body on the eastern side of the wall and is shot dead as well.
{end of Wikipedia article}
Cast ⧭
- Richard Burton as Alec Leamas
- Claire Bloom as Nan Perry
- Oskar Werner as Fiedler
- Cyril Cusack as Control
- Peter van Eyck as Hans-Dieter Mundt
Excerpts from the conversation in the film, first
between Richard Burton [RB] and Oskar Werner [OW] then towards the end between
Richard Burton [RB] and Claire Bloom [CB]
::::
[RB] - I don't believe in Father Christmas. I don't
believe in God or Karl Marx. I don't believe in anything that rocks the world.
[OW] - But how do you sleep? You have to have a
philosophy.
[RB] - I
reserve the right to be ignorant. That's the Western way of life.
[OW] I couldn't
have put it better myself. You think ignorance a valuable contribution to world
knowledge. You fight for ignorance.
[RB] - Go to hell.
[CB] - What rules are you playing?
[RB] - There's
only one rule - expediency. Mundt gives London what it needs, so Fiedler dies
and Mundt lives. It was a foul, foul operation, but it paid off.
[CB] - Who for?
[RB] - What the
hell do you think spies are? Moral
philosophers measuring everything they do against the word of God or Karl Marx?
They're not. They're just a bunch of seedy, squalid bastards like me. Little
men, drunkards, queers, henpecked husbands...civil servants playing cowboys and
Indians to brighten their rotten little lives. Do you think they sit like monks
in a cell, balancing right against wrong?
Yesterday I would have killed Mundt because I thought him evil and an
enemy. But not today. Today he's evil and my friend. London needs him. They
need him so that the great, moronic masses you admire so much...can sleep
soundly in their flea-bitten beds again. They need him for the safety of
ordinary, crummy people like you and me.
[CB] - You
killed Fiedler! How big does a cause have to be before you kill your friends?
[RB] - What
about your Party? There's a few million bodies on that path.
-X-
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