Smiley's People
                    
Director: NA
Year: 1982
Rating: 8.0
John le Carré had a long relationship with his fictional spy George Smiley. While le Carré was still working at MI6 he wrote his first book; his first Smiley novel, Call for the Dead. He followed that up with A Murder of Quality. Both have been adapted to film. Smiley was unlike all the spies in pulp novels that were becoming so popular. An older man, owlish behind his wide-brimmed glasses, slow and measured of speech, having to survive the bureaucratic world of The Circus, his term for the spy agency, never being involved in action or danger. A cerebral man, a cunning adversary. Married to a woman who cheats on him, respected by all but no real friends. The Circus is his life. Le Carré's first two novels only did so-so business. In the first Smiley uncovers East German spies and in the second he solves a murder that had nothing to do with spying. Looking back, it is an odd jump to another genre but in his third novel he is back smack in the cynical world of spycraft and betrayal with The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. It is a brilliant book and was made into a terrific film with Richard Burton. In both the book and film, Smiley is simply a handler and planner of the operation. Which does not go as planned (or does it). The success allowed John le Carré to leave MI6 and devote himself to writing. Next up was The Looking Glass War, another cynical look into the world of spies in which Smiley as number 2 at Control gets involved but is not the main character.



Then came what is considered his masterpiece - the Karla Trilogy - Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley's People. The first and third were adapted to a mini-series by BBC and headed by Alec Guiness in both. I expect the middle one was skipped over because a character other than Smiley gets the majority of time. Karla is of course the head of the Russian Security and Smiley's nemesis. He was running the British traitors in the first book. The TTSS mini-series is fantastic. No one could have played Smiley as well as he does. And he continues that in this one. Guiness is placid, dull and brilliant. At one point in this a young woman looks at Smiley trying to be somewhat personable and tells him "You are a very dangerous man". And at that moment he looked it. In her delusional mental state, she was able to see what others could not.



Smiley has been put out to pasture, living a solitary life with his estranged wife in the country. To everyone who asks for her, he tells them she is doing fine. Her affairs are common knowledge, especially the one with the traitor. Then a Russian general (Curd Jurgens) in exile in London leaves an urgent message for Smiley, not knowing he has retired. Moscow Rules.  The agency sets up a rendezvous and asks Smiley to please attend. The Russian general doesn't make it. Assassinated. The Circus wants it all covered up and forgotten. George, just clean it up please and move on. He doesn't. He owes it to the General. It is as if he finds the tiniest of threads and knows that is the thread - and pulls on it and pulls on it. On his own. It leads him to Karla (Patrick Stewart).



In today's age when most of us suffer from ADS to some degree - me more than most - this may be very slow going. Six one-hour episodes. A lot of it is taken up with Smiley just going places - in a car, on foot, in a taxi or looking thoughtful. There is no action, no gunplay. At one point when he has to go to Hamburg to track down someone (Vladek Sheybal - From Russia with Love), he pulls a gun out of his drawer, thinks about it and puts it back. This won't be won with guns, but with slowly putting the pieces together in a complicated puzzle. An excellent cast - Michael Gough, Eileen Atkins, Michael Lonsdale, Barry Foster, Mario Adorf but this is Guiness's show - almost in every scene and never losing his character for a moment.



With the end of the Cold War, Smiley really was put into retirement and John le Carré went on to other subjects - terrorism, espionage and murder. Smiley returned in The Secret Pilgrim in 1990 as a lecturer and then in 2017 Smiley was brought back for his last hurrah in A Legacy of Spies - long past retirement - when he is questioned by his agency about what happened in the events of The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. Not a great book but a fine send-off for Smiley.