AlexMedario
Even that the film is fine it's years light distance from the book, so many things get behind !! But letting aside unfair comparison with a spectacular novel, the film deserves some praising.First at all is that a complicated plot is masterfully exposed, you get to understand it without being a genius. And this is not trivial matter, because usually spy films get too confused and wrapped into incoherence. A high qualification for the script, is clear enough. Richard Burton plays an excellent character, he stares the rest of the characters and even being the film black and white his expression and his light eyes make an impression.
JohnHowardReid
It's hard to believe that Martin Ritt had anything to do with this stunning movie, let alone produce and direct it. No doubt he was inspired by the taut script, the fine players and particularly the brilliant camera-work of Oswald Morris whose atmospheric lighting contributes so subtly yet inexorably to the movie's over-all impact and power.In his best performance ever, Richard Burton plays with just the right touch of cynicism and latent romanticism. It's a difficult role, yet he brings it off perfectly. Burton seems to be the sort of player who can rise magnificently to a challenge. But give him a role he can play without subtlety or shadings and he will give a performance as phony and unconvincing as the rankest amateur.Despite her star billing, Claire Bloom has actually a definitely subsidiary role. But she too plays with charisma and conviction.Burton's real opposite number is actually the brilliant Oskar Werner who manages to make his characterization more engaging and sympathetic than the film's nominal good guys. Van Eyck likewise impresses in his brief guest spot as the monstrous Mundt. The support line-up includes a number of well-known and reliable faces including Michael Hordern and Bernard Lee.No expense has been spared on gritty sets and utterly believable locations in which the script's edge-of-the-seat double crossing is so suspense-fully unwound.OTHER VIEWS: Some movies cry out for color, just as others demand black-and-white. This attractively drab antidote to the high-fashion fantasy of the phony James Bond is a film whose stark emotional power could only be effectively conveyed in the gray, misty tones of an old newsreel, in the searing documentary dreariness and despair of actual counter-espionage where glamour is a pokey little library, a hole-in-the wall delicatessen, a seedy Soho strip club, the dank stone floor of a prison cell.Oswald Morris, who won the British Film Academy Award in 1964 for The Pumpkin Eater and was to win it again for his cinematography of "The Hill" in 1965, deservedly made it three-in-a-row with his equally moody lensing and lighting of "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold". — JHR writing as George Addison.
erago-1
******SPOILER******Throughout the entire film the story and Leames's depressed topcoat and Nan's undecided despair love against him are moving in a straight line. The end is so natural, this film could not be considered another ending.
arminhage
Short and sweet:1. Audience does not know what to expect from this movie, not at all means no emotional involvement which results in extremely boring movie although I kinda enjoyed the tribunal scene.2. The hero of the movie has no clear outer motivation nor a clear conflict, again a major contributor to a boring movie.3. Suppose we tolerate the first 2, this movie had absolutely no message, just a movie about a British agent tries to do his job which has not been well described possibly due to too much names in very short scenes of exposition.4. Talking heads movie, no upside down with minimal action. The worst part is that in most of the movie you don't know what they are talking about and still struggling with names due to cheesy exposition. It may be funny but for first 30 minutes you may not even realize that the story occurs in London not West Berlin.5. Plays are mostly theatrical rather than cinematic.6. I don't know what the writer/director taught of the very last scenes of the movie but it was as cheesy as it could get.My verdict? I struggled to stay awake and watch this movie without much needed interruption and I did but I did not like it and I do not recommend this movie to anyone,
AD
