fordbeebe
I watched this as a reissue around 1978 and then a few more times on television in the early 80's. I watched it again yesterday and found it to be as good as I remember it if not better. The plot open with Julie Andrews who works in a sensitive job at the Foreign office on holiday in Barbados trying to recover from the death of her husband and a subsequent love affair with a married embassy employee. During the holiday she is romanced by a Russian working at the Russian embassy in France thereby raising suspicion that the russians are trying to recruit her. The romance and spy elements are played against a background of various love affairs and relationships which all tie up nicely in one plot strand at the end. Andews may be a few years too old for the part but her acting and that of the mostly British cast is uniformly excellent, with as often happens Quayle excelling, with only Sharif's performance occasionally appearing perfunctory. Excellent script and dialogue and a brilliant John Barry score make the film linger in the memory.. The film's ideology is in the right place ( pun intended) with the script being subtly, intelligently but unmistakeably anti communist, a unique ideological stand in the leftist seventies.
amasse
Wish the soundtrack were available on CD, also wish the movie were available on DVD. Not a big Sharif fan, but I have always enjoyed this movie. Really enjoy Anthony Quayle and Julie Andrews is very entertaining.
emisue02
I'm a huge Julie Andrews fan, which was why I saw this movie. I now understand spy storylines much better than I did when I watched it, so if I saw it again, I may be able to actually follow the plot. It does drag, which is always a pet pieve of mine, but the romance between Julie and Omar Sharrif is the heart of the film and lets you see that the Cold War was between governments, not necessarily people. The ending makes up for almost everything else, as most good endings tend to do, and it was just what the characters and audience wanted. If you want a lot of action, this may not be the right movie, but if you want a romance masquerading as a spy thriller, this is your film.
trpdean
I liked this one very much. Julie Andrews and Omar Sharif bring a very sober and realistic screenplay to life about real human beings involved/kept apart by the Cold War. I very much liked the Julie Andrews character who doesn't fear speaking about morality to a Communist likely to scoff, nor fear falling for that Communist with ehr eyes wide open, despite all the difficulties that would bring. Julie Andrews is just wonderful in this role - rather lonely, quite real, with warring feelings between head and heart about caring for someone who is dangerous to know - and in his work, dangerous to the Free World.Omar Sharif is excellent - charming, quick-witted, falling for Andrews (and who wouldn't - she looks fantastic) despite himself, and finally making the life-changing decision to defect. I can understand why some find the movie plodding - it certainly is by most spy movie standards. But it's trying to do something different - and admirably succeeding - one just feels the existence of the Iron Curtain here, and one feels the Andrews character making her point that at the heart of the Cold War are questions about the value to be given an individual human being by the state, the value of truth as capturing measurable facts, the value of allowing people to live by their own goals and values rather than those determined by the state. And the over-arching question is an interesting one of emotional involvement despite world tensions. You'll like its gradual unfolding - just don't look for James Bond.
AD
