I SPY WITH MY LITTLE EYE ...
This is a selection of what I consider some of the best films and TV mini-series dealing NOT with the modern super-spy like James Bond, Jack Bauer or Jason Bourne but with the TRUE spy from the days of or before the Cold War.
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13 titles
- DirectorJack GoldStarsDavid HemmingsSam WanamakerJennie LindenCharlie Muffin, top British Intelligence operative, has just broken up a major Soviet spy network in England. However, a new Director with new ideas takes over and wants Charlie out. But then a high-ranking Soviet spy-master hints that he wants to defect, and both British Intelligence and the C.I.A. want him and will do anything to get him. Charlie may be the only man who can bring the defection off successfully, but is the whole thing an elaborate set-up? And when your so-called allies are stabbing each other and you in the back to get this prize, whom can Charlie trust on either side?
- DirectorMartin RittStarsRichard BurtonOskar WernerClaire BloomInstead of coming in from the Cold War, British agent Alec Leamas chooses to face another mission.
- StarsSam NeillMichael BryantNorman RodwayA dramatization of the missions and adventures of the greatest spy in British history.
- DirectorSidney J. FurieStarsMichael CaineNigel GreenGuy DolemanIn London, a wisecracking spy investigates the kidnapping and brainwashing of British scientists while dealing with the constraints of his agency's bureaucracy.
- DirectorGuy HamiltonStarsMichael CaineOscar HomolkaPaul HubschmidSent to East Berlin to retrieve a Communist defector, British spy Harry Palmer suspects the situation is not what his superiors believe it to be.
- StarsAlec GuinnessMichael JaystonAnthony BateIn the bleak days of the Cold War, espionage veteran George Smiley is forced out of semi-retirement to uncover a Soviet agent within MI6's echelons.
- StarsAlec GuinnessEileen AtkinsBill PatersonThe murder of a Soviet defector forces his old handler, British spymaster George Smiley, out of retirement. His investigation leads to an old nemesis, the Soviet spymaster known only as "Karla". This will be their final dance.
- DirectorGeorge FitzmauriceStarsGreta GarboRamon NovarroLionel BarrymoreA semi-fictionalized account of the life of Mata Hari, an exotic dancer who was accused of spying for Germany during World War I.
- StarsTom HollanderToby StephensRupert Penry-JonesThe true story of a group of Cambridge University Students who are recruited to spy for the Soviet Union in the early 1930s.
- DirectorGordon FlemyngStarsAnthony BateDerek JacobiMichael CulverRecruited by the Russians during their days at Cambridge, three young Englishmen rise to become high-ranked MI5 agents until their exposure in 1949.
- DirectorMichael AndersonStarsGeorge SegalAlec GuinnessMax von SydowIn the West Berlin of the 1960s, two British agents are killed by a Nazi group, prompting British Intelligence to dispatch agent Quiller to investigate.
- DirectorTerence YoungStarsMichael CaineLaurence OlivierSusan GeorgeAn MI6 defector has his appearance altered by the K.G.B. and is sent back to Britain to retrieve top-secret documents.
- DirectorJohn HustonStarsPaul NewmanDominique SandaJames MasonA member of British Intelligence assumes a fictitious criminal identity and allows himself to be caught, imprisoned, and freed in order to infiltrate a spy organization and expose a traitor.