I saw the Gary Oldman film adaptation of this classic John Le Carré novel last winter, which made me curious about this BBC series of produced in 1979. Even though I knew “the story” from the film, I found this series riveting. The basic set-up of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is that a mole has infiltrated the Circus, which is the code name for the British Secret Intelligence Service, and it is Smiley’s job to ferret him out. This is a good, old-fashioned spy story reeking of Cold-War era paranoia. The stunning cast is uniformly excellent, but it is Alec Guinness as George Smiley who
Sep 23, 2012