The Spy Who Came In from the Cold (1965)

The British spy film, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965), is based on John le Carré’s novel of the same name. MI6’s West Berlin office, headed by station chief Alec Leamas, has decreased in effectiveness. After one of his operatives dies, Leamas is called back to London and appears to be rejected from the agency. However, Control, the chief of MI6, has carefully orchestrated a transformation for Leamas. He takes on a new identity as an assistant at a local library and develops a relationship with Nan Perry, his co-worker and a member of the British Communist Party. Due to spending most of his salary on alcohol, Leamas constantly struggles with financial problems. One drunken night leads to him assaulting a shopkeeper and being briefly jailed.

This incident catches the attention of East German Intelligence Service who sees him as a possible defector. Control offers Leamas one last mission – to defect to East Germany and frame Mundt as a double agent for SIS. Control explains to him that Mundt’s deputy, Jens Fiedler, is starting to suspect Mundt’s loyalty and believes he could be a valuable target for Leamas in this operation. In return, Leamas will be allowed to keep any money he acquires during the mission and will also receive a generous pension upon retiring from the service. To make his defection seem plausible, the Circus reassigns Leamas to the finance department where he begins to display signs of alcoholism. Eventually, he is fired under suspicion of embezzlement in an attempt to support his meager pension.