Smiley’s People (1982) – Riveting

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1974) was the first book of The Karla Trilogy. John le Carre’s follow-up to this story was The Honourable Schoolboy (1977), which involved extensive travel to Southeast Asia, including Hong Kong, Thailand and Cambodia, where he witnessed and made notes about the final assault of the Khmer Rouge on the Government Forces under strongman Lon Nol. It showed Smiley’s counterattack on Karla by demolishing one of Karla’s critical spy networks in Hong Kong. Unfortunately, the book was neither filmed nor converted into a TV Series for “cost reasons”.  Le Carre was on the cover of Time Magazine as Master of the Spy Story.

The third book in the Karla Trilogy was published in 1979. The TV Series came out in 1982, once again to widespread acclaim.

The story, set in 1979, shows a retired Smiley living quietly. He gets a call to identify the dead body of a former agent who had been the moving force in a network of Russian exiles working against Russian Communists. Smiley also gets a message that General Vladimir (Curt Jurgens) had said, “Tell Max it concerns the Sandman”. Max is Smiley, while Sandman is Karla. Clearly, Vladimir had stumbled onto something concerning Karla. Though he has “gone private”, Smiley starts an investigation and retraces Vladmir’s path till his killing. In the process, he comes across evidence that Vladimir had obtained somehow. Soon Smiley takes it on and is even warned by the powers to leave things alone. But he changes their thinking by presenting the evidence that Vladimir had obtained. Soon a full-blown “Circus” approved operation is in full swing that would force Karla to come out of the spider’s web and face Smiley.

 
When the TV Series came out, if the average person had been told that the head of a Soviet department defected to the West, the person would have probably said, “Ah. it is all a piece of fiction”. However, Time Magazine noted that 1985 was The Year of the Spy due to the alarming number of Western citizens caught spying for the Russians. Yet the traffic was not all one way. Oleg Gordievsky, who had been spying for the British against his Soviet masters, was exfiltrated from Moscow to safety in the West. Gordievsky was a KGB Colonel in charge of all Russian activity against Britain. A real-life Karla? Maybe.  he was the highest ranking officer to defect to the West at that time and his timely warnings had helped President Reagan and PM thatcher to tone down their anti-Communist rhetoric as the Russians thought that Reagan was planning a nuclear first strike against them ! (Google Operation RYAN)

The book and TV series are a logical conclusion to the events of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. The war of wits and the shadowy world of intelligence – literally dark, as shown in many scenes – are entirely different from the over glamorous cinematic image of spies doing their business. “Max” was bent upon unravelling the web that the “Sandman” had woven to keep his secrets. The battle of wits is all about who has a weakness and how that weakness can be exploited, as Karla had done with Smiley and his wife, Ann. 

Once again, as George Smiley, Alec Guinness gives us a masterclass in acting, and the veteran shows how one can emote subtly. There is only one word to describe the six-part series – riveting! 

All six episodes are available on YouTube. Once again, this is binge-watch material.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EESi4kOh5Cg&list=PLQDCbCZthZTS0g2JgTPbd3v3r8x4gaSlt&pp=iAQB

Rating :         

Script – 5 out of 5

Story – 5 out of 5

Direction – 5 out of 5

Photography – 4 out of 5

 Total – 4.8 out of 5