THE SPY THAT CAME IN FOR THE GOLD

THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD (1965)
dir: Martin Ritt

THE SPY THAT CAME IN FOR THE GOLD
MAD #105, September 1966
w: Arnie Kogen
a: Mort Drucker

The West Berlin office of MI6, under station chief Alec Leamas (Richard Burton), has suffered from reduced effectiveness. He is recalled to London shortly after the death of one of his operatives and is seemingly drummed out of the agency. In reality, a carefully staged transformation of Leamas has been arranged by Control, the agency's chief.

His “worst enemy” is supposed to be Eddie Fisher, who had been married to Elizabeth Taylor before Burton. There are references throughout to Richard Burton being Mr. Liz Taylor

Leamas takes work as an assistant at a local library. There he begins a relationship with co-worker Nan Perry (Claire Bloom), a young and idealistic member of the Communist Party. Leamas spends most of his small salary on alcohol, leaving him constantly low on funds.

He drunkenly assaults a shopkeeper who refuses him credit and is briefly jailed. His predicament attracts the attention of Ashe (Michael Horndern), which sees him as a potential defector.

The first panel has actors like James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, and George Raft, known for prison movies.

Leamas is approached by a series of operatives, each one passing him up the chain of the East German intelligence service, and he expresses a willingness to sell British secrets for money. He eventually flies to the Netherlands to meet an agent named Peters (Sam Wanamaker), who decides that his information is important enough to send him on to East Germany. At a German country house, Leamas is introduced to Fiedler (Oskar Werner), who becomes his main interrogator.

There are caricatures of Robert Culp and Bill Cosby from I Spy, James Coburn, Sean Connery, Don Adams, and David McCallum. The next to last panel refers to John LeCarre, who wrote the novel on which this movie was based.

Leamas then begins to carry out his secret mission, which is to share information that suggests a high-ranking East German intelligence officer named Mundt (Peter Van Eyck) is a paid informant of the British. The evidence is circumstantial, and though it seems to implicate Mundt, Leamas repeatedly refutes that conclusion, claiming that an important East German official could not have been a British agent without his knowledge. However, Fiedler is able to independently confirm Leamas' information and comes to the conclusion that Mundt, his supervisor, has indeed been a secret asset of British intelligence for many years. Mundt himself unexpectedly arrives at the compound and has both Leamas and Fiedler arrested for plotting against him. Once Fiedler explains his findings to his superiors, the tables are turned and Mundt is arrested. A secret tribunal is convened to try Mundt for espionage, with Leamas compelled to testify. Fiedler presents a strong case for Mundt being a paid double agent. However, Mundt's attorney uncovers several discrepancies in Leamas' transformation into an informant, suggesting that Leamas is a faux defector. Leamas' credibility collapses when Nan, who has been brought to East Germany for what she thought was a cultural exchange visit, is forced to testify at the tribunal and unwittingly reveals that she has been receiving payments from a British intelligence officer as Leamas had arranged.

Faced with this testimony, Leamas reluctantly admits that he is indeed a British agent. Mundt is vindicated, and Fiedler is arrested as a complicit dupe.Leamas initially believes he has failed in his mission and fears severe retribution from Mundt. However, in the middle of the night, Mundt releases Leamas and Nan from their cells and provides an escape plan for them both. Mundt explains that Leamas' real mission has succeeded; Mundt actually is a British agent, and Fiedler had been the target of the operation all along, as he had grown too suspicious of his supervisor. This comes as a shock to Leamas, and the complex web he has been drawn into and the risk he has been placed in by his own superiors become painfully clear. He explains the entire plot to still-idealistic Nan as they drive their borrowed car toward the border. She berates him for being involved in what amounts to the murder of Fiedler, who was only doing his job.