Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

I can't wait to see this. Here is the trailer: http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1810179896/video/26569271. It comes out 12/9/11. The early reviews have been uniformly great. Never read any of Le Carre's novels but the story looks cool.

The great Gary Oldman stars as a retired spy who leads the hunt for a Soviet double-agent in 1970s England. Has a really good cast--Colin Firth, John Hurt, Toby Jones and Sherlock Holmes from the new BBC show.

 

There was a brilliant made for TV movie of "Tinker Tailor" back in '79 starring Alex Guinness.

The other two books in the trilogy are "Smiley's People" and "The Honourable Schoolboy"

I'd highly recommend that you read the novel before you see the movie. le Carre perfectly captures the moral uncertainty of the Cold War. It's totally antithetical to the comic book Ian Fleming novels.

That said, can't wait for this movie .

The other notable movie based on a le Carre novel was "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold" starring Richard Burton.

George Smiley, who's the main character in Tinker is also in this flick.

I had lunch with David Cornwell (along with other people from Penguin Canada) prior to the release of "The Perfect Spy" I have an autographed copy of the book

 

That's cool JR. And Elliotte, I remember Little Drummer Girl being on HBO when I was a kid but never saw it. I have seen The Russia House and Tailor of Panama.

Hopefully Tinker will be as good as the hype. I always liked Gary Oldman.

 

I think Spy Who Came In From the Cold and the Alec Guiness TV miniseries are the only really successful adaptations of his books. They don't seem to translate well. Looking forward to this one, though.

 

I haven't read any of LeCarre's novels, but I thought The Constant Gardener was a pretty damn good movie.

 

I saw the US trailer today. Yeah, I'm definitely in. This looks really good.

You can add Tom Hardy to that big cast.

 

Sold. Just saw the trailer and I'm in. Will make a stop at the library to check out the book as well.

 

I'm a Le Carre fan and will definitely see it. But the miniseries with Alec Guinness was sensational.

 

I have nothing to contribute to this thread other than when I see the title, I immediately think of 'Apples, Peaches, Pumpkin Pie' by Jay and the Techniques.

Carry on.

 

So I saw this today and even though there's a movie thread, I thought someone reading this might be more familiar with it.

I never read the novels, and I watched the movie in a non-English speaking country. In English, but subtitled.

So I have a couple of questions ... what was the dialogue in Budapest? I eventually pieced together what was going on (I'm terrible with remembering characters) but I couldn't read the subtitles that were on the screen. Was the dialogue even translated into English? What was it?

Same thing with the Russian (?) when the guy (Karla?) was photographing the papers. Something was being said and I had subtitles, but they weren't in English. Was that even relevant? The third time was in the house, when there was something said in Russian (again, ?) -- I had no clue was was happening.

The other thing I couldn't figure out if is the party scenes were all flashbacks to one party.

Was "there's also a boy" in reference to Jim? Or an offspring?

I really need to see these kinds of movies with someone so I can ask questions along the way. I never can remember names, so it's something like, "So, was it Colin Firth or the guy who was in 'The Painted Veil'?"

And I still haven't figured out how they figured out who the spy way.

I think I'll go read the Wiki page now. Those things are never wrong.

 

Tinker, Tailer Spoiler (that fails to answer any of KJ's questions...)
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KJ, the movie is complicated as hell to watch in English; I never did quite fully understand the whole Karla deal.

But as an aside, the Red Carpet host for ABC's pre-game Oscars got in a world of hurt from the network when she interviewed Colin Firth and said, "you play what turns out to be a very bad guy...what was that like?"

Nothing like giving away the ending to a movie not yet on DVD! D'oh!