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Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
1979 · TV series · 50 min episodes · 1 season
Created by John Irvin, John le Carré
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a seven-part BBC2 spy drama written by Arthur Hopcraft, adapted from John le Carré's eponymous 1974 novel. The serial, which stars Alec Guinness, Alexander Knox, Ian Richardson, Michael Jayston, Bernard Hepton, Anthony Bate, Ian Bannen, George Sewell and Michael Aldridge, was broadcast from 10 September to 22 October 1979. George Smiley, the ageing master spy of the Cold War and once heir-apparent to Control, is brought back out of retirement to flush out a top level mole within the Circus. Smiley must travel back through his life and murky workings of the Circus to unravel the net spun by his nemesis Karla 'The Sandman' of the KGB and reveal the identity of the mole before he disappears.
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16 comments on Hacker News
I just wanted to mention at this opportunity that some British TV series from the late 70s, early 80s are absolutely brilliant and some of the best stuff I have ever watched. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Smiley's People, Danger UXB, Sandbaggers and Sherlock Holmes are some of my favorites.
And if that tickles your fancy, "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" [0] is an excellent miniseries from 1979 about a mole in MI6, perhaps the best spy series ever made. I didn't care about the movie much, so don't let this deter you, but Alec Guiness as George Smiley is a perfect match. John Le Carré thought so, too.
Oh and Patrick Steward plays "Karla" the soviet mastermind in this series and its successor "Smiley's People". Just a few seconds, but very memorable, its incredible really.
[0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080297/
I also strongly suspect you watched "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold". If you enjoyed this movie and the way it is narrated, please do yourself a favor and watch all the BBC mini series from the 70ies/80ies based on John Le Carré books, namely "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy", "Smiley's People", and "A Perfect Spy" (or read the books, John Le Carré is an excellent writer, and "A Perfect Spy" can be compared to works by Dickens). You usually have no clue what is going on, and only learn about it later.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (the TV show) has a character complaining about them
John le Carré famously disliked Bond and called him an "international gangster" and invented George Smiley to better represent of real-world espionage (bear in mind that both authors worked for British intelligence, though le Carré worked for both MI5 and MI6). The original Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy miniseries is a slow burn, but it's very well made and picks up once you figure out what the hell is going on. It also makes the more recent movie a lot more approachable.
> “At the root of Bond there was something neo-fascistic and totally materialist,” Le Carre said.
> “You felt he would have gone through the same antics for any country really, if the girls had been so pretty and the Martinis so dry.”
I have a huge list of movies (and a few TV shows) that don't seem to have made the jump. Some are great (the BBC series of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Smiley's People), some of them are very cult (Meet the Feebles), and some are just bad (Poor White Trash II, originally titled Scum of the Earth). Everyone said that streaming would make the "long tail" accessible because the costs to transfer and distribute would be so low, but that doesn't seem to have happened, at least to the extent that I'd like.
(I've had the same issue with music--my MP3 collection consists of a few dozen LPs that I've ripped because they were never digitized and added to the different services.)
For anyone in Australia, BBC's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and the follow-up Smiley's People are both available on Amazon Prime Video here - I don't know about elsewhere.
I'm gradually watching through TTSS now. So good, although the first episode suffers from the common problem of no subtitles for the Czech scenes in Ep 1.
Highly recommend the BBC 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy' miniseries with Alec Guinness.
I always liked Alec Guinness (Obi-wan!) but seeing this made me understand just what an incredible actor he was. BBC just knocks it out of the park here, and, it's way better than the Gary Oldman film (no disrespect). IMHO one of the best television shows ever made. Would totally put it up against The Wire, although it's an apples-to-oranges comparison for a variety of reasons.
FYI said miniseries can often be found floating around on Youtbe.
He had a long and productive life, and I hope a happy one, but this is still a great loss.
So many of the books are magnificent in their depth. So are the filmed adaptations: the BBC productions of Smiley's People and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; and the more recent film of the latter; and the Night Manager miniseries.
What has also given me a lot of pleasure was the BBC Radio productions of the eight George Smiley books [1]. They've often kept me company: sometimes on long car journeys, sometimes when I'm feeling contemplative but need distraction. Such a treat.
Thank you for it all Mr. Le Carré.
[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/smiley-season/
Maybe it's a bit out of place here. But if are into Stephen Fry And Hugh Laurie act, I'd recommend watching spy agency parody in addition to BBC's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
The Tony And Control sketches from A Bit Of Fry And Laurie A sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i18bH4XCmHw
I read a few of his novels and watched a couple of series, movies based on those. For me, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy... with Alec Guinness was the best of these.
But one thing I noticed and liked is how dull the novels are. Not much happens.
Till then I had read/watched Bond and similar fiction. And John le Carré was different. The complexity, uncertainty, deliberation, etc. was far better IMO than Bond's action and cigarettes.
It was like watching Morse after Jack Bauer. And while saying one is better than the other is probably a matter of taste ("Bond lit his 70th cigarette of the day"), I liked le Carré more.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinker_Tailor_Soldier_Spy_(miniseries)
If you've only seen the 2011 Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy movie, do yourself a favour and watch the 1979 miniseries with Alec Guinness and the sequel Smiley's People.
There's all kinds of things which would blow kids minds if they were exposed to it. A friend of mine who grew up and was (mis)educated in Berkeley was mind-blown by the old BBC art history documentary Civilization.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxEJn7dWY60
There's a whole lot of British material from the early era of color TV which makes most of what is watched today look like the low-IQ childish rubbish (albeit with high production values) it actually is. Compare BBC 1979 "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" with, I dunno, anything made in the last 10 years.
If we are speaking movies, the old BBC TV mini-series "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" and "Smiley's People" with Alec Guinness as Smiley are absolutely great.
I love Smiley's People as well as the BBC version of the Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. It's one of the smartest spy genre movies ever. I'd definitely think about watching this. But, maybe:
"This makes me want to quit watching. I’m not sure I have the stomach to know a storyline and its characters are going to be abandoned. That’s one of the two main problems with TV as a medium: that it might end too soon or that it might go on for too long."
BTW, I really liked how this article was written.
The BBC miniseries of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is wonderfully done; have you seen it? Highly recommended if you like the book.