Smiley's People

A word here first: I didn't see this on television the first time around, so I wasn't aware that portions were cut from the Acorn DVDs, which are the ones I saw. A little over an hour, I believe, was cut from the six-part series.

Smiley's People is one solid series: What works: Alex Genius was a great actor. Alex stands out as a methodical, serious, blends in spy maters!

If someone asked me to show them an example of brilliant acting, I would probably choose this or Tinker Tailor. Alec Guinness is in most scenes, and aided with a brilliant screenplay, by the author himself, he is always so watchable.

I watched the dvd of this mini series over the last few days.

When General Vladimir, a former MI6 agent, is murdered, no one thinks of warning an old Russian lady settled in Paris. No one knows he was Mme Ostrakova's only hope to understand the weird and perhaps dangerous situation she is into, after Russian authorities approached her to permit her estranged daughter to join her in France, and that she has still never seen the sight of her.

Which is to paraphrase John Le Carre's own description of George Smiley played by Alec Guinness in this. I'm glad the Creator himself called the craft of spying absurd, there's a lot of people who apparently think it an essential art form and necessary for all our safety.

If you are a John Le Carre fan, it doesn't get any better than this six part BBC series, available on three disks from Netflix and (presumably) other on line film services. Alec Guiness was a marvelous actor, as we all know, and he may have equaled his role as George Smiley in some film or stage performance.

This is the sequel to the Tinker Tailor mini-series and last chapter in the Karla Trilogy (they skipped 'schoolboy'). Nothing has fundamentally changed: Smiley is brought out of retirement for one last round of spy games against Karla, his old nemesis.

So much as been already said about either Tinker Tailor or Simleys People that my addition is small, however in a film world driven by special affects or minimal story content, these two film series represents some of the foremost screenplay, editing, acting and cinematography to date. This film does NOT cater to the viewer, it demands you pay attention, even small details have far reaching ramifications later in the film.