Customer Reviews

Looking Glass War [VHS]

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

This is an excellent cold war film competently acted, well scripted and neatly directed. It is a superb adaptation of John Le Carré's best-selling novel. Paranoia runs rampant here. Christopher Jones is brilliant as the civilian turned spy. Christopher Jones should have gone on to greater things. His pinnacle as an actor came in David Lean's epic "RYAN'S DAUGHTER." Anthony Hopkins and Ralph Richardson are also featured.

The Looking Glass War is a mediocre film. I got the impression that the producers were not sufficiently committed to the project. John Le Carre's name may not have been so marketable as it was a few years later. It's ironic that Christopher Jones is barely known to anyone under the age of fifty. Many thought he would become a major star. The same holds true for Pia Degermark. Both Jones and she, in real life, endured many wasted years of drug abuse. Still, one wonders if they had enough acting talent to play roles that did not revolve around their gorgeous and youthful looks. Oh well, we will never know. Anthony Hopkins who was merely a supporting actor, needless to add, is vastly more famous.

What is the movie about? Christopher Jones portrays a Polish immigrant wishing to remain in Great Britain. The secret service will help him achieve this goal if he will become a spy. They want him to sneak into East Germany and take pictures of military installations. This offer never makes any sense. Anthony Hopkins helps to train Jones' character and eventually become his friend. The great Ralph Richardson stars as the over the hill spy master wanting to relive the excitement of his earlier World War II days. Some reviewers claim that The Looking Glass War was heavily edited. This theory seems plausible. The unfolding of this story will constantly bewilder any rational thinking person. Who should see this movie? Anthony Hopkins fans will enjoy his superb work. He alone almost makes the effort worthwhile. What if you just want to watch an engrossing spy yarn? If that's the case, look for another film. Give The Looking Glass War a pass.

Just finished watching The Looking Glass War. I had never heard of this movie but I am a big fan of John LeCarre and his books and movies. This movie is definitely up to par with the others though I put Tinker Tailer Soldier Spy at the top of any realistic or true spy/espionage movie with The Russia House at the bottom of the list.

This movie stars Anthony Hopkins and a very young Christopher Jones. It is very much a LeCarre movie and is not about the action, though it has some. It is slow of pace at times but not in a bad way. It is more of a character study than a James Bond type movie. The movie delves more into the dirty dark and nasty side of of the spy game and the use of human beings as fodder for an ends to a means.

Good performances all around and a good movie. Check it out.

What does a classic cold war movie need? To my mind, a shot of the West End of London, some cynical, dead-pan British spies, a plot from a Le Carre novel and a few shots of Eastern Europe (probably filmed in Essex or some such place). Add a dashing youngster to offset the cynics and, of course, a nasty ending leaving little room for faith in human nature. You have a classic.

If you like Harry Palmer of the Ipcress File, Funeral in Berlin and the Billion Dollar Brain, chances are you'll love this. If you are a James Bond fan, maybe not. This is for the lover of the anti-hero spy rather than the dashing secret agent.

Two thumbs up as far as I'm concerned.

Looking Glass War gets you hooked the minute beutiful Christopher Jones comes on screen. Fortunately he's in almost every scene! He is not only more beautiful than his co star (Pia Degermark) but he is also excellant in the role. He is really American but his Polish accent is flawless. Movie has some exciting moments & intrigue. Worth watching if only for Jones' performance & a bit w/Anthony Hopkins.

The year is 1969 and the Cold War is raging. A British spy who was investigating missiles on the East German border has just been killed. The West needs another agent fast and they hire Leiser (Christopher Jones), a handsome and clever young man from Poland. He agrees to be a spy in exchange for political asylum in the West. He sneaks into East Germany and finds not only missiles, but also an very pretty girl, while his trainers (Anthony Hopkins, Ralph Richardson) anxiously wait to hear from him.

This isn't the James Bond kind of spy movie; there's no glitz or glamour and definitely no humor. Instead, it's a grim, pitiless look at the men who pull the strings in the espionage game. There isn't a lot of action; the bleak and hopeless mood of the times pervades the story. With Hopkins and Richardson around, one has to wonder why they recruited an outsider to join British Intelligence, but if you can overlook this plot hole, it is an engrossing film. Handsome Christopher Jones, a James Dean look-alike, is appropriately petulant and charismatic. It's a shame his voice had to be dubbed; one wonders what his voice really sounds like. Young Anthony Hopkins brings his usual intensity and dignity to a rather thankless role. It's an interesting, if cynical, look at the paranoia that characterized the 60s.

This movie was edited to death and dullness. Crucial scenes were obviously cut which threw the plot out of joint and into inaction. It could have been, and probably was before editing, a dandy cold war spy flic. It is worth three stars for historical value.

"The Looking Glass War" (1969) is an obscure old movie based on an obscure, old, early John LeCarre spy thriller of the same name. The British LeCarre, a hugely-talented writer who's had a long, long prolific career, is probably the greatest living practitioner of the spy genre, in which he has significant personal experience: he is best known for The Spy Who Came in From the Cold;Smiley's People and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, all of which have also been filmed. His book "Looking Glass," I suppose, is unpopular and obscure because it is a downer, another of LeCarre's meditations on how badly the top-heavy spy bureaucracy treat its "joes" in the field. So is this movie.

The movie, as the book, centers on Leiser, a Polish sailor stowaway who has snuck into England because of a pregnant girlfriend. He is located by a dated, obscure spy agency, still reliving their glory days of World War II, trained quickly, and sent into East Germany to find out if they have Soviet missiles. His mission goes wrong from its first moments.

But to begin at the beginning, it seems to me that screenwriter/director Frank Pierson himself went wrong from his first moments. He has eliminated most of LeCarre's backstory, the ever-entertaining midnight meetings of the high government mandarins, and, as well, eliminated, for whatever his reasons, LeCarre's most famous character, Smiley, who appears in the underlying book. I am not really familiar with Pierson, though research shows him to be Oscar-winning, and credited with Cool Hand Luke,and Cat Ballou. Nevertheless, he continued to make critical mistakes, so far as I am concerned. The movie is very slow, and runs a long hour and three quarters. I disliked the insipid soft jazz score by Angela Morley as Wally Stott: it swelled in all the wrong, most predictable moments. But the worst errors were made in casting. Christopher Jones, a remarkably handsome, Tennessee-born James Dean clone, stars as Leiser. He is on screen through most of the movie, and spends an awful lot of time shirtless, the better to show off his great pecs. But he was no actor, and his career quickly fizzled. Susan George, a Julie Christie clone, plays Susan, the British girlfriend. But she was not much of an actress, and has had only a minor TV career. Pia Degermark plays the girl whom Leiser meets in Germany: she's beautiful - sources say she and Jones made sweet music during and after the filming--but she too was not much of an actress, and had not much of a further career.

Yet the supporting cast was remarkably strong. Go figure. A young Anthony Hopkins (The Hannibal Lecter Collection (Manhunter / The Silence of the Lambs / Hannibal)), who of course has become a thousand times more famous than Jones ever was, plays John Avery, bureaucrat, and does it well. Anna Massey plays his wife. The great Ralph Richardson plays his boss, Le Clerc; Maxine Audley plays Mrs. Le Clerc. Paul Rogers plays Haldane, another functionary. The forceful Irish actor Ray Mc Anally plays the Undersecretary of State. Robert Urquart plays Johnson, yet another functionary. The greatly praised Vivian Pickles plays Mrs. King, agency widow. Cyril Shaps is the East German detective; Michael Robbins, the East German truck driver. Timothy West plays the luckless joe Taylor, who opens the sad proceedings. In fact, this is that rare movie that just might be worth checking out once if only for the solid performances of the exceptionally-good supporting cast.

Christopher Jones was indeed headed for great things via this film and his role in David Lean's Ryan's Daughter. David Lean cast the American actor as an injured British soldier in Ryan's Daughter on the strength of his wonderful Polish accent in this movie. Problem is: his voice was dubbed in Looking Glass War. That's why Jones speaks hardlly at all in Lean's film - couldn't do the English accent.

This film does keep the cynical spirit of Le Carre's book. Hopkins is great - this was his first Hollywood incarnation when, I believe, he liked a drink - and the whole thing is true to the spirit of Le Carre.

The Bottom Line:

A gritty spy thriller that eschews gadgetry and gimmicks to focus on the nuts and bolts of espionage and the egos of the men who send spies overseas to die, The Looking Glass War is not as well-known (or as good) a film as The Spy Who Came in from the Cold but it's a worthy entry into the genre and well worth watching for LeCarre buffs or people who like this sort of thing.

3/4