Customer Reviews

Pack of Lies

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

An amazingly powerful drama based on the Hugh Whitmore play, in turn based on the true story of the Soviet spies, Peter and Helen Kroger. This is a low-budget, low-key movie that builds an emotional intensity that is almost unbearable. The cast is superb, without exception, and Anthony Page's direction is unerring.

A neglected masterpiece that all drama lovers should see.

This English made for TV movie is tense and absorbing. It concerns the
effect on a long time friendship between two women (Ellen Burstyn and
Teri Garr) when Scotland yard asks Burstyn to use her house to spy on
Garr, a suspected Russian spy (along with her husband) during the cold war. The film is extermely intelligently scripted and builds to a climax
that is at once disturbing and tension ridden as well as painful. It
can be watched repeatedly and never seems to lose its bite.

This 1987 BBC made-for-tv drama is an exceptional film, based on the true story of Soviet spies living in a neighborhood in England, posing as a Canadian bookseller and his wife, during the Cold War. They were actually Americans who were involved in a large spy ring. The action centers on the impact that is made on the English family who considers them their best friends, when Intelligence officers take over an upstairs bedroom in order to watch the "Schaefers". It asks the question, "Loyalty to friendship or country?".

This is an extraordinarily well acted and directed film with Ellen Bursten as the English housewife and Terri Garr as her best friend Helen Schaefer. Alan Bates is also featured as the Intelligence officer.

Definitely worth buying. You'll watch it again and again!

A great movie... Top rate performances by everybody!!
Teri Garr and Ellen Burstyn are top notch!!

PLOT: 1960's UK~ Police use the Jackson home to "watch" their best friends across the street~

THE DOORBELL rings and the police /secret service ask the Jackson's a nice middle class Brit family to use their upstairs window to "observe" a man who is visiting on their street. Ellen Burstyn is excellent as BARBARA JACKSON A `1960s" HOUSEWIFE who stays home and takes care of her husband and 16 year old daughter Julie. SOON the Jackson's know their best friends the lovely CANADIAN couple across the way are "suspects"~ Terri Garris is fantastic as the pushy, funny best friend to BARBARA. they are known as AUNTIE and UNCLE TO 16 YEAR OLD JULIE JACKSON~ the Jackson's believe the police have made a "mistake" but as the weeks of "scrutiny" of the canadian couple builds even the Jackson's become believers as the WEB of lies the couple have told soon make the Jackson's "doubt"~~~~ Barbara becomes increasingly agitated as the "stress" of the endless police surveillance and loosing her best friend builds.

THE THRILLS build as the Jackson's are soon watching too~ and the mysterious comings and goings lead them to believe their lovely best friends are in the intrigue. the Police finally allow the Jacksons to know the CANADIANS are truly american sleeper agents who work for the KGB to pass on military secrets via short wave. the end is a little bit of a let down but the excellent acting especially by Burstyn and Garr keep us glued to the end. GARR is made for the spy next door who turns on a dime~ great little thriller set in the days of the cold war~ I give give it 4 STARS.

A PACK OF LIES is way up there on my fab list, not top 10, but pretty close. One reason I like it so much is that Ellen Burstyn & Terri Garr star in it--AND a young Sammi Davis playing Burstyn's impressionable teenage daughter. Another reason I like it is that I have a personal interest in the Cold War Era & the "ordinary" people who were involved in espionage, what made them tick.

Burstyn's character is a pleasant, simple, somewhat repressed middle class British matron who is befriended by the new married couple living across the street--and forms a particularly close friendship with the wife, Garr. Terri Garr's character is younger and their relationship reflects an interesting inversion of the Older Sister-Younger Sister situation. Garr takes her under wing & Burstyn blooms & blossoms with the attention (her own husband is nice, but very conventional). The two households' basically have an open door policy toward each other--except for Sundays. The childless American/Canadian neighbors say that this is their special, inviolate time for themselves alone--always, absolutely no exceptions.

As it turns out, the people across the street are being investigated by British Intelligence and Burstyn & hubbie are first politely asked, then forced under threat of National Security, to spy on them. 24-hr surveillance is set-up in a spare bedroom facing the spy house. The parents even have to lie to their daughter about what is really going on. This poses a terrible moral dilemma for Burstyn, leading to the break down of her health.

The horrible pretence causes Burstyn to quickly spiral downward & emotionally crack. Garr's notices that something is wrong & she keeps pushing to find out what's going on. Eventually Burstyn has to make up yet another lie & admit that she & her husband are having difficulties because he doesn't like Garr's influence over his wife (actually this is partly true). Garr buys into this & steps up her campaign to "liberate" her friend.

Everyone involved feels betrayed--and is. When a very confused Sammi Davis goes to prison to visit "Auntie" Garr, when she asks Garr why she did it (become a Soviet spy), Garr replies, "We believed in it." Then she expresses her anger that Burstyn was responsible for her arrest. She takes no responsibility for the emotional turmoil caused by the incident; while Burstyn is literally consumed with guilt

The script is brilliant, powerful & revealing.

This is a very good movie. Ellen Burstyn and Teri Garr give excellent and believable performances. I first saw this movie on tv years ago and never forgot it. I was absolutely thrilled to find it on dvd.

I am a collector. I collect many kinds of things. One thing I collect now is Hallmark Hall of Fame movies. You won't find it anywhere on the packaging, or any listing, but this movie was originally broadcast as a Hallmark Hall of Fame presentation on April 26. 1987.Hallmark Hall of Fame: The First 50 Years I have inserted that product link because there is a book that is a valuable resource if a person is serious about collecting Hallmark movies as I am.

Now, about this movie, perhaps it is best that it not have this designation. I felt it "fell short" of Hallmark-worthy designation. Most reviews are 5 star, with one four star & one one star. It wasn't a terrible movie but it wasn't fantastic either. When I see a Hallmark Hall of Fame logo on a movie that means several things to me. First, it means there is a good story. In this case, the story involves an English equivalent of an American CIA agent comes knocking at the door of a suburban London house with the request that the agent be allowed to surveil a neighbor's house, just during the days of one weekend. Then, agents "move-in" basically for several months 24/7. Turns out the nighbors being surveiled are "sleepers" who work for the KGB in the Cold War year of 1961. During the course of this movie, everybody is lying to everybody else, about the surveilance the cause for it. That time of constant intrusion strains the mother of that family to the breaking point. At the end of the movie, the daughter speaks "Mom died of a heart attack a few minths after Auntie Helen was arrested." The friendships formed were the only real thing in the movie. I like Terri Garr, a lot. Another English actor I like made a cameo appearance in this movie: Richard Bucket from "Keeping Up Appearances". He plays a lush supervisory agent to the other agents who have taken residence in the house. The Hallmrk name also says there is great cinematography. that was just okay int this movie. And, there will be little to no violence, swearing or sexuality. That was true in the case of this movie. I just don't see what the other reviewers were thinking is so fantastic about this movie. To me, it was just so-so. I will likely watch it once more, at some point. Would I recommend it to a friend? Maybe, if I know she likes this type of movie.

the service was speedy and accurate. Great condition, as outlined. Would use this service again. Can't say any more than I was totally satisfied.

Sorry, neither Terry nor Ellen portray very believable charachters in this debaucle and try to overcome it by gross overacting. An interesting plot premise that really wasn't done justice.