The Looking Glass War (1970)

Perfect cast and a good story

Good concept, poorly executed.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

The acting in this movie is really good.

During the Cold War, the British Intelligence receives a blurred photograph from East Germany taken from Hamburg and Director LeClerc (Ralph Richardson) believes that they are missiles. Their agent Taylor King (Timothy West), who receives a film that might clarify the detail from a pilot in Finland, is found dead on the road and the police believe that he was accidentally killed in a hit-and-run. LeClerc meets the Polish defector Fred Leiser (Christopher Jones), who jumped overboard from a ship expecting to have asylum and stay with his British girlfriend (Susan George) that is pregnant, and decides to recruit him to cross the border and spy the Eat German facility to check the missiles. In return, he would have salary, insurance and political asylum. Leiser is trained by the agent and family man John Avery (Anthony Hopkins) and soon he finds that his girlfriend has had an abortion. When Leiser crosses the border, he stumbles with the local Anna (Pia Degermark) and they stay together in the beginning of a dangerous journey where he is just a pawn in a war game."The Looking Glass War" is a dated thriller with a disappointing story. The characters are poorly developed and it is hard to understand the motivation of Leiser in his assignment after discovering that his girlfriend had forced an abortion. He is neither British nor an idealistic man to risk his life in a suicidal mission. Actually it is difficult to understand who he is since he is capable to kill two men in cold blood, slap the face of his girlfriend and let Anna with him knowing that his mission is compromised. The betrayal of LeClerc is the great plot point in the story but also difficult to understand why he plots all operation apparently to justify his agency and get rid off a defector. In the end, there is no consequence receiving or not the message from Leiser. My vote is six.Title (Brazil): Not Available

'The Spy who Came in from the Cold', and the TV adaptation of 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy' led me to have high expectations of any John Le Carre adaptation...sadly, 'The Looking Glass War' falls short of those expectations.The basic essence of the novel's plot is preserved-an obscure intelligence unit called 'the Department' training and sending a Pole to East Germany. What the film fails to capture however are the inner psychological and emotional conflicts of the characters, especially those of the reluctant 'spymaster with scruples' Avery, and the manipulated agent Laiser. Part of the reason for this is the complete reinvention of Laiser's character. He goes from being an intensely loyal former agent from the Department's glory days in WW2 and a naturalised British citizen, to being an ill-tempered Polish drifter who really has scant motivation for taking up the job to begin with. Avery for his part, is hardly developed as a character, which makes his sudden reservations about the scheme in the end somewhat difficult to comprehend.If there is one plus point about the film, its that it spends a lot more time on Laiser's actual infiltration into East Germany, which actually forms a VERY small segment of the novel. However, Laiser's character being completely changed as it was, his brief relationship with the German girl becomes more like a run-of-the-mill romance of a spy story, as opposed to what it was in the novel-the last attempt of a betrayed agent to find human comfort before his inevitable capture...On the whole, its not a bad film. Even the bad parts are entertaining at times. But it certainly DOES NOT live up to the standards of other Le Carre adaptations.

No, the movie didn't suck me in. I got sucked into watching it by some highly favorable comments. I should have paid more attention to the ratings.If you want to watch LeCarre, there are much better examples than this. The pacing is completely off in this movie; as soon as something interesting starts, it is truncated for irrelevant meanderings. Apparently the director wanted to make this a "mood piece" rather than an action movie, and as a result, it never develops any momentum or suspense.On balance, this is just a somewhat disappointing period piece. Watchable, but nothing more.

This is a film that I had seemed to overlook and was very glad to have found a copy. The story is written by John Le Carre, who has written many espionage books and in this picture, Leiser,(Christopher Jones) plays the role of a Polish defector promised political asylum in England. However, he has to go back behind the Iron Curtain to investigate the possibilities that East Germany is building a rocket in violation of a disarmament pack. Leiser visits a girl friend, Susan, (Susan George),"Straw Dogs", who is having his child and then all of a sudden finds out things about what she has been doing and splits up the relationship. Leiser soon meets up with another gal, Pia Degermark who he falls in love, and is happy that she also has a very young son to make for a very happy marriage. They both decide to flee from all the espionage Leiser is caught up in and still has to deal with expert ruthless old men who use the both of them as decoys. Great film with great actors, all very young and starting out in their films careers.