The Deadly Affair

The Deadly Affair

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Sidney Lumet
Produced by Sidney Lumet
Written by Paul Dehn
Starring James Mason
Harry Andrews
Simone Signoret
Maximilian Schell
Music by Quincy Jones
Cinematography Freddie Young
Edited by Thelma Connell
Distributed by British Lion-Columbia (UK)
Columbia Pictures (US)
Release dates
 October 1966 (UK)
26 January 1967 (US)
Running time
 115 minutes (UK)
107 minutes (US)
Country United Kingdom
Language English

The Deadly Affair is a 1966 British espionage–thriller film, based on John le Carré's first novel Call for the Dead. The film stars James Mason, Harry Andrews, Simone Signoret and Maximilian Schell and was directed by Sidney Lumet from a script by Paul Dehn. In it George Smiley, the central character of the novel and many other of le Carré's books, is renamed Charles Dobbs as Paramount, which owned the film rights of their recently filmed The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, had the rights to the Smiley character.[1] The soundtrack was composed by Quincy Jones, and the bossa nova theme song, "Who Needs Forever", is performed by Astrud Gilberto.

Plot

In contemporary London, Charles Dobbs (James Mason) is a staid MI5 operative investigating Foreign Office official Samuel Fennan, a former Communist who apparently commits suicide. Dobbs becomes suspicious when a wake-up call is made to Fennan's home the next morning. While his widow Elsa (Simone Signoret) says it was for her, this is discovered to be a lie. Dobbs then suspects that Elsa, a survivor of an extermination camp, might have some clues, but other officials want Dobbs to drop the case. Dobbs privately links up with retired police inspector Mendel (Harry Andrews) to continue inquiries. As they uncover a network of Communist agents, Dobbs also discovers that his wife Ann (Harriet Andersson) is leaving him for a former wartime colleague in Switzerland, Dieter Frey (Maximilian Schell), who may have used access to her to gain knowledge of Dobbs' movements. Dobbs uses his knowledge of Dieter to set a trap, which proves that Elsa is the spy and Dieter is her control. In a final confrontation, Dieter strangles Elsa and shoots Mendel but is killed bare handed by the enraged Dobbs.

Cast

Production

Location shooting for The Deadly Affair took place in London, in St. James's Park, at the Balloon Tavern and the Chelsea Embankment in Chelsea, in Clapham and Barnes, and in Twickenham. The exterior of Dobbs' house is in St. George's Square, Pimlico.[2]

Director of photography Freddie Young's technique of pre-exposing the colour film negative to a small, controlled amount of light (known as "flashing" or "pre-fogging") in order to create a muted colour pallette was first used in this film.[3] Lumet called the result "colorless color" [4] and it proved influential, being used by other cinematographers such as Vilmos Zsigmond on McCabe & Mrs. Miller.

Awards and honours

The Deadly Affair received five BAFTA Awards nominations, for Best British Film for Sidney Lumet, Best British Screenplay for Paul Dehn, Best British Cinematography (Colour) for Freddie Young, Best Foreign Actress for Simone Signoret, and for Best British Actor for James Mason, but did not win any of the awards.[5]

References

  1. ↑ John le Carré at the NFT The Guardian 5 October 2002
  2. ↑ IMDB Filming locations
  3. ↑ TCM Misc. notes
  4. ↑ Steffen, James "The Deadly Affair" (TCM article)
  5. ↑ IMDB Awards
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