THE DEADLY AFFAIR

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This 1967 Sidney Lumet film is an adaptation of John le Carré's first novel, 'Call for the Dead'.  The novel features George Smiley who would reappear in many later le Carré novels, but for legal reasons his character name here is Charles Dobbs.

He is played by James Mason, which is decent enough casting.  Less satisfactory is Swedish actress Harriet Andersson as his wife Ann, given that she is over twenty years younger than Mason.  

Which is not to say that Andersson doesn't give a good performance.  In fact all of the cast do a good job.  Simone Signoret is memorable in the two speaking scenes she gets, and I liked both Harry Andrews and Kenneth Haigh as Dobbs' two sidekicks as he tries to get to the bottom of the mystery of the apparent suicide of a Foreign Office mandarin.  Roy Kinnear gives a nice performance as a small-time criminal caught up unwittingly in the espionage goings-on.

Freddie Young used this film to pioneer a new technique which produced a muted colour palette, which I liked - I have an aversion to the garish colours one sometimes finds in films.

The plot is satisfactorily labyrinthine without being over the top.  Setting a climactic scene during a production of 'Edward II' is a nice touch.

It doesn't do anything very suspenseful or innovative within the genre.  In fact it is all a bit predictable, including the identity of the main villain.  Nevertheless it was a satisfactory way to pass a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon.  

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