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James Mason deals with marital and professional deception and betrayal in spy thriller The Deadly Affair (in every meaning of the word!) |
Director: Sidney Lumet
Cast: James Mason (Charles Dobbs), Maximilian Schell (Dieter
Frey), Harriet Andersson (Ann Dobbs), Harry Andrews (Inspector Mendel), Simeone
Signoret (Elsa Fennan), Kenneth Haigh (Bill Appleby), Roy Kinnear (Adam Scarr),
Max Adrian (Adviser), Lynn Redgrave (Virgin), Robert Flemyng (Samuel Fennan),
Corin Redgrave (David)
The Deadly Affair
is a faithful adaptation of John Le Carré’s first novel, Call for the Dead, that first introduced to both Le Carré’s distinctive
vision of espionage (a world where spying is a dirty, depressing business,
miles away from Bond), and also his principal recurring hero George Smiley –
although Smiley here is renamed Charles Dobbs (Paramount held the rights to
several recurring Le Carré characters as it was making The Spy Who Came in From the Cold). The Deadly Affair often gets forgotten in the list of Le Carré
films, which is unfair – this is a fine, gripping, character-led thriller.
Charles Dobbs (James Mason), a senior case officer in
British intelligence, meets with Samuel Fennan (Robert Flemyng): a civil
servant in the Ministry of Defence, who has been anonymously accused of being a
Russian agent. Dobbs all but agrees to clear Fennan in a friendly meeting –
only for Fennan to go home and commit suicide. Dobbs investigates, but quickly
finds that the facts – and the story of Fennan’s wife Elsa (Simone Signoret) –
don’t seem to tie up. Working with retired police inspector Mendel (Harry
Andrews), Dobbs investigates further – against the wishes of his superiors.
This also helps to distract Dobbs from his disastrous home life with his
serially unfaithful wife Ann (Harriet Andersson) and her growing closeness to
his old war friend Dieter Frey (Maximilian Schell).
The Deadly Affair
has an old-school, unflashy, Hollywood professionalism to it, very smoothly
directed by Sidney Lumet. Lumet and photographer Frederick A. Young slightly
exposed each shot of the film to give the colours a drained, murky quality,
which works extraordinarily well for the grimy Le Carré feeling. Lumet uses a
series of careful POV and shot-reverse-shots to involve the audience neatly in
the action – we are nearly always seeing events from someone’s perspective, and
this helps us empathise with the characters and action. He also uses London
locations expertly – everywhere is carefully chosen and shot for maximum
impact, creating a world of dingy backstreets that perfectly matches the
feeling of the story.
It also helps that Lumet changes very little from what was
already an excellent source novel. It’s an intricate “whodunnit” puzzle, twisty
and challenging enough to keep the audience guessing. What the film does really
well is introduce Dobbs’ wife Ann as a central character in the storyline, and
to make marital betrayal and deception a complementary subplot, alongside Dobbs’
involvement in the world of professional bluff and counter-bluff: during the
day he practises the very same deception that pains him so much at home. (Le
Carré would effectively lift some of the ideas of this film adaptation and
reproduce them in later books, most especially Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy.)
This marital disharmony becomes a key theme in the movie –
two people who are totally reliant on each other but can’t seem to stop hurting
each other. Ann is in many ways the hellish wife – serially unfaithful and largely
unrepentant – but Dobbs is equally difficult, unnervingly patient and silently
(but never vocally or perhaps even consciously) judgemental. They have a
complex arrangement, but also a clear understanding of each other, and their
conversations sound like careful, familiar routines. Like a scab, Dobbs keeps
picking at this wound of his wife’s infidelity – early in the film he returns
home after a late call out to find his wife naked in bed. She rises to greet
him provocatively, and they kiss, but Dobbs seemingly can’t let go of his own
sense of impotence. Later Ann demands Dobbs expresses some rage and jealousy –
as if looking for him to show some sort of feeling.
It’s a neat sub-plot for a film that focuses on a series of
major personal and professional betrayals – I counted no fewer than five over
the course of the film but there are probably more depending on how you define
it – and which shows how spying can become wrapped up in personal affairs.
Despite Dobbs’ apparent pride at treating his work with a determined coolness,
everything is so very personal in this film. Characters react often with
emotions rather than cool rational thinking – with the exception of one
character who uses the emotions of others very rationally to manipulate them.
Even the final confrontation of the film has a sad loss of emotional control at
the centre of it – and leads to actions bitterly regretted by the survivors.
James Mason is very good as Dobbs, buttoned-up but slightly
run-down, a man who presents a face of calm control and wisdom to the world,
but at home is an insecure, deeply pained, impotent mess. Determined and
principled in the world of espionage, he is hopelessly in love with his wife,
to the extent of practically allowing her free rein to do as she wishes.
Despite being in nearly every scene, it’s also a very generous performance,
quiet and unshowy, that often cedes the scene to his partners. Harriet
Andersson (though clearly dubbed) manages to make Ann someone who feels
sympathetic and understandable – even though she is a colossal pain.
Lumet also gets some wonderful performances from the rest of
the cast, not least from Harry Andrews who I think steals the movie as a
narcoleptic Inspector Mendel, obsessed with facts and possessed of a dry
professionalism. The film also gives a gift of a role to Simeone Signoret, a
woman with a troubled past and indeterminate motives, bubbling with guilt and
resentment. She is given no less than three tour-de-force scenes (one played
almost in complete silence) and plays each brilliantly. There are neat cameos
as well from Max Adrian (as a campy popinjay running Dobbs’ department) and
Lynn Redgrave as an eager stagehand for an amateur theatre company with some
vital evidence.
The film’s conclusion revolves around two masterfully done
sequences: one during a performance of Edward
II (by the real Royal Shakespeare Company – spot several familiar actors on
stage), the second an emotional confrontation at a dock that erupts into
violence. It’s a wonderful dwelling on betrayal and its impacts. It also works
an absolute treat as a low-key counterpart to Bond at his Swinging Sixties height,
while still packing a jazzy score from Quincy Jones (which at first seems
completely incongruous but actually helps to establish the mood really well).
Directed with professional assurance with a host of fine performances – it’s a
little bit of an overlooked gem.
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