The Human Factor (1979 film)
| The Human Factor | |
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Theatrical release poster by Saul Bass
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| Directed by | Otto Preminger |
| Written by |
Graham Greene Tom Stoppard |
| Based on |
The Human Factor by Graham Greene |
| Starring |
Richard Attenborough Derek Jacobi John Gielgud Nicol Williamson |
| Music by | Richard Logan Gary Logan |
| Cinematography | Mike Molloy |
| Edited by | Richard Trevor |
| Distributed by |
Metro Goldwyn Mayer United Artists |
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Release date
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Running time
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115 mins |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $376,050 |
The Human Factor is a 1979 British thriller film starring Richard Attenborough, Nicol Williamson, Derek Jacobi, and John Gielgud. It is based on the 1978 novel The Human Factor by Graham Greene, with the screenplay written by Tom Stoppard. It examined British espionage, and the West's relationship with apartheid South Africa.
The film was directed by Otto Preminger, the 38th and final film he helmed in his nearly half-century career.
Maurice Castle (Nicol Williamson) is a mid-level bureaucrat in MI6 whose life seems completely without peculiarity, peccadillo, or any highlighting quality to suggest he’s anything but a dull bureaucrat, except for the interesting, casually introduced detail that he has an African wife, Sarah (Iman), and son, Sam (Gary Forbes). Meanwhile, the company regime, represented by corpulent, bluffly cheery Dr. Percival (Robert Morley), who’s actually an expert in assassinations and biological toxins, and grey eminence Sir John Hargreaves (Richard Vernon), advise newly appointed security chieftain Daintry (Richard Attenborough) that, thanks to a source they have cultivated in their Moscow enemy headquarters, they believe they have a traitor at the MI6 African desk. The duo determine that the mole must be quietly killed, rather than be allowed publicity in a trial or a flight to Moscow. They determine quickly that the most likely candidate for the traitor is Arthur Davis (Derek Jacobi), Castle’s playboy office partner. Actually, Castle is the mole, but the information he leaks is entirely unimportant financial documents. He became involved in leaking to the Soviets when he was an MI6 agent in South Africa, seven years earlier: he met and fell in love with Sarah, and when their affair was discovered by the authorities, Castle was all but thrown out of the country, and he entrusted Sarah’s smuggling out of the country to a mutual communist acquaintance. Ever since, he’s been repaying the favor by filtering insignificant data to the Soviets. Castle makes one last informational drop to his communist handlers and he is summarily whisked off to Moscow for protection. However, Castle's primary problem is that he is not a communist, is not a communist sympathizer, and has absolutely no interest in politics, socialism, the Russian language, Slavic history or culture, geopolitical power plays, Moscow nor the Soviet Union. His only interest is in his wife and his son, who are left in London — where they will remain separated from him.
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