Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (TV miniseries)
| Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy | |
|---|---|
Opening title
|
|
| Based on |
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le Carré |
| Written by | Arthur Hopcraft |
| Screenplay by | John le Carré |
| Directed by | John Irvin |
| Starring |
Alec Guinness Michael Jayston Anthony Bate George Sewell |
| Theme music composer | Geoffrey Burgon |
| Country of origin | UK |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of episodes | 7 |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | Jonathan Powell |
| Cinematography | Tony Pierce-Roberts |
| Editor(s) | Chris Wimble Clare Douglas |
| Running time | UK – 315 min US – 290 min |
| Distributor |
BBC Worldwide Great Performances PBS Paramount Television (North America) |
| Release | |
| Original network | BBC2 |
| Original release | 10 September – 22 October 1979 |
| Chronology | |
| Followed by | Smiley's People |
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a 1979 seven-part drama spy mini-series made by BBC TV. John Irvin directed and Jonathan Powell produced this adaptation of John le Carré's novel Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1974). The mini-series, which stars Alec Guinness, Ian Richardson, Michael Jayston, Anthony Bate, Ian Bannen, George Sewell, and Michael Aldridge, was shown in the United Kingdom from 10 September to 22 October 1979 and in the United States beginning on 29 September 1980.
In the US, syndicated broadcasts and DVD releases compressed the seven-part UK episodes into six, by shortening scenes and altering the narrative sequence. In the UK original, Smiley visits Connie Sachs before Peter Guillam's burglary of the Circus, while the US version reverses the sequence of these events, in line with the time sequence of the novel.
George Smiley (Guinness), deputy head of the British Secret Intelligence Service, is forced into retirement in the wake of Operation Testify, a failed spy mission to Czechoslovakia. Veteran British agent Jim Prideaux (Bannen) had been sent to meet with a Czech general he's been told has information identifying a deep-cover Soviet spy planted in the highest echelons of British Secret Intelligence Service, known as the Circus because of its headquarters at Cambridge Circus in London.
The mission proves to be a trap, and Prideaux is captured and brutally tortured by the Soviets. Britain's chief spymaster, known only as Control, is disgraced and soon replaced for his role in Testify by Percy Alleline (Aldridge). Control's obsession with the Soviet mole was not shared by others in the Circus. On the contrary, it is the British who believe they have a mole working for them in Moscow Centre, passing them secrets code-named Operation Witchcraft.
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