![]() A great shame all the same, especially when they had such a fine Jerry Westerby as Joss Ackland in 'Tinker, Tailor.' In sum. ![]() I assume that filming in Hong Kong (primarily), Vientiene, Bangkok, Phnom Pehn and Saigon was financially too daunting. By the same token it is a great loss to our lives that they skipped 'The Honourable Schoolboy' altogether, choosing to jump ahead to 'Smiley's People'. It works but it would have been so much better as LeCarré originally envisioned the story. The great disappointment of the 'Smiley' series is that the BBC balked at filming in Hong Kong, choosing instead Lisbon. And he does rise to the occasion when the part demands something more substantial from his character, but Michael Byrne, the Peter Guillam in 'Smiley's People', seems much more in line with LeCarré's character from the books. Jayston's limitations stand out slightly next to his co- horts but he's good enough to hold his own, up to a point. Jayston is too po-faced and humorless, overplaying the underlying traumatic neurosis Guillam has endured in his career. The only bit of miscasting (in my opinion) was that of Michael Jayston as Peter Guillam. However he is fully inside the character of the poor man he's portraying that it hardly matters if his hair is the wrong color. But Bannen does not fit the description of Jim Prideaux very closely. The same can be said of Ian Bannen who turns in perhaps my favorite performance in the whole thing, after Guinness's Smiley. ![]() Her scene is so fore-shortened in the film script that it hardly matters anyway. Beryl Reid is wonderful as Connie Sachs, though not LARGE enough. All of the acting is first rate but the actors are often a far cry from the physical descriptions in the books. Fawn, played by one Alec Sabin, is the spitting (mental) image of the character as described in the book. Some of the smaller roles are done very well too. I also found Ian Richardson's Bill Hayden to be a fine fit between actor and character. ![]() Michael Aldridge plays Percy Alleline as an exquisite, bureaucratic boob who will do anything, in the modern political way, to get to the top, purely for ego reasons. I also like Bernard Hepton's Toby Esterhase, though he exhibits more humor than the character actually possesses in the book. Anthony Bate's smarmy, infuriating Lacon is absolutely hateful at his every appearance, just as he is supposed to be a sign of the masterful nuance of Mr Bate's performance. There are other "perfectly" cast parts in this adaptation. Alexander Knox is fabulous as the "little serpent" Control, "No man's child" as Smiley's says of him. and all the vile things he's had to do in the cause of, as he would put it, what is Right. Simply with subtle, hardly discernible facial expressions, Guinness intimates vividly the mysterious, dangerous past Smiley has endured. I can't get enough of his laconic humor and monk-like habits. Guinness was born to play Smiley, as others have already noted. Being very familiar with all three of the 'Karla' novels I have a few, very minor, quibbles as to casting and editing, but nothing that gets in the way of great enjoyment of the finished product. The BBC is to be commended for making 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy' (as well as 'Smiley's People') into fine adaptations for television.
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