A nuclear war specialist returns from a mission gathering data on Soviet communications and electronic warfare techniques in the Arctic Ocean to find that his flat has been broken into and mysteriously re-decorated.
Writing
Le Carré's bitter cynicism about intelligence work
Production
Gritty 1970s London locations on a shoestring budget
Acting
Petrovitch's hollowed-out exhaustion as Armstrong
Director
Lindsay Shonteff
Michael Petrovitch
Patrick Armstrong
Philip Latham
Ferdy Foxwell
Don Fellows
Colonel Schlegel
Michael Gwynn
Dawlish
Tessa Wyatt
Sara Shaw
Derren Nesbitt
Colonel Stok
Nicholas Parsons
Ben Toliver
Bernard Kay
Commander Wheeler
John Forgeham
Security Guard
Stewart Bevan
Sylvester
Toby Robins
Helen Schlegel
Ciaran Madden
Marjorie
Paul Maxwell
Submarine Captain
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
This was the second film adaptation of Len Deighton's unnamed spy, following 1965's 'The Ipcress File'—though Michael Caine declined to return for this lower-budget production.
Director Lindsay Shonteff allegedly shot additional scenes without Deighton's approval, explaining why the film's paranoid atmosphere sometimes clashes with the novel's precise bureaucratic satire.
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