The Looking Glass War - 1970 movie review

I became a John Le Carre fan in my early teens, devouring his first three books with a great deal of enthusiasm. Then I read The Looking Glass War, and simply didn't "get" it. With hindsight, that was probably due, at least in large measure, to my tender years. Le Carre has said that he aimed to write a satire about spying, but I think it's fair to say that it's a long way short of his best work. I thought about giving it another go, and then the film version, made in 1970, turned up on Talking Pictures TV so I decided to take a look at it.

The film has a strong and varied cast, although today, perhaps the most interesting thing about it is that the young son of Avery (Anthony Hopkins) is played by Russell Lewis, who is now renowned as the creator and sole writer of the excellent Endeavour and has written many other crime scripts for television.

The story begins with the murder in Finland of a British spy (Timothy West). Back home, a motley crew of secret service men, including Hopkins and Sir Ralph Richardson, persuade Leiser, a good-looking young Polish man (an oddly cast American actor, Christopher Jones) to undertake a mission at considerable risk to himself. So far, so good. Unfortunately, at this point Frank Pierson's screenplay begins to drag. And it continues to drag, apart from one or two interesting moments, right to the end. By that time, I really didn't care about the outcome. It's not nearly as good as another Le Carre film, The Deadly Affair, which I reviewed recently, far less the superb and much more recent TV series The Night Manager.

So the cast - including such stars as Susan George, Ray McAnally, Maxine Audley, and Anna Massey, as well as Pia Degermark (whose later life has apparently seen as much unhappiness as did the unfortunate Jones') - is largely wasted. The soundtrack by Wally Stott is a kind of poundshop Bacharach effort that simply isn't strong enough; Wally Stott (who later became Angela Morley) was talented, but he was neither Bacharach nor John Barry. Given Le Carre's fame and brilliance, I wonder if there is scope for a remake of this film. Perhaps. But if there is, it will need a much sharper script. 

The Maybrick A to Z

A number of classic true crimes have fascinated me for years. The Crippen case is the obvious example, and yesterday evening I was delighted to read some very positive commentary about Dancing for the Hangman on John Baker's very well-regarded blog. Awaiting me in the post was also a generous article in the Mensa Magazine, which I hope to be able to link to on the website before long.

Among my other favourite real life puzzles is the Maybrick case (especially interesting to me because of its Liverpool setting) and so when I chanced across Christopher Jones’ The Maybrick A to Z a week ago, I couldn’t resist buying a copy. And I've now dipped into it extensively, with pleasurable results. The book is published by Countyvise Press, a small but prolific outfit based on Wirral. The Press produced an anthology of northern crime writing that I put together in the 1990s, and later published my collection of short stories, Where Do You Find Your Ideas? and other stories. But I’d never heard of the Maybrick book until the other day.

Christopher Jones is a deputy head teacher based in Liverpool, the city that was home to James Maybrick and his young American wife Florence. He gives an account of how the couple met and married in 1881, and of the events leading up to James’ mysterious death in 1889. There is an account of the trial – at which Florence was found guilty of poisoning her husband, although she earned a reprieve from the gallows. After serving fifteen years in jail, she was released, and she lived to a ripe old age. But then, in the 1980s, came the sensational discovery of a diary, allegedly written by James, the author of which claimed to be Jack the Ripper.

The combination of these two classic, yet very different, murder cases makes for utterly fascinating reading, and Christopher Jones has done a good deal of research in putting his book together. The format of any A to Z book necessitates some repetition, but on the whole the concept is well-suited to such a complex story. An interesting and worthwhile addition to any true crime library.

Incidentally, this is my 500th post (in 502 days) since I started 'Do you write under your own name?' I'm glad I've kept it ticking over for so long, and I'm very grateful to everyone who has encouraged me to keep going.