Soldier Spy

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Prideaux, who is in fact alive and now a schoolmaster, tells Smiley that his Budapest mission was to relay the identity of the mole to Control, via one of the code names assigned by Control to each of the members of the Circus suspected to be the mole - “Tinker”, “Tailor”, “Soldier”, “Poorman” and “Beggarman”. He was tortured by the KGB, and saw Irina shot in front of him.

By the time of the events in Smiley's People (the third book in the Karla trilogy) Guillam is married to a young Frenchwoman called Marie-Clare and is head of Circus operations in Paris, though this too is considered to be a minor post. Toby Esterhase is a fictional character who appears in several of John le Carré's spy novels that feature George Smiley, including Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy, Smiley's People, and The Secret Pilgrim. Esterhase also makes a cameo appearance in Le Carré's A Legacy of Spies.

Enter Hotel Raito

George Smiley – Formerly a senior officer in the Circus, who was pushed out upon the death of Control, his mentor. Smiley's timid nature and unassuming appearance belies his keen understanding of spycraft. He is called upon to investigate the presence of a Soviet mole in the Circus. Various inspirations for Smiley have been suggested, including le Carré's superior in MI5, John Bingham, and MI6 chief Maurice Oldfield (who took the position in 1973, a year before the book was published). [16] [17]

Jonathan Romney of The Independent wrote, "The script is a brilliant feat of condensation and restructuring: writers Peter Straughan and the late Bridget O'Connor realise the novel is overtly about information and its flow, and reshape its daunting complexity to highlight that". [28] David Gritten of The Daily Telegraph declared the film "a triumph" and gave it a five star rating, [29] as did his colleague, Sukhdev Sandhu. [30] Stateside, Peter Travers of Rolling Stone wrote, "As Alfredson directs the expert script by Peter Straughan and Bridget O'Connor, the film emerges as a tale of loneliness and desperation among men who can never disclose their secret hearts, even to themselves. It's easily one of the year's best films." [31] M. Enois Duarte of High-Def Digest also praised the film as a "brilliant display of drama, mystery and suspense, one which regards its audience with intelligence". [32] Polmar, Norman; Allen, Thomas (1998). The Spy Book The Encyclopedia of Espionage. New York: Random House. ISBN 0-375-70249-0. Toby Esterhase — He is the head of the Acton lamplighters, the section of the Circus responsible for surveillance and wiretapping. Hungarian by birth, Esterhase is an anglophile with pretensions of being a British gentleman. He was recruited by Smiley as "a starving student in Vienna". Morris, Lauren (4 December 2021). "Tinker Tailor director hints at TV reboot for Smiley, doubts film sequel". Radio Times . Retrieved 25 February 2023. While doing press for Working Title's Les Misérables film adaptation, producer Eric Fellner stated that fellow producer Tim Bevan was working with writer Straughan and director Alfredson on developing a sequel to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Fellner did not specify whether or not the sequel would be based on The Honourable Schoolboy or Smiley's People, the two remaining Smiley novels in Le Carré's Karla trilogy. [48] While doing press for Dawn of the Planet of the Apes in 2014, Oldman stated that talk of a sequel, an adaptation of Smiley's People, had since disappeared; while also stressing that he would still like to see the film produced. [49]Control — Longtime head of the Circus, now dead. Once a Cambridge don, he becomes convinced that one of his subordinates is a Soviet agent, and spends the last years of his tenure trying to uncover them. Bernard Hepton played Esterhase in the BBC television dramatisations of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Smiley's People. In the former, Hepton played Esterhase as speaking with a received pronunciation accent, but in Smiley's People, Hepton reverted to an Eastern European accent for the role.

The film was released in France on 8 February 2012 under the title La Taupe (meaning "The Mole"). [25] Critical response [ edit ] Romney, Jonathan (18 September 2011). "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy". The Independent. London: INM. ISSN 0951-9467. OCLC 185201487. Archived from the original on 21 June 2022 . Retrieved 26 September 2011. In the popular TV comedy series The Two Ronnies, Ronnie Barker played Smiley along the lines of Alec Guinness' portrayal in a sketch called Tinker Tailor Smiley Doyle. [32] This was a joint send-up of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and The Professionals TV series, with Ronnie Corbett playing a bungling version of Martin Shaw's Doyle. Barker's Smiley provides the brains to the brawn of Corbett's Doyle and actually comes out the better. He is shown as something of an obsessive tea drinker. The sketch guest-starred Frank Williams from Dad's Army. The name of Smiley's enemy Karla can be seen on a secretary's computer screen. A series of sketches in The Fast Show star John Thomson as a Smiley-like interrogator who finds it incredibly easy to prompt the interrogatee to reveal his crimes, usually simply by introducing himself. Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse performed a sketch in 2012 about there being two George Smileys: a reference to the vastly different portrayals in the filmed versions of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Smiley points out that Karla is fiercely loyal to both the Soviet Union and communism, highlighting Karla's current rank despite his internment in a gulag by the Stalinist regime, and reveals that Karla turned down an offer from Smiley in India to defect, even though his return to the USSR in 1955 was to face a likely execution. During his attempt to obtain Karla's defection, Smiley plied him to defect with cigarettes and promises that they could get Karla's family out to the West safely. Smiley suspects that this only revealed his own weakness, his love for his unfaithful wife, Ann. Smiley offered Karla his lighter, a present from Ann, to light a cigarette, but Karla rose and left with it.

In the 2011 film version of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Guillam is played by Benedict Cumberbatch. The character is portrayed as homosexual in the film (a departure from the novels), and as making the painful decision to break up with his boyfriend.

Oliver Lacon — The permanent secretary in the Cabinet Office. Civilian overseer of the Circus. A former Cambridge rowing blue; his father "a dignitary of the Scottish church" and his mother "something noble". [18] Chitwood, Adam (11 December 2012). "Producer Eric Fellner Talks; Says Tomas Alfredson and Screenwriter Peter Straughan are Working on it "As We Speak" ". Collider . Retrieved 11 December 2012. John Le Carre, The Secret Pilgrim (London: Coronet/Hodder & Stoughton, 1991), 122-123, 129-130 & 141-152. ISBN 0 340 55205 0. An article published in in-house Central Intelligence Agency journal Studies in Intelligence, presumably written by agents under pseudonyms, [24] called it "one of the most enduring renderings of the profession". [3] It does question the "organisational compression" involved in the form of a large organisation, which the SIS would be, being reduced to a handful of senior operatives playing operational roles, but admits that this "works very well at moving the story along in print". However, the idea that a major counter-intelligence operation could be run without the knowledge of counter-intelligence professionals, an allusion to Smiley's investigation progressing in an undetected manner, is deemed an "intellectual stretch". [3]The film was produced through the British company Working Title Films and financed by France's StudioCanal. It premiered in competition at the 68th Venice International Film Festival. A critical and commercial success, it was the highest-grossing film at the British box office for three consecutive weeks. It won the BAFTA Award for Best British Film. The film also received three Oscar nominations: Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, and for Oldman, Best Actor. In the aftermath of Haydon's exposure, Esterhase and the rest of the magic circle are disgraced. [16] Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, 323. Also see an example of Esterhase flirting in Smiley's People, (London: Coronet/Hodder & Stoughton, 1992), 314. ISBN 0 340 55917 9. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy employs spy jargon that is presented as the authentic insider-speak of British Intelligence. Le Carré noted that, with the exception of a few terms like mole and legend, this jargon was his own invention. [19] In some cases, terms used in the novel have subsequently entered espionage parlance. [7] For example, the terms mole, [20] implying a long-term spy, and honey trap, [21] implying a ploy in which an attractive person lures another into revealing information, were first introduced in this novel, and have only subsequently entered general usage.