![and my favorite class is the spy and my favorite class is the spy](https://resizing.flixster.com/4DEUomPqHUzfhJrWwrI09vUtMfI=/300x300/v2/https://flxt.tmsimg.com/assets/p307_i_v9_ab.jpg)
I asked Jeff Quest and Gary Dexter to recall the earliest films to deal with spies and Jeff dug way back for some examples. Then in the 1940s and 50s there were adaptations of Graham Greene novels like Our Man in Havana…ĬLIP Our Man in Havana trailer This is a top secret item… Le Carré wasn’t the first author to inspire films that tried to suggest what espionage was really like, In the 1930s Alfred Hitchcock made spy films like The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes…ĬLIP Lady Vanishes trailer: Listen everyone there’s a woman on this train… Now we're going to turn to a more realistic look at the world of intelligence and counter intelligence courtesy of author John Le Carré. Last time we discussed James Bond and the fantasy spy. We are reconvening our group of spy aficionados to talk about a different kind of spy. Get yourself a strong cup of coffee or maybe a shot of whiskey and settle down for a discussion of John Le Carré and the fascinating works he created exploring the real world of international intrigue. And since we are about to enter the Cold War I thought it would be fitting to head into the break with a Cold Turkey so here is Sterling Anno with something that needs to stop. I need to take one quick break and then I will be joined by my favorite secret cinema agents Gary Dexter and Jeff Quest. I hope that whets your appetite for a discussion of Le Carré’s work and the film and television adaptations he inspired. George Smiley were born on the same day in 1958 on the same first page of the same first novel in a small back room which was in those days the enormously secret address of MI5 and by secret I mean… all out for MI5… I want to let John Le Carré, speaking at a Southbank Centre event, provide his own introduction.ĬLIP My literary cover name of John Le Carré and my fictional spy of Mr. But both men inspired a wealth of cinematic adaptations that will keep their legacies alive for generations to come. Fleming’s 007 provided escapism and Le Carré lifted the veil on the real world of spying. Both Fleming and Le Carré arrived on the literary scene in the 1950s and fed two different sides of the public’s fascination with espionage. We leave the fantasy world of Ian Fleming’s James Bond behind to delve into the grittier, more realistic world of John Le Carré’s spies of the Cold War and beyond. Welcome back to listener supported KPBS Cinema Junkie I'm Beth Accomando. Well I guess you need to put down that Vesper and pull out your calculators as we head off into the world of John Le Carré. And when he reads John Le Carré, he wants to be a chartered accountant. Shane Whaley, who founded the Spybrary podcast, had coined a really funny saying, which he said when he reads Ian Fleming, he wants to be a spy.