Philby, Burgess and Maclean (1977 TV Movie) User Reviews

Classic spy drama - and its true!

[Philby-3 · 8/10 · 25 February 2007]

I'm surprised there are no other comments about this TV movie even though it was made 30 years ago. The story, considerably expanded and updated, appeared in the mini-series "Cambridge Spies" in 2003, but this version was a powerful piece of television with plenty of drama and fine performances from Derek Jacobi as the flamboyant Guy Burgess, Anthony Bate as the close-mouthed Kim Philby and Michael Culver as the neurotic Mclean.

The key element is: why did these sons from "good" families go over to the Soviets in the 1930s and stay there? As Sir Steward Menzies head of MI6, here played by the imposing Richard Hurndall, says; "These chaps can't be spies, they are people like us." (In "Cambridge Spies" this remark is attributed to Lord Halifax, British Ambassador to Washington, who then commences a hunt through the embassy kitchens for the culprit.)

I think perhaps "Cambridge Spies", which covers Anthony Blunt as well provides a better explanation of this but in the earlier film director Gordon Flemyng captures the excitement of the events. To round out the story, viewers should also see John Schlesinger's little gem "An Englishman Abroad" (1983) where Coral Browne, the distinguished Australian-born actress re-enacts her encounter with Guy Burgess (wonderfully played by Alan Bates) in Moscow after his defection. Anthony Blunt was the subject of a play by Alan Bennett, subsequently filmed for TV as "A Question of Attribution", which contains an imagined conversation between HM the Queen and her erstwhile art curator – cute, but not very informative.

A Good, But Outdated, Piece Of Historical Drama

[timdalton007 · 7/10 · 22 August 2010]

At the height of the Cold War the British intelligence agency MI6 was rocked by the revelation that three of its members Kim Philby, Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, all Cambridge educated and from "the right families" as it were, had spent decades spying for its arch-enemy the Soviet Union before defecting to that nation. 1977's Philby, Burgess and Maclean is a dramatization of their story from 1945 through 1955. While this production is now outdated thanks to revelations made after the film was made and some of its production values are a bit mixed, it stands up as a good piece of historical drama nonetheless.

The film's backbone lies in the three actors playing the spies. Anthony Bate is perfectly cast as the quiet but methodical Kim Philby, not only in being a physical doppelganger but capturing the spirit of the man as well (as the press conference scene shows when compared with the archival footage of the real event). Derek Jacobi, one of the UK's finest character actors, brings the flamboyant Guy Burgess to life splendidly as well in scenes such as his argument about Communism with Melinda Maclean. Michael Culver plays Donald Maclean, who overtime becomes increasingly paranoid and neurotic as MI6 increasingly suspects him. Together these three actors bring to life these three very different and complex historical figures.

The film also features a fine supporting cast as well. Amongst them are Richard Hurndall as MI6 chief Sir Stewart Menzies, Philip Stone as Farquesson and David Markham as Skardon who find themselves trying to unravel the complex web involving the three spies. In a small but very important role is Anthony Langdon as KGB Colonel Volkov whose information to MI6 begin the train of events that led to the revelings and later defections of the three spies. The highlights of the supporting cast though are Ingrid Hafner as Aileen Philby and Elizabeth Seal as Melinda Maclean, the wives of Kim Philby and Guy Burgess respectively who try to understand the worlds they find themselves in as their husbands are revealed as spies. Like Bate, Jacobi and Culver the supporting cast bring to life the people who lived alongside the spies unknowingly for the most part.

The production vales are a bit mixed at times. Mike Grimes production design recreates the various offices and homes that the events took place in, especially the offices. The camera work of David Wood, while workman like, still serves the production rather well. Other production values are a bit mixed though. This is especially true of the music which is entirely made up of electronic synthesizer music that does nothing but clash with the film's 1940s-50s setting. Another mixed element is the direction of Gordon Flemyng which works for the most part but there are some sequences in the film, such as the sequence where Maclean suffers a nervous breakdown while images of Japanese atomic bomb victims flash on the screen, seem rather odd especially when combined with the out of place electronic synthesizer music. The results are all together rather mixed.

Last but not least is the script by Ian Curteis. Curteis does a good job of condensing nearly a decades worth of events into around an hour and a half worth of screen time. In some respects the film take place in the middle of the story between Volkov's revealed high ranking spies in British intelligence through the defection of Burgess and Maclean and Philby practically leaving MI6 as a result of that agency's suspicions of him. One wonder if perhaps it would have been better if the film would have started a bit earlier with the spies recruitment at Cambridge leading up to Philby's eventual defection in 1963. Overall the film remains faithful to the real life events, or at least as much as was known at the time. Which brings us to another fault of the film, though one that is apparent only in retrospect. Years after the film was made a fourth Cambridge recruited spy, Anthony Blunt, was revealed and rewrote a chunk of this spy scandal (as seen in the more recent BBC mini-series Cambridge Spies). As a result the film, and its script, is good but outdated.

Philby, Burgess and Maclean is an outdated but nonetheless a good piece of historical drama. The film has a fine cast it has mixed production values and a script that, while good means that the film is outdated. Overall though the film presents this real-life tale of secrets and betrayal, both on political and personal levels, effectively and perhaps that's the most important thing.

sticks to the facts

[parachute-4 · 9/10 · 19 January 2008]

A low key, but excellent portrayal of the Cambridge spy saga. Later treatments of the story haven't really measured up to this original. The three central characters are well cast, in particular Michael Culver as the unbalanced Donald Maclean, who despite his extreme value as a penetration agent, must have been a real nightmare for his Soviet controllers. Maclean's long-suffering wife is played very well by Elizabeth Seal. The Philby persona is well portrayed as a unique amalgam of outward charm and vulnerability with the hidden core of ruthless fanaticism......He didn't do it for the money and he was never a double agent.

Derek Jacobi plays Guy Burgess as a sinister buffoon and retrobate, which works well in the context of the dramatic representation, but the real-life Burgess was a much more complex individual, with a charming and witty side to his character. He had a wide circle of loyal friends and was very, very well connected. Burgess was once heard to announce for all the world to hear," I am a Comintern agent !" Presumably, everyone who heard that either thought it was just Guy being whimsical, or perhaps some didn't even give a damn if he was a Soviet spy. Such were the peculiarities of the British establishment of the day, which the Russians were able to exploit to their enormous advantage.

Eventually Burgees and Maclean defect to the east together, and the whole ring starts to unravel. The portrayals of Philby's subsequent interrogation duels with Milmo and Skardon are absolutely first rate and true to the facts. Everyone knew he was as guilty as sin, but he ran rings around all of them, got off the hook, and a few years later, slipped away to the USSR himself.

The Russians subsequently decorated him as a hero and he lived out his days in self-satisfied privilege, providing motivational coaching to the godamned KGB football team, and even taking time out to get married again. Later, he was always available to give smug interviews to the western journalist who chronicled his strange, but very successful career. One can't help thinking though, that back in the Stalin era, he would likely have been shot when he arrived in Moscow after defecting from the west.

The great mystery of Philby, and one which the film leaves appropriately unresolved, is how he managed to induce so many clever people to trust him in the first place. I believe he rates a whole movie to himself mainly to explore this central issue.

For now though, I believe that "Burgess, Philby, and Maclean" remains the definitive portrait of the Cambridge spy ring. Very rarely screened nowadays, but it hopefully will turn up on DVD.

R. B.