The Looking Glass War (1970) Far, far removed from the fantasy worlds of James Bond were the espionage novels of John le Carre (and the subsequent films made from them).
In the le Carre books and films, spying is a grim, depressing, dirty business, punctuated with sporadic bursts of violence.......and no heroes in spiffy tuxedos vanquishing international villainy. In the author's realistic depiction of intelligence services and their operatives, everybody's moral compass spins in circles...... The spymasters hide multiple layers of hidden agendas, sending out their cynical, bitter, broken agents on questionable missions. .
And in such a duplicitous universe, almost nobody gets out unscathed....or for that matter, alive.
Writer director Frank Pierson makes a competent enough effort to display all the cruel ironies inherent in le Carre's world of counterintelligence. He assembles a superb lineup of the top-notch actors for the British MI6 contingent......Sir Ralph Richardson, a young Anthony Hopkins, Paul Rogers and Robert Urquhart.......
But to the film's ruination, its lead role went to Christopher Jones, an half-baked, no talent James Dean wanna-be in the midst of his 15 minutes of fame......
Jones a brooding non-entity devoid of any human expression,,, became Hollywood's flavor-of-the-month after his starring role in American International's instant cult satire "Wild In The Streets".......with Jones playing a rock star who's elected president and rounds up everyone over 30 into concentration camps.
Moping through his movies like a heavily sedated James Dean, Jones was now cast as Leiser a young Pole who defected to the U.K to further co-habit with his impregnated girlfriend (Susan George.) Waylaid by the MI6 coterie, he's compelled to sneak into East Germany to see if they've really got a Russian missile to aim at the free world. .
Like the Black Hole of acting that he was, Jones sucks the oxygen out of "The Looking Glass War" every minute he's on screen. In a vain attempt to create the illusion that he's giving an actual performance, director Pierson had Jones dubbed in by another actor.
Sadly, Pierson's ploy only tricked director David Lean into thinking Jones was actor enough to take one of the leads in his critically derided epic 'Ryan's Daughter'. Equally appalled at Jones' blank stares, Lean also dubbed the actor in yet another futile try to repair the gaping hole that Jones's non-acting left at the cire of the film.
But now let's move on to the movie, whose plot machinations don't make much more sense than the casting of Jones. Our so-called hero's mission goes awry in a hurry as he's forced to kill an East German guard and a creepy truck driver who couldn't keep his wandering hand off Jones' knee. By this time, the country's Stasi secret police know all about him, allowing Jones, the most un-secret agent ever, to proceed without arrest, just to see what he's up to.
Along way, proving there's a cover for every pot, Jones finds a romantic partner every bit his equal in vacant, blank acting and labored minimal dialogue recital It's none other than. Pia Degermark, the drop dead gorgeous blonde ingenue of the 1967 Swedish period romance "Elvira Madigan" (the first foreign film to become something of a date night hit in the U.S.) So whatever criticism we might aim at "The Looking Glass War" at least the movie does pair up two of the prettiest 1970 movie people.
Lest me we forget the source material, the climax is pure inevitable John le Carre, delivering heaping amounts of pointed fatalistic irony......prompting Anthony Hopkins, who's the only committed patriot amid the jaded MI6 misanthropes, to throw fits of rage.
Overall, an honest try at a more realistic, grounded look at the clandestine wars fought by superpowers........but the living zero known as Christopher Jones inflicts more damage on the film than if that Russian missile scored a direct hit on it. 1 & 1/2 stars (*1/2) Feel free to skip it.
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