A Cold War Spy Drama
Streaming on Brit Box
The cloak-and-dagger world of the suave international spy, with its beautiful cars, fast women, and mandatory ‘well-shaken’ vodka martinis at the club after work, can look like an exciting profession.
But…. The truth is that although the world of espionage can sometimes appear to be an exhilarating career choice when you’re in the field, risking your life for your country, it is primarily the exact the opposite
The adrenalin-fed thrills can be short-lived and instantly replaced with absolute fear if you’re captured, brutally tortured, thrown into a rat-infested prison cell and viciously executed.
Normally the heroic spy who constantly risks his life for a noble cause can be remembered as a hero by a forever grateful country.
But for one particular real-life spy, the finale was shamefully different.
He did not die a hero, nor was he posthumously awarded numerous medals. He met his demise in a foreign land, forever remembered with disgust and contempt by his fellow countrymen.
His sad fall from grace was even more pitiful when he cowardly disappeared into the night. Now and forever, he will be remembered as England’s most despised, dirty rotten traitor.
His shocking story is the subject of a new six-part miniseries, A Spy Among Friends, now streaming on Brit Box.
The intelligently crafted story gives us a glimpse of how it all began and unceremoniously ended for the real-life English turncoat and Soviet double agent Harold Adrian Russell “Kim” Philby ORB, OL ODN
Kim, as he was known, appeared to be as traditionally British as you can get. He attended the right schools, graduated from Cambridge and regularly partied with all the right people.
He was (on the surface) in every way, to all who knew him, everything that is typically British upper class.
Before being recruited during the second world war as a British intelligence officer, Philby was lured to the dark side and began to use his position for evil by becoming a double agent for the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 60s.
The result of his devious actions of sharing top-secret information is considered to have directly caused or eventually led to the deaths of potentially thousands of agents, soldiers and civilians.
In 1963 his charade was exposed when he was revealed to be a prominent member of the now infamous Cambridge Five, a spy ring of double agents who had all willingly given British secrets to the Soviets during World War II and in the early years of the Cold War.
Since he was openly exposed as possibly the worst traitor in history since Judas Iscariot, there have been numerous newspaper articles, books, documentaries, and movies detailing the despicable story of how and (possibly) why the once golden boy of the MI6 decided to go into the cold.
This latest dramatization based on the Ben Macintrye book by the same name starring Guy Pearce as the cool, two-faced Philby along with Damian Lewis as the supposedly perceptive yet incredibly naïve (in relation to Philby’s deception) Nicholas Elliott tells the sordid story through Elliot’s explanation of the two men’s relationship.
We are taken through a complex process as Elliot is interrogated by the fictional MI5 researcher Lily Thomas brilliantly played by Anna Maxwell Martin, as she laboriously quizzes him regarding his lengthy relationship with Philby and especially the last hours the two spent together in Beirut before Philby did a midnight runner to the then Soviet Union.
Interestingly there is even an appearance by the author of the James Bond novels Ian Flemming played by Edward Baker-Duly who actually knew Philby when he was working for Britain’s Naval Intelligence Division during WW2.
Because this story has been retold so many times, this is not suspenseful drama. We are not left questioning … is he or isn’t he? … because we all know he was.
It is more of a finely crafted cautionary tale warning us of how even our closest friends can be evil chameleons who are heartlessly willing to betray their country, their way of life, their friends and even their family because of their twisted sense of corrupted loyalty.
Although I already know the story, I still found this telling enjoyably intelligent. There is no doubt that Philby is the bad guy in this tale, but I am left wondering if all his associates and superiors are as innocent as the official explanation would like us to believe.
Click the link below to view the trailer
