Maggie's Farm

We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.

Our Recent Essays Behind the Front Page

Much Sorry with Delays
Birth, Death and All That Stuff in Between
How to Honor Labor Day, Every Day
My Yom Kippur Miracle (Repost from 2010)
Good intro to fly casting
Peach update, with pie
NYC update
Easy for you to say: To the elites on mass immigration
For NYC on 9/11, Sailors' Snug Harbor
Pickled Peaches
Water Shoes
Labor Costs in U.S.
Your "identity"
Good news about The Great Courses
Uses of Hot Pepper Jelly/Sauce, Chutneys, and Jams
A Saturday Drive to Litchfield County, CT
How to Pick a Kayak
Civilized: Fruit forks and knives
Loads of kayaking on Cape Cod
Psychology Experiments' Questionable Results

Categories


All categories

Quicksearch

Links

Blog Administration

Open login screen

RSS Readers

Add to Google

Subscribe with Bloglines

Saturday, July 9. 2011

Tinker, Tailor

We love Fawlty Towers, and can quote most lines from them, and Brideshead Revisited was darn good, but the best series ever made for TV was from John LeCarre's book Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Six hours of dark, haunting intrigue, with the best casting imaginable. Alec Guiness is understatedly great, of course, but the others are equally remarkable. The character development is the best part of the series: the spy stuff provides the dramatic tension.


Even in the post cold-war era, one hell of a story. Perfect TV. See it.

Posted by Bird Dog in The Culture, "Culture," Pop Culture and Recreation at 14:27 | Comments (6) | Trackbacks (0)

Trackbacks
Trackback specific URI for this entry

No Trackbacks

Comments
Display comments as (Linear | Threaded)

T,T,S,S along with I, Claudius and Lonesome Dove vie for the top spot in my VCR.
#1 Browndog on 2011-07-09 14:42 (Reply)
I loved the books, and when that is the case, usually avoid any film version.

Of course, we haven't had a TV for 30 years either, so that also limits my temptation. But it's nice to know that on your say-so I never have to fear being ambushed by a screen with the LeCarre series playing, lying in wait to ruin the books for me.
#2 Assistant VIllage Idiot (Link) on 2011-07-09 15:24 (Reply)
I did read the books. The BBC tv series is better than my imagination was. Watch the thing, AVI, and you'll see what I mean.
#2.1 Bird Dog on 2011-07-09 15:39 (Reply)
I watched 3 straight hours of i]FAWLTY TOWERS[i] many years ago. and was greatly put off by the high-strength anger coming from the screen. One by one, OK, but the 6-pack was a killer.
#3 Sam L. on 2011-07-09 22:21 (Reply)
I really enjoyed I, Claudius, LD, and TTSS, but disliked Fawlty Towers. I just did not find it funny.
#3.1 inthehills on 2011-07-09 22:56 (Reply)
The TTSS TV series was great, as was production of "Smiley's People" also with Guiness as Smiley. Now a new film version of TTSS is due out later this year

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1340800/

Great cast, but the Alec Guiness TV miniseries would have to be a tough act to follow.
#4 stimpy on 2011-07-11 06:24 (Reply)

Add Comment
(Your e-mail will not show in your comment)

By commenting on this site you agree to the site rules listed here. Email
addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for email notifications.

Quick reference guide: [i] italics [/i], [b] bold [/b], [u] underline [/u],
[url] (web address) [/url]. More tips here.

Enclosing asterisks marks text as bold (*word*), underscore are made via _word_.
E-Mail addresses will not be displayed and will only be used for E-Mail notifications.

To prevent automated Bots from commentspamming, please enter the string you see in the image below in the appropriate input box. Your comment will only be submitted if the strings match. Please ensure that your browser supports and accepts cookies, or your comment cannot be verified correctly.
CAPTCHA

BBCode format allowed
 
 
A Chris Southern Consulting website.