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 While this production is now outdated thanks to revelations made after the film was made and some of its production values are a bit mixed, it stands up as a good piece of historical drama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.
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.