MovieChat Forums > The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965) Discussion > More on the Nan-Leamas relationship

More on the Nan-Leamas relationship

posted 9 years ago by Geoman660066
3 replies | jump to latest

Clearly Leamas was “directed” to his job in the library so he might meet Nan, but the fact is that in reality Control could not count on them forming a relationship. Given Leamas’s surliness, which was both genuine and part of his cover at the time, it is surprising that Nan would have anything to do with him at all. Yet fall in love they did, “making it easy for them” as Leamas wound up saying in regard to the Circus toward the end of the movie. If Nan had not had a relationship with Leamas, Smiley could have still given her money as a “friend” of Leamas and she might still have been coaxed into traveling to Germany, but she would not have made a credible witness. With no reason at all for Nan to accept such a gift from Smiley, it would have been clear to the East Germans that Smiley had gone out of his way to openly and not-very-subtly provide Mundt with exculpatory and vindicating evidence—thereby in reality establishing his guilt. Hence the plot works only if Nan and Leamas form a real relationship. Now, some may say that if this didn’t happen, OK, Control would have tried something else, but I find this is a lame plot device. That is, I hate when move makers present us with a low percentage play with the “understanding” that if it didn’t work something else would have been tried. This weak device reaches its zenith, perhaps, in the Bourne movies with Jason Bourne managing to study how a CIA officer opens his safe by looking through a monocular through a window from across the street. He got lucky, I suppose. Some other way to find out about the safe would have presented itself had not the CIA conducted its top secret business with lights blazing and windows open in full view of surrounding Manhattan skyscrapers.

Geoman660066

[–] rogueforte 9 years ago

These somewhat unbelievable relationships are a staple plot device of just about any political thriller. In fact, I'm not sure one has ever been done that 'didn't' have some sort of out-of-the-blue relationship that turned out to be integral to the plot. Marathon Man, 3 Days of the Condor, The Quiller Memorandum, the list goes on and on.

Probably the most believable one I can recall was the classic Fail-Safe with Henry Fonda. There were only two appearances of females in that movie. The first, at the very beginning, is a twisted woman who is turned on by a hawkish politico played by Walter Matthau (and he abruptly spurns her advances). The other is the hysterical wife of the bomber pilot who will be dropping the bomb and her very brief appearance is simply to try and convince the guy his mission is a mistake.

But they're both a whole lot more realistic than the contrived relationships in other, similar movies.

[–] [deleted] 5 years ago

Interesting.

[–] Mistral001 (4) 4 years ago

I forget where in the book that it states that a romantic relationship between Nan and Alec was not necessary to the plan's success, but it is certaily in there. It was only necessary for them to be close work colleagues. The book goes into more detail about Nan's role in the plan. Ashe's role is explained more in the book as well. Ashe and Nan belonged to the same Communist Party local group. Ashe, arranged the trip for Nan to go to East Germany, so it was not a coincidence that she happened to be in East Germany when the trial began.

Nan was absolutely key to the plan working and I do not think that this was emphasised enough in the film. Fiedler based nearly all of his evidence on Leamas being a creditable witness and Nan was put in a position where she unwittingly totally demolished Leamas as that creditable witness resulting in Fiedler's case falling apart.