Film

In this chilling Cold War espionage film adapted from le Carré’s 1961 novel Call for the Dead, a member of the British Foreign Office undergoing security clearance for a promotion dies from an apparent suicide. Secret agent Charles Dobbs (Mason) opens an investigation hoping the man’s wife (Signoret), a Holocaust survivor, may have some clues, but is thrown off when he begins to suspect he is being trailed by his wife’s Communist-spy lover. Collaborating with the three-time Oscar-winning cinematographer Freddie Young (Lawrence of Arabia), Lumet employed a technique called “preflashing” to create the film’s desaturated palette. This precise evocation of a gloomy London winter is juxtaposed with a lively bossa nova score by Quincy Jones and features the great Astrud Gilberto collaboration “Who Needs Forever.” Archival print!