1983 - AN ENGLISHMAN ABROAD, a sidebar in British history

You have to know something about Great Britain in the 1930's, Cambridge and the Soviet Union's espionage efforts in Britain to appreciate this fascinating little film.  It seems during the 1930's the Soviets were able to recruit a group of disaffected upper class Cambridge students into spying on their own country.  As the years went by these students managed to make their way into the British intelligence service and in one case Buckingham palace.  None of them were exposed until the CIA broke a code naming them as Soviet agents.  Instead of being arrested by the authorities three of them managed to defect to Moscow.   It was a major scandal for British Intelligence who had managed to keep the exact circumstances of their spying secret from the public for years.

Jumping ahead a few years later. A touring company of actors went to Moscow to perform Hamlet as part of a cultural exchange program.  While there one of the defectors Guy Burgess approached Coral Browne one of the performers in Hamlet.  Burgess was looking for a favor.  It seemed he wanted Browne to get in contact with his old tailor in London and have the tailor make and send him a new and proper English three piece suit.  From this story, the director John Schlesinger and the writer Alan Bennett have dramatized Browne's encounter with the now ex-spy and ex-Englishman, Burgess.

 

The cast is a relatively small one with Alan Bates as the traitor Guy Burgess and Coral Browne playing herself.  Although supposedly a committed socialist and communist, Burgess is still a very proper Englishman.  The film is a clever and amusing look at a man now exiled from the country he grew up and lived in and the reality of his drab life in Moscow.  

 

This is one of the director John Schlesinger's better latter day efforts in his career after a series of less than interesting films.  When Schlesinger was on his game nobody was better at getting good performances out of his cast and filming interesting stories.  An Englishman Abroad turned out to be an excellent film about the English character and mentality.  Definitely worth a look.

The running time is 60 minutes.