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(Robert MacNeil filming a news report to camera)
One of the most rewarding aspects of developing content for this website is discovering new information we can share with fellow lamplighters. This month we have pieced together some fascinating history about the first United States broadcast of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy in 1980.
We are very grateful to Tony Virgo, Production Assistant on Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, who has recently made his personal documentation about the series available to us (see below).
Tony had kept details of a separate project he undertook, seventeen months after filming on the series had wrapped. He had been commissioned to direct filmed introductions for the six U.S. episodes with renowned journalist and broadcaster, Robert MacNeil.
Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) had decided to set the episodes in context for American viewers. The filmed introductions were each around two and a half minutes long and were shot at locations in London, relevant to the episode they preceded. Filming of all these introductions took place on Saturday 16th of August 1980.
Tony Virgo recalls directing these introductory segments...
It was interesting doing the PBS links, I really enjoyed that. I used to watch Robert MacNeil and to actually work with him was a bit of a thrill. He knew everything about the series and he had memorised all his introductions. It was very easy working with him because he knew exactly what he wanted. He was obviously used to doing news reports so we went to each location and he would just perform a couple of takes and that was it. We had a small crew and they were very professional.
Marcia Wheeler, Production Unit Manager on Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, also recalls filming these links…
It was quite funny because we turned up in Bywater Street, where we had really taken over for Tinker Tailor, and these two elderly ladies saw Tony and me there and sort of clutched each other and said, “you’re not coming back, are you?” And I thought, shall I tell them about Smiley’s People - no, perhaps not! Smiley’s house had actually changed hands but we got back in there. The last thing we shot was Noel Road and we ended up with drinks at the Island Queen.
On discovering that these introductions were specially filmed on location, my colleague Chris contacted the Wisconsin Historical Society, to whom Robert MacNeil had donated his archive of correspondence. Chris had a hunch that MacNeil might have kept a copy of the scripted introductions and his detective work paid off.
The Wisconsin Historical Society have been kind enough to supply us with transcripts of the broadcasts that MacNeil retained and given their permission to include extracts in this article.
For the first time since they were broadcast 45 years ago, these transcripts and the filming locations identified in Tony’s paperwork enable us to partially reconstruct the introductions that preceded each episode in the United States.
Chris sets out the highlights of the six introductions below…
Episode 1 was recorded in Bywater Street. MacNeil had decided to start with a location his audience may be familiar with, if they had any previous knowledge of George Smiley.
MacNeil said:
There are houses that exist only in fiction but which become as real as real houses in the mind of readers. Tara in Gone With The Wind, and 221B Baker Street, the home of Sherlock Holmes are two examples. And Number 9 Bywater Street, Chelsea, London is another. Readers of John le Carré will know that it is the home of that compelling and unorthodox spy, George Smiley.
He then sets expectations for the American audience:
For those who are meeting George Smiley for the first time, a word of friendly warning. Don't be put off if it takes you a while to figure out what's going on. John le Carré is a master of ambiguity, of plot by nuance, of character by innuendo. He weaves a very tangled web, and part of the fun is being patient as he disentangles it. To simplify it for television, to remove all the ambiguities would spoil the flavour…It's no disgrace to be confused.
He went on to link this to the opening shot of Cambridge Circus:
Added to the deliberate ambiguity of plot is a vocabulary that takes a little getting used to. It is British upper class slang married to a jargon that le Carré invented to give you a sense of being inside British Intelligence. To start you off, one definition. The Circus. The Headquarters of MI6, the Secret Service, located at London's Cambridge Circus.
At the start of Episode 2, whilst so much of the action is overseas, MacNeil spells out the runners and riders at that point, standing in front of the Islay Hotel:
Percy Alleline, Bill Haydon, Roy Bland, Toby Estehase and George Smiley
and goes on to compare them with real life counterparts:
In 1961, Kim Philby (above), tipped off the other two Soviet moles in the British Foreign Office, Burgess and Maclean and they escaped to Moscow.
Then MacNeil refers to the Islay, saying:
And in this obscure hotel, George Smiley sets up a secret base of operations.
During Episode 3, Smiley meets with Roy Bland at Primrose Hill...
...and that's where MacNeil chose to focus on the contrast with a character the audience would be very familiar with.
He's the complete antithesis of James Bond. He's in late middle age and no athlete. He has no mechanical sense, no joy in gadgets. Whilst James Bond is the prototypical jet age seducer, before whose charm squads of women melt invitingly, Smiley cannot keep his own wife.
Here in the Circus, in the heart of British Intelligence, Smiley realised that the source, Merlin, who'd been leaking valuable information from Moscow Centre, was actually controlled by Moscow....He documents the petty bureaucratic dreariness, the mean ambitions and jealousies.
This is so well depicted in the filming at Cork Street.
At the start of Episode 5, MacNeil spoke from Redcliffe Square, Earls Court, where the Lexham Gardens safe house is located...
Hello, I'm Robert MacNeil. Which of the key men running British Intelligence is the mole, a Soviet counterspy? And tonight, in this safe house, we get much closer. One large mystery remains, who engineered the operation called Testify, which sent Jim Prideaux into a near fatal trap in Czechoslovakia?
Director, Tony Virgo ensured the fictitious street sign was attached to the railings, once again, for the filming of this introduction.
In
Episode 6, it was Noel Road in Islington doubling for
Lock Gardens.
Finally tonight, the chilling climax to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. In a house backing on to the canal there, the mole meets his Soviet contact. And there tonight George Smiley traps the mole. But that isn't quite the end of the story. When the mole is caught, Smiley wants to know why. What has caused this man to betray his nation and his friends for twenty years? You'll hear the reply.
MacNeil concluded:
So now, the last episode of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. The British writer, Arthur Hopcraft, who adapted this book for television said of it, “It's a fascinating, deeply intriguing book. But you have to keep turning back the pages and you can't do that on the screen”. Well, you can't. But after tonight, you can always go back to the book.
The map below shows where each introduction was filmed - you can view a higher quality version of the map if you click on it.
Robert MacNeil's introductions held one more secret. Edited into each one were clips from a specially commissioned interview he undertook with John le Carré. That interview has perhaps not been seen for nearly half a century.
We are hoping that someone reading this in the U.S. can tell us about MacNeil’s introductions because we have not seen them. Maybe you taped the series in 1980 and can share it with us somehow. If you can help we would like to hear from you at guinnessissmiley@icloud.com
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy screen captures (c) BBC 1979
Extracts from Robert MacNeil's introductions courtesy of the Wisconsin Historical Society.
Our thanks to Marcia Wheeler and Tony Virgo for their invaluable assistance with this article.
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