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What do you mean, you've never heard of Sidney Reilly? Well, I suppose most espionage authors haven't heard of one of the most famous real spies of the early 20th century either (Ian Fleming did though...).
A 1983 ITV 12-episode Miniseries, exec produced by Verity Lambert and based on a book about Reilly's life by the son of one of the main characters. Much of Reilly's life is unclear (he was a master of deception) and the accuracy varies- some of the stuff is debated by historians, especially the "Zinoviev Letter".
It covers Reilly from 1901 to 1910, then moves to An Arc involving the "Ambassador's Plot" against the Bolshevik government in Russia in 1918.
Sam Neill plays the titular character and this reads a lot like a James Bond audition tape- he was later screen-tested for The Living Daylights.
Not a bad series, actually, although possibly a bit slow to 2010 tastes.
This Miniseries contains examples of:
- Anti-Hero
- Arms Dealer
- The Blofeld Ploy
- Fake Russian: Bucket-loads.
- Firing Squad: With a machine-gun.
- Hey, It's That Guy!: Rumpole of the Bailey deals arms and Cally gets machine-gunned.
- The Plan: The Cheka decide to create an organisation that will put all the anti-Bolsheviks under one roof- where they control it. It almost works, until Stalin decides that it's too dangerous to run and arrests its members.
- Spy Drama
- Television Geography: The opening map is out of date in 1901, let alone 1925.
- Translation Convention: All spoken dialogue is in British-accented English. Written stuff is in its original language.