Freed from the spythriller's Bondage-to clich? of sexual adventure, and heroic notions ofsacrifice and gain-The Spy Who Came In from the Cold is a portrait ofthe sordid, ulcer-producing and twice-thankless work of the doubleagent. The film is at once mesmerizing drama and near-documentary,director Martin Ritt recording, as if he were the secret agent, fromclandestine corners the extraordinary and painful last episode in thelife of John le Carr?s spent, jaded spy Alec Leamas. Richard Burtonplays Leamas so ner the edge that, when he is assigned to pass himselfoff as a defector to East Germany, he seems nearly to believe the truthof his own demise. Little gray men in a big gray city, on both sides ofthe Berlin wall "a bunch of seedy squalid bastards, henpecked husbands,sadists, and drunkards": these are the heroes and the casualties of thecold war, from whom Leamas can neither distinguish nor extricatehimself. Bye bye, James Bond.