For English of a certain age - and possibly for those from other countries - the phrase 'the third man' and the triumvirate of Kim Philby, Guy Burgess and Donald McLean (until the eventual flight to Moscow of Philby, it was simply Burgess and McLean) have a certain resonance.In later years the trio expanded to include a knight of the realm who eventually rose to become the Queen of England's art expert - something of an about-turn for a traitor - and is also said to have included one John Cairncross as 'the fifth man', although that is still in dispute.Over the years, of course, and with changing geopolitical obsessions and problems the Cambridge spies attract less interest if only because Islamic State/Isil/IS/Isis and various other offshoots of Al Qaeda have been passed the mantle of 'the enemy' and, well, it was all 55 years ago. We have new 'spies' and their stories to get excited about.All four (or five) spies have an interesting story to tell and to this day it is difficult to establish quite why the products of England's privileged class should have decided to bite the hand which fed them. Blunt, certainly, will have wanted to undo his past, if only because the social position he attained as Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures was one which the old queen enjoyed a great deal. Philby seems, since his childhood in India where until the age of five he spoke both English and Urdu fluently and daily played with the children of his parents servants, to have suffered from a kind of split personality - I don't mean that in any medical sense - and had no difficulty hobnobbing with wealthy colleagues down in the club before meeting his controller and sending other colleagues to certain death. He was said to have been a real charmer so perhaps he was simply a sociopath who could not empathise.Anther Country is about Guy Burgess, also like Blunt homosexual, and if you don't know much about him, the film's rather too neat explanation of why he became a traitor seems a tad glib. But in fact Burgess was nothing if not superficial. He seems to have been the least ideologically inspired of the Cambridge Four and, being a huge drinker, was a constant source of concern to the others and his Soviet controllers that he would while drunk give the game away.He and McLean were the first to break cover and head for Soviet Russia when it seemed likely that McLean, a diplomat in Britain's Washington embassy, was about to be unmasked. It has often been suggested that Burgess need not have fled: no one was onto him and his treachery was only discovered once he had hightailed it to Moscow.Some even suggest that he fully expected to return to Britain, though what he thought might be made of his actions back in London only the Lord knows. Certainly, he didn't take to Moscow life and (according to Wikipedia) had all his clothes tailored in London's Savile Row and shipped to him in Moscow.The other notable aspect of Another Country is its portrayal of life at an English public school (the name, helpfully for Americans we give some of our private schools). The film takes place in the Thirties so I can't comment on whether aspects of such a school are exaggerated. But I attended a Roman Catholic public school (as a boarder) for five years in the Sixties and I can confirm that many of the absurdities prevailed, as did the rigid hierarchy of boys. We were still being caned for the silliest of reasons - though we called it being beaten - though in the more enlightened Sixties this could no longer be done by prefects.The film takes place in the summer term when the air was sufficient balmy for the boys to take midnight walks or meet for midnight trysts. I remember many pleasant afternoons lying in the sunshine under a tree, doing nothing but gazing through the leaves into a blue sky. But I also remember the sheer misery of having to bathe and shower in cold water - not for any character building but because the school was too tight-fisted to get the hot water system modernised and repaired. I remember the goddam awful pigswill which we were served up as 'food', and the almost frightening speed with which violence could erupt for no very good reason. Oh, and I also remember all the talk of 'minnows' and boys that someone 'fancied' though not of it, thank God came my way.So I suspect Another Country holds a certain attraction for its portrayal of the kind of life lived at such a school, although a portrayal now long outdated - corporal punishment is no longer legal at any school. The story is rather slight, the boys rather too articulate, speaking as they do as characters might in a play or a film. Or perhaps as I am now well beyond the age they were, I simply can't remember how young folk talk and talked.The explanation as to what decided Guy Burgess/Bennett to choose the dark side and betray his country - because he had been cheated out of the bauble he craved more than any other - was, perhaps, a touch to pat. There again the real Guy Burgess was such a loose cannon who didn't seem to believe much for very long anyway, perhaps it really was like that. The film is, perhaps, best viewed as a well-made period piece.

As far as I can tell, this sums up the lucid moral of the film, for to brush what the film actually contemplates is a risky business. Perhaps it achieves a discreet, demonstrative style in the scenes with the juniors, who may actually be the true Marxist, lilliputian counterweight to the ideological tirades, a style which is best allied with the performances' muted quality. As another reviewer shrewdly noted, one wonders if Colin Firth was ever a boy, that is how haunting a note he strikes, and with a sneer in his voice that maybe outshines even Michael Cane's, given his age. Rupert Everett turns a cautious, elegant performance; have we actually come to appreciate his distinct comic, perhaps signature Wildean, timing (well, better serving him in dramatic films)? But what will stay with me is the first amorous meeting between Benett and Harcourt, the first lines spoken and framed ideally by Elwes' flushed face and the - already enamored - slight twitches that betray him and convey a feeling of unspeakable beauty, a feeling of first -.Excuse me for being rhapsodic, excuse Cary Elwes for afterwards portraying an inexperienced, somewhat floppy youth (yet with a charismatic aura due perhaps to the fact that this is his first role, and with a platonic passivity that retains all the ambiguities of this kind of love). Forget the confusing matter of the film's ideological, biographical, theatrical or what stitches, see how it frames first love (we only come to see a handshake - has a handshake ever been so evocative? - and an embrace, not a kiss, nor a caress) in the premises and remember how wisely the director makes James Harcourt exit: he does not reciprocate Everett's distant salutation.If the film achieves an intuition, I think it is this grim one.Along with stating that thick makeup of Victorian proportions cannot convince the youthful body underneath to be old enough, or irrelevant enough in the U.S.S.R..

As the story opens, a British traitor is talking about the beginnings of his rebellion at a posh public school in the 1930s. In a flashback, we follow classmates Guy and Tommy (Rupert Everett and Colin Firth); Guy is struggling with hiding his homosexuality and Tommy is a budding Marxist.This fictionalized story of infamous spy Guy Burgess' youth is a fascinating look at that very British institution, the public school with its young aristocrats luxuriating in their privileged lives. Though the movie moves very slowly and has little action, I still enjoyed the ambiance and the gorgeous scenery in and around Oxford. Everett and Firth are amazingly young and give excellent performances. It is interesting to note a youthful Earl Spencer playing one of the students (good job!) and some filming was even done at Althorp, the Spencer home.On the downside, the story fails to fully explain why Guy became a Russian spy and his "old man" hair and make-up are truly ridiculous, but I still recommend the movie as an enjoyable look at traditional school life.

When 'Another Country' first appeared in the '80s I watched it over and over, loving the settings and the acting. Now, 20 years on, I have just acquired the DVD and have had to alter my original enthusiasm to a milder level of enjoyment... and an added irritation and impatience with the subject matter.What set my teeth against this film most recently was listening to the adolescent and empty-headed commentary by Rupert Everett as interviewed in one of the special features on the DVD release. Looking at his feet as he speaks he drawls out something to the effect that life in England in the 30s was horrible. Really? I thought. I suppose life anywhere at anytime is always horrible for someone but most people seem to rub along quite nicely, thank you very much. That train of thought got me onto the nature of "rebels" and "causes" and so on. Yes, for homosexuals, England was a harsh place to be with its brutal laws against such private behavior, something that is always a danger when huge governmental systems get "law-crazy". But most homosexual men managed to have a good time and hold down decent careers (a conclusion reached as a result of reading a great deal of historical biography from English men and women of the 20th century, both gay and straight). Of course, those people who managed to work within the system at the time would nowadays be dismissed as "cop-outs" by those in the gay community who willfully get in peoples' faces about their personal sexual preference. But not all gay people feel the need to air their personal behavior in public. But to return to the film; I concluded that Guy Bennett (Everett) was simply a spoiled, over-indulged prat (that's English for brat) who would not curb his foot-in-mouth problem with discretion and wisely keep his personal sexual preferences to himself, as did most other people in that situation at the time.The English "public" school system was indeed a tough experience, as I gather, and prone to a militaristic and dutiful code of behavior that we today would find totally unacceptable, for better or worse... that is arguable. But people at that time, at least in the ruling classes, felt it their duty to put country ahead of themselves and knuckled under to the system. We don't understand that now, being a more self-indulgent and immature society.'Another Country' is the story of rebels without a cause, or at least, rebels with a questionable cause based on questionable motivations. That is where I have lost patience with this once highly revered film. It is still beautiful to watch, however. The cinematography is superb, as is the music and the acting. As a period piece showing the inner workings of a place like Eton College it is fascinating. The script, such as it is, is excellent. The most involving aspect of the story is the relationship between Guy and James Harcourt (Cary Elwes) who become lovers, though this part of the whole story is touched on lightly and never becomes salacious or "over-egged" as gay themed films are now.I still like this film well enough but it has not come down the twenty years since its creation with much grace or dignity. Colin Firth's character (Tommy Judd) was always tiresome with his endless communist tirades and pontificating, but over time, ironically, his performance holds up the best. Other facets of his character, once past his worship of Stalin and Lenin, such as his un- swerving adherence to an idealistic vision, have come into focus more clearly and keeps the film from becoming just a mushy love story tagging around behind the flimsy excuse for Guy Bennett's treason against the country that gave him everything he had. Still worth a look-see but not the "masterpiece" I once thought it was.