Reilly, Ace of Spies

Reilly, Ace of Spies
Sam Neill portraying Sidney Reilly in the television mini-series, Reilly, Ace of Spies (1983)
Directed by	Martin Campbell Jim Goddard
Produced by	Chris Burt, Johnny Goodman, Verity Lambert
Written by	Troy Kennedy Martin (screenplay) Robin Bruce Lockhart (book)
Starring	Sam Neill, Jeananne Crowley, Sebastian Shaw Leo McKern, Hugh Fraser, John Rhys-Davies, David Suchet, Bill Nighy
Music by	Harry Rabinowitz, Dmitri Shostakovich (main theme)
Original channel	Euston Films, Thames Television Home Box Office Home Video ITV Mystery! Public Broadcasting Service Thames Video Collection Thorn EMI Video Australia Umbrella Entertainment (DVD)
Release date	5 September 1983 12 July 1985
Running time	630 min
No. of episodes	12

Reilly, Ace of Spies is a 1983 television miniseries dramatizing the life of Sidney Reilly, a Russian Jew who became one of the greatest spies to ever work for the British. Among his exploits in the early 20th century were the infiltration of the German General Staff in 1917 and a near-overthrow of the Bolsheviks in 1918. His reputation with women was as legendary as his genius for espionage.

The miniseries is written by Troy Kennedy Martin, and based on the 1967 book Ace of Spies by Robin Bruce Lockhart. Sam Neill stars as Sidney Reilly. The theme music is the Romance movement from Dmitri Shostakovich’s The Gadfly Suite.

The miniseries was issued on DVD by A&E Home Video on 22 February 2005. Starting on 8 December 2008 the series was shown on digital channel UKTV History in the UK.

There are twelve episodes, each approximately 50 minutes in length (the first episode is near 80 minutes).

Episodes

Episode #	Title	Original Airdate	Setting
1	An Affair with a Married Woman	5 September 1983	1901
2	Prelude to War	7 September 1983	1904
3	The Visiting Fireman	14 September 1983	1905
4	Anna	21 September 1983	1906
5	Dreadnoughts and Crosses	28 September 1983	1910
6	Dreadnoughts and Doublecrosses	5 October 1983	1910
7	Gambit	12 October 1983	1917
8	Endgame	19 October 1983	1918
9	After Moscow	26 October 1983	1918
10	The Trust	2 November 1983	1924
11	The Last Journey	9 November 1983	1925
12	Shutdown	16 November 1983	1925

Cast

• Sam Neill as Sidney Reilly
• Peter Egan as Major Charles Fothergill
• Ian Charleson as R. H. Bruce Lockhart (note: R. H. Bruce Lockhart was the father of the author of the book the miniseries is based on)
• Norman Rodway as Captain Mansfield Smith-Cumming
• Tom Bell as Felix Dzerzhinsky
• David Burke as Joseph Stalin
• Kenneth Cranham as Vladimir Lenin
• Leo McKern as Basil Zaharoff
• Jeananne Crowley as Margaret Callaghan Reilly (wife number one)
• Donald Morley as Stanley Baldwin
• John Castle as Count Massino
• Celia Gregory as Nadina "Nadia" Massino (wife number two)
• Brian Protheroe as Shasha Grammaticoff
• Joanne Whalley as Ulla Glass
• Clive Merrison as Boris Savinkov
• Laura Davenport as Nelly "Pepita" Burton (wife number three)
• Michael Aldridge as Orlov
• Victoria Harwood as Natalia
• Anthony Higgins as Mikhail Trilisser
• John Rhys-Davies as Tanyatos
• Sebastian Shaw as Reverend Thomas
• Bill Nighy as Goschen
• David Ryall as Herr Glass
• David Suchet as Inspector Tsientsin
• Alex McCrindle as Captain MacDougal
• Alfred Molina as Blumkin
• Lindsay Duncan as The Plugger
• Hugh Fraser as Hill

Awards

Won 1984 BAFTA TV Award

Best Film Editor:

• Ralph Sheldon
• Edward Marnier

References

• Andrew Cook, Ace of Spies: The True Story of Sidney Reilly; 2004, Tempus Publishing, ISBN 0-7524-2959-0.
• Andrew Cook, On His Majesty's Secret Service, Sydney Reilly Codename ST1; 2002, Tempus Publishing, ISBN 0-7524-2555-2.
• Richard Deacon, Spyclopaedia; 1987, Macdonald & Company Publishers Ltd, ISBN 0-356-14600-6.
• Natalie Grant Deception on a Grand Scale, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence Volume 1, Number 4, 51-77, Winter 1986
• Natalie Grant The Trust, AIJ 11-15, Winter 1991
• Michael Kettle, Sidney Reilly: The True Story of the World's Greatest Spy; 1986, St. Martin's Press, ISBN 0-312-90321-9.
• Robert Bruce Lockhart, Memoirs of a British Agent (reprint); 2003, Folio Society, ASIN B000E4QXIK.
• Andrew Lycett, The Man Behind James Bond; 1996, Turner Publishing, ISBN 1-57036-343-9.
• Robin Bruce Lockhart, Reilly: Ace of Spies; 1986, Hippocrene Books, ISBN 0-88029-072-2.
• Richard B. Spence, Trust No One: The Secret World Of Sidney Reilly; 2002, Feral House, ISBN 0-922915-79-2.

External links

• Reilly: Ace of Spies at the Internet Movie Database