The Deadly Affair

The Deadly Affair (1967) is a British spy thriller you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Sidney Lumet from John le Carré's novel Call for the Dead. James Mason plays Charles Dobbs, a weary intelligence officer asked to vet a Foreign Office civil servant suspected of passing secrets to the East.

Before Dobbs can complete the routine check, the official is dead — ruled a suicide. Dobbs isn't convinced. His superiors want the file closed; instead he quietly enlists a retired inspector named Mendel to keep digging. The dead man's wife, Elsa, a concentration camp survivor played by Simone Signoret, holds pieces of the picture she isn't sharing. Maximilian Schell appears as an old friend of Dobbs whose loyalties become the film's central question.

Lumet strips out the glamour that defined Cold War spy pictures of the era. This is an unglamorous, procedural film about institutional pressure and private betrayal — shot on location in London with a jazz score by Quincy Jones. Watch The Deadly Affair (1967) online on iFILM.