View source for Reilly, Ace of Spies

{{work}}
What do you mean, you've never heard of [[wikipedia:Sidney Reilly|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 (film)|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.

----
{{tropelist}}
* [[Anti-Hero]]{{context}}
* [[Arms Dealer]]{{context}}
* [[The Blofeld Ploy]]{{context}}
* [[Fake Russian]]: Bucket-loads.
* [[Firing Squad]]: With a machine-gun.
* [[Hey, It's That Guy!]]: Rumpole of the Bailey deals arms and [[Blake's 7|Cally]] gets machine-gunned.
* [[The Plan]]:  {{spoiler|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* [[Television Geography]]: The opening map is out of date in 1901, let alone 1925.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.

{{reflist}}
[[Category:British Series]]
[[Category:Miniseries]]
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Historical Series]]
[[Category:Live-Action TV of the 1980s]]
[[Category:TV Series]]