Factual error: George Smiley stays in a hotel near Liverpool St Station, London to investigate the spy at the heart of the circus. There is one scene where we see, from above, a train leaving the station. Liverpool St station is electrified using overhead wires - the train is leaving a station using a different electrification system called 3rd rail which has never existed at Liverpool St.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
Directed by: Tomas Alfredson
Starring: Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hardy, Mark Strong
Genres: Thriller
Factual error: Control seems to have left behind some turntable package material for a deck called Dual CS 505-1. This model, however, only went to production in 1981.
Plot hole: Smiley is at a hotel asking Sam what happened when he was duty officer on the night Jim Prideaux was shot. What Sam recalls (among other things) is he and Bill Haydon going through Jim's things. Haydon finds a photo of himself and Prideaux and sneaks it away in his pocket unseen by Sam. How could Sam explain that to Smiley when he did not see Haydon's move?
Control: All I want from you is one codename: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier...
George Smiley: ...Spy.
Bill Haydon: You really are a poison dwarf, Toby. Why don't you fuck off to his majesty and stop trying to involve me in your little cabaret.
George Smiley: We are not so very different, you and I. We've both spent our lives looking for the weaknesses in one each other's systems.
Question: Why were the British singing the Russian national anthem during the Christmas party scene?
Question: In the beginning of the movie when the guy is shot while sipping coffee in that outdoor little cafe, the assassin fires two rounds. #1 hits the young mother in the forehead, #2 kills the guy sitting at the little table, then the spy is shot. He only fires twice, so how did he kill 3 people?
Answer: I've watched the scene several times - the people at the cafe are the British spy Prideaux, his contact, the young mother, an old man behind them and two men to the right side. When Prideaux walks away, the waiter runs out and fires wildly, hitting the mother in the head. He then fires again and hits Prideaux in the back. No one else appears to have been hit, the other men at the cafe are just moving to get out of the way.
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Answer: As this story was set during the Cold War era, this was a deliberate mockery of the Soviet Union and its policies against holiday celebration and religious freedom. The entire story revolves around the prospect of a Russian Mole among the British Secret Service and Intelligence Community-at that moment, complete with a mocking Stalin Santa Claus, they were letting off steam against their reviled rivals.
Erik M.