Kim Philby - Philby in Film and Television

Philby in Film and Television

  • Cambridge Spies, a 2003 four-part BBC drama, recounts the lives of Philby, Burgess, Blunt, and Maclean from their Cambridge days in the 1930s through the defection of Burgess and Maclean in 1951. Philby is played by Toby Stephens.
  • Philby, Burgess and MacLean – Spy Scandal of the Century, a BBC drama produced for TV in 1977, covers the period of the late 1940s, when British intelligence investigated Kim Philby's colleague Donald Maclean until 1955 when the British government cleared Philby because it did not have enough evidence to convict him.
  • Philby was the inspiration for the character of British intelligence officer Archibald "Arch" Cummings in the 2005 film The Good Shepherd. Cummings is played by Billy Crudup.
  • The 2005 film A Different Loyalty is an unattributed account taken from Eleanor Philby's book, Kim Philby: The Spy I Loved. The film recounts Philby's love affair and marriage to Eleanor Brewer during his time in Beirut, and his eventual defection to the Soviet Union in late January 1963.
  • In the 1987 adaptation of the above mentioned Frederick Forsyth novel The Fourth Protocol, Kim Philby is portrayed by Michael Bilton. In contradiction of historical fact, he is murdered by the KGB in the opening scene.
  • In the 2007 (TNT) television three-part series The Company, produced by Ridley Scott, Tony Scott, and John Calley, Philby is portrayed by Tom Hollander.
  • Graham Greene, Kim Philby's close friend, wrote the screenplay for The Third Man using Philby as a model for Harry Lime, one of the characters.

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