THE LITTLE DRUMMER GIRL: Blu-ray (Warner Bros., 1984) Warner Archive
I can understand Warner Media’s motives for releasing director, George Roy Hill’s turkey-lurkey-quirky, wet noodle of a spy thriller, The Little Drummer Girl (1984) to Blu-ray now. Given the present tensions between Israel and Palestine, to say nothing of this weekend’s latest assault on Israel from Iran, the subject matter here should be timelier than ever. Again, as I said – I understand the studio’s motives. Respecting them, however, takes some effort. For although The Little Drummer Girl is based on a riveting best-seller by noted espionage/thriller novelist, John Le Carré, any similarity between that page-turner and this heavily-gutted stab at finessing Le Carré’s tangled tale into a two-hour-plus potboiler ends almost from the moment the main titles meld into the body of the piece. Thoughtlessly abridged by screenwriter, Loring Mandel, who takes it on advice the general public either (A) has a deep-rooted grasp/interest in the conflict, or (B) have actually read Le Carré’s spel
