Kim Philby was working for USSR from a university student age. He then started working in journalism and traveled to Spain where Stalin told him to kill Franco. Later KGB decided to let Franco live. Philby used his connections from Cambridge to get into the MI5/MI6 network. It was only possible if you had connections as it was a group of friends not a company you could apply to. 5 socialist Cambridge student friends all worked for USSR plus some more Cambridge students Philby didn't even know about. They all got fancy government jobs by using each other. Philby hid his socialist background and rose through the ranks. Finally getting to Washington working with CIA and FBI getting crucial secret info for Stalin. He initially worked with starting a democratic revolution in communist Albania. But of course he gave all the names to Stalin. So as soon as the revolutionaries crossed the border they were all hunted down and killed. This happened again and again in Georgia and Ukraine too. Before that he leaked Catholic anti-fascist/anti-fascist leaders' names to Stalin. They were supposed to lead Germany after Hitler. But Stalin sent hitmen to Germany and had them all executed. He also had double-agents killed before they could leak crucial info to the West about Philby and other spies. Hundreds of people got killed by Stalin because of Philby. But he never regretted any of it. When he escaped to Moscow he wrote that all these people deserved what was coming as they were trying to destroy his regime, USSR. Keep in mind Philby was fully British and only met KGB agents when they were giving him work to do. He was just a Western socialist and wanted to fight Nazi Germany, Franco, and Western non-communist powers. Philby used connections and tricks to become the lead manager of USSR spying activities for Britain. And back then spies drank heavily together and talked loosely about all their info. Philby basically could get info about anything he wanted even outside his job by holding parties. Secret information was given out left and right and killed hundreds. Even after he was fired for being assumed to be a spy his old friends from MI-6 delivered him info as before and he kept spying for USSR.

The point of all of this is that this is Philby's story. That's not what the documentary presents at all. Most of this is not even mentioned. The documentary is about some of his time as a journalist for the Observer after FBI and a few British people strongly assumed he was a USSR spy and he was fired from MI-6. It's about how he lived as an alcoholic in Beirut and how MI-6 informed him a new witness had come out revealing he was a spy in the 1930's. If Philby just gave them names Britain wouldn't prosecute him. British intelligence service did not want Philby to be known to media again. It would hurt their image. They decided to tell Philby that he quit spying in 1949. Right before he went to USA. Meaning that Americans would not want to interrogate him making sure no info would be revealed about the horrible stupidity of British intelligence services. His best friend told him about their new findings then traveled back to Britain without even bugging his phone after Philby admitted to being a spy for KGB to him. Philby was basically told: run away to USSR and leave us alone, we don't want you making us look bad. So Philby did just that even though he wouldn't be prosecuted in the West.

This doc is largely about interviews from people who met Philby back when he was a journalist and later an unemployed alcoholic in Moscow. USSR didn't want to use Philby for anything. They actually didn't even use most of his Western documents as they didn't trust most of the info he gave them. They disliked Westerners overall. Now he was just an irritation in Russia and tried to kill himself even. Whatever utopia communism he thought he spied for didn't exist. But 99% of his story is before all of this stuff the documentary focuses on which is a huge shame. It's not a great documentary about Philby. You don't learn anything about his MI-6 time. It's just a bunch of interviews and lazy recordings of places Philby had been at. All from after he was done working for MI-6.

Philby was a Russian spy who worked for MI5, passing secrets to Moscow for thirty years. Very interesting interviews with so many colleagues and friends who knew him.

This was a well-produced documentary which included interviews with eyewitnesses who knew and recalled the notorious British intelligence agent and journalist Kim Philby, who passed secrets to the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War.

Some of those interviewed had difficulty maintaining their British reserve in their implied contempt for the British officials who allowed Philby to continue his spy activities undetected for years. Moreover, the program suggested that the British power elite may have even welcomed his escape a freighter from Beirut to the Soviet Union, where he lived out his life as a token, though marginalized, Soviet hero.

A shortcoming of the program was the lack of attention of the damage actually done to both British and American intelligence, due to the shenanigans of Philby. There was only one instance where the loss of life occasioned by Philby's duplicity was mentioned.

On the other hand, the filmmakers truly capture the essence of Philby as a cunning alcoholic, who used his booze-infested persona in his slippery spy games. Another facet of his character was his womanizing, which included the shabby treatment of her ex-wives, one of whom died a tragic death.

One of the most fascinating commentators was a post-socialist and former KGB agent, whose comments were filled with irony about Philby. The wily Russian contrasted the idealism of Philby whom he characterized as a "romantic" with the pragmatic Marxism of Brezhnev.

It had to have been a stunning personal defeat for Philby to spend his twilight years observing the era of stagnation in the Soviet Union and to experience up close the failure of the Soviet system. It was probably for this reason that Kim Philby spent the final part of his life holed up in his Moscow apartment, a recluse and disillusioned dreamer and a drunk.