A dramatization of the missions and adventures of the greatest spy in British history.
Cast:Sam Neill , Michael Bryant , Norman Rodway , Tom Bell , Hugh Fraser , Jeananne Crowley , Clive Merrison , Leo McKern , Peter Egan , Brian Protheroe , Malcolm Terris , Celia Gregory , Laura Davenport , Kenneth Cranham , Ian Charleson , Anthony Higgins , Frances Barber , Bogdan Kominowski
A Russian born Jew, recruited by British Intelligence in 1901 to obtain intelligence on Russian oil fields, is detained in a provincial town under suspicion.
As an agent of Japan's ally Great Britain, Reilly must aid the Japanese fleet invade Port Arthur beginning the Russo-Japanese War.
One of two British operatives at a German shipyard is found out and although Reilly is sent to his place, he doesn't reveal himself to his fellow agent.
Reilly goes to Paris to try and find his estranged wife and convince an oil developer to sign with Britain rather than France.
Estranged from his British intelligence contacts, Reilly, now back in Russia, works in his capacity as a German arms dealer to sell warships to Russia.
Sidney proceeds with his byzantine plan to get Count Massino to approve his German contract for dreadnoughts through seduction and bribery.
In the early days of the 1917 Russian Revolution, Reilly works on behalf of the British to topple the Bolsheviks and get Russia back in the war.
Reilly's plan to overthrow the Bolshevik government and install himself as head of state hits a bump in the road when Lenin's intelligence chief Dzerzhinsky convinces him to postpone a strategic event where it is planned that Lenin's 'loyal' Latvian guard will turn on him. Howver, the promised 10,000 troops that the British government pledged turns out to be only 600 ans an attempt on Lenin's like leaves him seriously wounded but alive.
After the failure of the promised Btitish troops at Archangel and the failed assassination of Lenin as well as the assassinations of the Romanoffs, Sidney's hope for political control of Russia and its vast national resources vanish, and he takes his leave of British intelligence.
Sidney auctions off his collection of Napoleana to finance a Russian counterrevolutionary group and convinces Henry Ford to finance an invading German army.
Dzerzhinsky's organization "The Trust" needs Western funding, so he guarantees Sidney's safety in Russia in return for his help in raising funds.
Stali presses a reluctant Dzerzhinsky to execute Reilly as the Cheka chief resists Stalin's efforts to dismantle 'The Trust.'