The actors returned when $4 million was secured as finance by Pakistani businessman, filmmaker and best seller author Mahmud Sipra. He also apparently walked away from the film after receiving no pay, with Caine following not long after. Laurence Olivier, who had been ill on and off since the late 1970s, collapsed on set.

Filming began in 1982 but the film hit financial troubles, and was reportedly shut down due to cash difficulties. The Jigsaw Man had a troubled filming history. The second major role went to Laurence Olivier, thus reuniting the two actors who had previously received Academy Award nominations for their roles in the acclaimed Sleuth in 1972. Susan George – Penelope Kimberley/Annabelleĭirector Terence Young cast Michael Caine to play the lead role.Laurence Olivier – Admiral Sir Gerald Scaith.Michael Caine – Philip Kimberley/Sergei Kuzminsky.Once back in the United Kingdom, he escapes his Soviet handlers and sets out for business on his own, leading MI6 and the KGB on a hunt for him and the documents. Sir Philip Kimberly, the former chief of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service who defected to Russia, is given plastic surgery and assigned back home by the KGB to retrieve vital intelligence documents.

The film was inspired by the story of Kim Philby, a British intelligence officer who was secretly working for the KGB, then defected to the Soviet Union in 1963. The screenplay was written by Jo Eisinger, based on the novel The Jigsaw Man by Dorothea Bennett. The Jigsaw Man is a 1983 British espionage film starring Michael Caine, Susan George, Laurence Olivier and Robert Powell.

The jigsaw man a novel