The Ipcress File
Sidney J. Furie
Initial release: March 18, 1965 (UK)
Funeral in Berlin
Guy Hamilton
Initial release: December 22, 1966 (USA)
Billion Dollar Brain
Ken Russell
Initial release: November 16, 1967 (UK)
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| The Ipcress File |
Based on a series of books by Len Deighton, the Harry Palmer movies were the brainchild of producer Harry Salzman, best known for producing the first nine James Bond films. Harry Palmer was meant to offer a different tack on the theatrical espionage thriller from the more escapist Bond. Played by the great Michael Caine, Harry was snarky, insolent, and thoroughly working class, living in a crappy flat, shopping at supermarkets (still a relatively new phenomenon in the UK at the time) and fighting with his bosses for better pay. As easily distinguished by his glasses as his coiffed, dirty blond hair, Caine as Harry Palmer cut a figure that was simultaneously handsome yet also a little dweeby. No wonder so much of Palmer went into Austin Powers. (And no wonder Michael Caine starred in the third one as a bit of self-parody!)
With three different directors telling three different stories we get three different movies. The Ipcress File is probably the best balance of fantastical and serious: Palmer is transferred by his boss to another unit to help track down a missing scientist as part of a broader mission to get to the bottom of a mysterious brain drain. He zeroes in on one particular figure, but things start to go awry when the CIA gets involved; eventually Palmer winds up kidnapped and transferred, he thinks, to Albania, where he is subjected to psychological torture inside a cube where projectors and speakers blast disorienting light and noise. The whole thing turns out to be a plot to uncover a mole in the Ministry of Defence — the kind of cynical twist that sets films like The Ipcress File apart.
Sidney J. Furie is something of an auteur filmmaker who's had his hand in a variety of movies, from obscure dramas to adaptations of big-name IPs. You might know him as the man who did his best to salvage Superman IV: The Quest for Peace; whatever you may feel about that film, the overwhelming majority of its flaws are not Furie's fault. In another filmmaker's hands, it might have been even worse. Furie has a distinctly psychological touch on The Ipcress File; his soundscapes are rough, infuriating even — early on, Palmer lets a shrill alarm clock go for some time as he slowly gets himself up for the day before finally shutting it off. New scenes are often cut with sudden blasts of sound: a train going by, for instance. It's sonically disorienting, which only serves to prime the audience for the final act. Furie deliberately plays it almost voyeuristic; so many shots are from behind something, with only part of the scene visible; even when he's filming normally, you still get the sense that we're seeing something we're not supposed to, and that eyes are everywhere. It's a profoundly paranoid, unsettling film, and I think it's probably the best of the trilogy.
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| Funeral in Berlin |
The middle film, Funeral in Berlin, goes fully cynical realist. Palmer, much to his irritation, is assigned to assist with the defection of a Soviet colonel Stok; to that end, he immerses himself in the murky underworld of West Berlin, making contact with an old German friend of his who leads him to a smuggler who claims to be able to get Stok out. But he also gets involved with an Israeli woman who has her own agenda (no comment.) One betrayal leads to another ruse leads to an escaped Nazi's identity exposed; the final outcome is probably the best possible one, but even that one isn't exactly worth celebrating, as Palmer himself implicitly acknowledges.
Directed by Guy Hamilton (a veteran Bond film director), Funeral in Berlin is altogether more conventional than The Ipcress File. It doesn't lean so heavily on the psychological, but it is still a complex film of shifting loyalties and buried secrets, with wildly inconsistent pacing that somehow seems to reflect the uneven nature of working in a world where lies are a matter of course. Palmer isn't so drly insolent this time around, but he's still funny and cynical, still deft at finding ways to annoy men in power. Unlike The Ipcress File, Funeral in Berlin doesn't so much subvert the spy film as it quietly drops Palmer into an otherwise realistic film, letting it simmer under the radiant heat of his working-class resentment.
The final film, Billion Dollar Brain, is, quite frankly, as Ken Russell as Ken Russell gets. The only truly mainstream film he ever directed (Tommy was a lot of things, but mainstream it was not), Billion Dollar Brain tells the story of how Palmer, now working for himself as a private investigator, gets roped into a plot to foment social unrest around the world, a plot being managed by a sinister supercomputer owned by a fascist oil tycoon from Texas whose anti-Communist fervor has degenerated into absolute mania.
For a film series that started off as the anti-Bond, under Ken Russell's direction Billion Dollar Brain is much more Bond-like, though Palmer never really grows into the Bond mold; he's as insouciant and unenthused as ever, as irritated at getting pulled back into working for the UK government as he is quietly appalled by not just what he sees in Texas, but probably also Texas itself. This, ironically enough, is the glue that keeps the otherwise messy film together: Palmer is impossible to impress, the villain Midwinter's egotistical speeches (an incredible monologue from the late, great Ed Begley) received placidly by a disinterested Palmer. Even the finale doesn't really have Palmer do anything particularly heroic; Midwinter's attempted invasion of Latvia is foiled by the Soviets, who simply bomb the ice over the Gulf of Finland and send his whole private army into the drink. Russell manages to blend, with some success, the cynical tone that so defines Harry Palmer with the epic absurdity of more traditional Eurospy cinema, and despite script problems, Russell's own fascination with female nudity and labyrinthine interiors, and a thunderous lack of subtlety (check out Midwinter's personal logo!) it somehow all manages to hold together for a film that emulates the style of Bond while still remaining true to the Harry Palmer concept.
The franchise did continue after the original trilogy; Caine, at this point in his 60s, returns to the role in a pair of TV movies released in the mid-Nineties named Bullet to Beijing and Midnight in St. Petersburg; I might cover those in the future, but not today. There is also another adaptation of The Ipcress File, starring Joe Cole as Harry Palmer. It's hard to imagine anyone other than Sir Michael Caine, but by all accounts, Cole has acquitted himself well. I might take some time to watch it — if I ever do, you'll find my writeup in Franchise Follies.
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| Billion Dollar Brain |
I like the Harry Palmer movies. I grew up watching Bond movies and even had a copy of Goldeneye 64, but I think Harry Palmer, if not necessarily more realistic, is altogether more honest about the nature of spy work: it's grey drudgery, bureaucracy, just another day at the office working for people who lie as a matter of policy. These are the kinds of spy movies I prefer; they lean much more in the direction of film noir, and indeed, there's a lot of overlap (see for example Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps.) Comic book stuff is all well and good, but I was never as wowed by explosions as I was by complex human relationships built on secrets and lies. With Harry Palmer, the biggest spectacles tend to be the ones he wears.
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