The Ipcress File

I saw a couple of films the last few days and am just writing briefs for completeness. Never did that for Sweet Home Alabama, which I saw at dollar night, but that was just so bad it would be wrong to even bother.

From 1965, The Ipcress File was a quite good example of a small sort of Cold War spy story, though it seems quite dated to me now. Not just because the Cold War ended so long ago but because the film itself, while probably quite out in front of things when made, has been done to death in the 38 years since. Michael Caine stars in the first of five movies as Harry Palmer, based on novels written by Len Deighton. Palmer is an agent for a branch of British Military Intelligence, a trickster working there to avoid jail for swindling German soldiers, and his mission here is to ransom a top scientist whose been kidnapped.

Harry Saltzman produced the movie(s), he also co-produced the then new James Bonds, and I believe he saw this character as a potential franchise as well though the Palmer films never came close to the financial success of 007. In many ways Palmer is the anti-Bond: cheap old car, no special equipment, dingy office shared with a half dozen other agents, always rumpled. Very cool where the Bond films are filled with heat. Though one can’t fault Caine, he was quite good but handicapped by working with a so-so script (the novel was much better) by two guys who never wrote any other films and a mediocre director in Sidney Furie.

Moderately interesting