THE IPCRESS FILE
UK, 1965, 109 minutes, Colour.
Michael Caine, Nigel Green, Guy Doleman, Sue Lloyd, Gordon Jackson.
Directed by Sidney J. Furie.
The Ipcress File is the first of three films featuring Michael Caine as agent Harry Palmer. They were based on the books by Len Deighton.
Harry Palmer is the opposite of James Bond. By 1965 there had been four James Bond films from Dr No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger and Thunderball. The public imagination had secret agents in the style of 007. Michael Caine’s Harry Palmer is the opposite, bespectacled, working at a desk, examining files, uncovering traitors. This is very much the grim side of the cold war.
Michael Caine was at the beginning of his star career, appearing in Alfie the following year and having a career that lasted over four decades. The supporting cast is made up of strong British character actors. The film has a famous climax where Harry Palmer is faced with two plausible characters, one a traitor, the other not, and having to make a decision as to which one to believe – and which one to kill.
The film was directed by Canadian-born Sidney J. Furie who went to the United Kingdom in the early 60s and made a number of successful films with Cliff Richard and Rita Tushingham. He moved to the United States with Marlon Brando in The Appaloosa and Frank Sinatra in The Naked Runner. He had some successes in the 1970s especially with Lady Sings the Blues. However, he did not have such success in the 1980s, making The Entity, Superman 4 and Iron Eagle. His films over the next two decades were standard programming types of action films.
1. How enjoyable a spy film was this? Why? The film enjoys the reputation of a classic.
2. How does this film fit into the atmosphere of the sixties? The spy fads? popularity of James Bond? How anti-James Bond, the Anti-hero? A detailed comparison of this spectacular spy thriller with this ordinary spy thriller?
3. Did the events of this film seem real and credible? The people concerned and their behaviour, the politics and the psychology?
4. How interesting was the film as a spy adventure, thriller, the human interest, the political background? Was it easy to identify with Harry Palmer? How?
5. How important was the style for this film, the continual angle shots, the use of close-ups? Harry Palmer’s eyes, the use of colours and prismatic colours, shots through symbols, the phone boxes through glasses and distortions, mirrors, through glass lens, car windows, lights? The use of the atmospheric music? What would the film have been like without these?
6. The character of Harry Palmer? Was it well explored and developed? His wakening scenes, his prison background, his amoral background, change of jobs, insubordination, spy facilities, skills and talent, wit, loyalty, his background of being a gourmet, musical styles, love of money, strength of convictions, final dilemma, the amount of suffering gone through? To what purpose?
7. What comment did the film make on spies and spying? On the life of agents, using authority and being used, the relentlessness of their pursuits? The dangers?
8. The importance of the opening situation? The need for finding the scientist, the brain drain, the bargaining for him, behaviour at the lecture, the lpcress File itself?
9. How rea1 as character were Palmer, Carswell and Dalby? Background, training, work? comments on his humanity? Sequences: work, alone, in the supermarket, his using Palmer? The contrast with Dalby and Dalby as an interior type? His sense of inferiority, disloyalty and treachery? The confrontation between the two as well as the discussion between them? The final confrontation? Dalby’s power of persuasion and his fatal mistakes?
10. How well delineated were the criminals? Bluejay especially?
11. Comment on the value of particular sequences like the recital, the meeting of the staff, the raid on the factory, the final dilemma.
12. What did Jean contribute to the film as romantic human interest and background? Carswell and his comrades, upset, his recovery of the file, his death?
13. Audience response to the capture of Palmer and the elaborate charade of his torture? Palmer’s will to survive and means for survival? Harry and the final confrontation and his dilemma and choice?
14. How involved did the audience become in the film? How much enjoyment? How much insight?
