Michael Caine to me is a Christopher Lee style actor. No matter how cheap or poor the quality of his films, he's always going to shine in it. Even better when the story's actually good!

Michael Caine later admitted in one of his books that this was one of the first movies to be filmed so close to and around the Berlin Wall. These predate Bond ever going to East Berlin by 17 years! But because of this the East German border guards kept the the production under supervision for the entire shoot, and the producers apparently told Caine that they couldn't guarantee his safety whilst filming in Berlin.

I was on a tour bus in Berlin a few years ago and the guide was in his 60s. We were on a typical busy city street with shops, office workers, and cafes. He said he remembered that area back in the 1980s when it was just a wasteland with the occasional stray dog. An amazing transformation.

Marvellous film. I think this might be the best of the bunch. Utilises the bombed-out city of Berlin fantasticly. Furie went on to make another grim spy film The Naked Runner with Sinatra in '67 because of his work on IPCRESS.

I prefer this over IF, I find the ending a bit psychedelic in IF. I really enjoy this adventure into East Berlin, it feels more grounded to me. Michael Caine is always very watchable, even in Jaws 4 ( erm...) and Harry Palmer feels like an everyday Bond, a civil servant whose life is disturbed by espionage and intrigue as opposed to being driven by it. Lovely to see you bringing attention to these old films that I thought I was the only one who'd seen.

It's worth watching it just for the location during that period of time

For another Bond-adjacent film you should see (or maybe revisit?) The Third Man, which has Bernard Lee in a nice supporting role.

Funeral in Berlin now seems to have taken up residence on TCM Movies in the UK. It might just find a new audience.

I noticed a photo of The Queen in Ross's office. Just an example of how long her reign was.

Funeral in Berlin is a polished and professional spy thriller but, yeah, The plot makes my head hurt. Despite Michael Caine's misgivings I think you should give Billion Dollar Brain a go, Calvin. It's eccentric and weird enough to be interesting.

Funeral in Berlin. Possibly my fav film. I do agree it’s hard to follow all the facts given. And I’m an Ex-DI who has investigated fraud and corruption for over 30 years. I’ve never made notes, I actually like seeing new bits each time I see it.

I can remember watching "Funeral in Berlin" many, many years ago as part of the Harry Palmer trilogy. When I then visited Berlin for leisure purposes in 2019, I remembered the film and have been quite fascinated by it since. Personally I find the plot-within-a-plot makes it more interesting and I'd love to know if Stok was aware of, or involved in, Vulkan's plans (won't say more so as to not give anything away to those who may not have watched it yet). All going well I'll re-visit Berlin next month and will try to track down some of the places used in the filming. Many have long gone and been redeveloped following the collapse of the Wall, of course. A shame that there weren't many more Harry Palmer films IMHO

I like this one mainly as I like Berlin and anything set in that city before the wall came down I have a soft spot for it.

Never seen this one all the way through, but love the scenes with Stok, and love the debriefing scene with Colonel Ross, in Ross's garden, and his, well, unorthodox approach to gardening

I watched this about a year ago, excellent film. I love the Bond movies and have been a fan since I saw Dr. No on it's first TV broadcast in 1975. Those movies are mainly about action and gadgets. What I love about thes Harry Palmer movies are that they are much grittier spy thrillers with many plot twists. The dark atmosphere and twists you don't expect make these movies for me.

“Guy Hamilton” is the name of Mel Gibson's character in The Year Of Living Dangerously, perhaps a film you could review. Billion Dollar Brain has excellent music.

4:47 " NO NO Thats not Slugworth, he works for me", sorry i had to do that :) Great reveiw by the way man and I hope you get around to doing Caines magnum OPUS "Bullseye" along with Roger :)

I like The Ipcress File but I struggle to remember anything about Funeral in Berlin, can't remember if I watched it through to the end. Billion Dollar Brain is like a foretelling of things to come, as to how outlandish and broadly comical the Bond films would become. Fun fact: Ken Russell only signed on for this film because Harry Saltzman agreed to finance The Music Lovers.

I’ve seen and enjoyed lots of Michael Caine films but they’ve all been later in his long career. I forgot how cool he was and looks in the 1960’s.

I love the first two Harry Palmer films. They were shot during the height of the cold war. Funeral in Berlin is different because of its international supporting cast, with Paul Hubschmid, Eva Renzi and the wonderful Oscar Homolka. The real star of the film is Berlin itself, with its genuine period location shots. I could tell that the budget for Funeral in Berlin was much more and built on the sucess of the Ipcress File. However, the only thing that threw me was the lack of explanation concerning the Israeli Secret Service. The humor was good too with lines like "The Americans are just Russians in pressed trousers." I do not compare Palmer with Bond, as they are two separate characters. I did not like the storyline in the third film. The Benny Hill character spoilt it. I believe that there were two other Palmer films, Midnight in St Petersburg and Bullet to Beijing filmed in 1995 and 1996.

Billion Dollar Brain is my favourite. It's hard to source out an uncut copy though, but they can be found.

I had just read the book when I sought out this film on YT. That helped a lot with following the plot.

Definitely my favorite of the Palmer films. I think I watch this at least once a year. There's just something relaxing about it and Michael Caine oozes charm throughout.

I love Billion Dollar Brain for it's inventiveness. Ken Russell never made a boring film, and think it's a step up on Funeral In Berlin's Le Carre lite bland-ness. It goes too far into silliness, but what the hell. The score by Richard Rodney Bennett is iconic, and some of the visuals really beautiful. Plus while EON may have failed to get Catherine Deneuve for several Bond films, BDB got her equally luscious sister Francoise Dorleac. As she tells Palmer "We would have made beautiful babies". Caine can't excuse himself the blame for Ken, he petitioned Harry Saltzman to hire him after seeing his revolutionary biopics of classical composers for BBC TV.

Wow I only thought there were 2 of these films. Ill have to download all of them soon

Don't forget about his "inflatable Batman suit" scene as he leaves the car. Kind of serendipity.

The Imprint label released a limited edition 3 disc set of the first 3 Harry Palmer films. I think it came out either this year or last year. I believe it's from the UK so you should be able to get it. It cost me $30+ in the US so hopefully the UK price is comparable. The bluray for Billion Dollar Brain alone seems to be on the level of around $100 here so getting the 3 disc set might be the better option for you plus there's a bunch of special features. Also, if you're a fan of Department S or Jason King, there's an episode of Jason King called "A Page Before Dying" that literally ends with the characters in the show basically saying "if you want to know how our story actually ended, you'll need to read Funeral in Berlin" which was really annoying to me since I haven't read the book or seen the movie at the time.

Excited for another new video, Calvin. I’m curious, do you have any intention of getting around to Hitchcock’s Topaz? Added bonus of Karin Dor in a prominent role and as the centerpiece of an iconic shot.

If you are going to review non-bond films that have secret agents, I reccomend When Eight Bells Toll with Anthony Hopkins. It is all that North Sea Hijack should have been.

8:53 Well that sentence made me do a double take. TMI, Calvin! Though I’d say it’s quite obvious what you should be rooting for at such a time.

In his second autobiography, Michael Caine talked a little about the making of this film. Caine had done some of his national service in Berlin but of course the Berlin Wall was now present and he said they were constantly watched by binoculars by East German troops including an incident where they shone a mirror at the camera lenses and they had to stop filming. Guy Hamilton did bring his experience of working in British Intelligence during the war but after the behind the scenes issues with Sidney J. Furie, Saltzman probably trusted him as a safe pair of hands given Saltzman was less involved this time [he's credited as an executive producer with credited producer Charles Kasher presumably in charge on set]. As well as Hamilton's 4 Bond's being when Saltzman was involved he also directed Saltzman's 1969 film 'Battle of Britain' [where Caine also appears]. Maybe giving Peter Hunt the directors chair might have been more in line with the material though he'd have to wait until OHMSS for his debut.

Funeral In Berlin is a enjoyable film which gets better with repeat viewing. It represents the peak of Palmer as a film adaptation. The plot is very grounded in the Cold War with roots in World War II. It's interesting to see it unfold. As typical it simplifies and cut corners on the orginal novel by Len Deighton. It's a shame "Horse Under Water" was never adapted to film. Yet another strong story unlike Billion Dollar Brain which was over the top as a novel and film.

Despite not having very much to do with the film, I really enjoyed the recent Ipcress tv show [written by John Hodge who was to write the Danny Boyle Bond before that fell though and produced by Harry Saltzman's children Stephen and Hilary] and the direction/shots homage the original film quite a bit. I know mini-series take up a lot more time but hopefully you'll get around to it and the Night Manger one day.

Michael Caine as Harry Palmer is the working man's James Bond.

I still prefer the _Ipcress File_ showing intelligence work as paperwork, boring surveillance, briefings, inter-departmental wars and the like. There was also some influence from Patrick McGoohan's terrific _Danger Man_ series from 1960-1962 & 1964-1968. _Billion Dollar Brain_ was too much like the American television "spy shows" and Bond movies where it's usually a race to stop the Villain and his Doomsday Device. Speaking of Guy Dolman, I always think of him as #2 welcoming #6 to The Village in the premiere episode of _The Prisoner._

The Harry Palmer films followed the Bond pattern The Ipcress File is basically a Detective story with sci-fi undertones like Dr No Funeral In Berlin is a cold war thriller like From Russia With Love Billion Dollar Brain is an big than life Millionaire threatening the world plot like Goldfinger So if the series had continued into the 70s wonder how it would gone

Looking forward to your review of Billion Dollar Brain - a guilty pleasure featuring an early appearance by Donald Sutherland in a tiny bit part. It falls for the 60's idea of computers being rather big, and smart. It has the travelogue feel and large production values of a Bond film with Harry Palmer wandering around in the middle of it. Probably where Ken Russell begins his 'cinema of excess' style. After BDB there's a huge gap until they make the fourth and fifth chapters, and it's all a bit late for the spy craze, and lacking the 60's style, a bit of a let down.

Just offering you my condolences, since you're a resident of the U.K. I don't know how you feel about the Queen or the monarchy, but my condolences just the same. (And, of course, Her Majesty was a Bond girl for ten minutes.)

"James Bond was just a bit of nonsense I wrote,he wasn't a real Harry Palmer!!!" - Ian Fleming. Nuff said 🤔😎🤩👍

Great review

I really enjoyed Funeral in Berlin. Love the city visit regular some iconic locations. Templehoff airport, Kudam.

I've always loved Funeral in Berlin and I may have originally seen this one before The Ipcress File. I actually enjoy the humour. So many quotable lines; "My name's Samantha. My friends call me Sam." "My name's Edmond Dorf. My friends call me Edna." Or when Palmer is being given his new identity and he doesn't like the name he's been given. "Can't I be called...Rock Hunter?" "No...You don't look like a Rock Hunter." The Ipcress File may be more interesting visually but I always find Funeral in Berlin the more entertaining. As for Billion Dollar Brain. It might help to be smashed while watching that one. I don't dislike it. I really don't dislike any of the five Harry Palmer films and yes, I did say five. Except the last two do feel like very much what they are, made for TV movies, produced by the same guy who produced the Fu Manchu films with Christopher Lee in the 1960's Harry Alan Towers. They never really feel like Harry Palmer movies except for the opening few minutes of Bullet to Beijing. After that they become low yield TV movies with few thrills but Caine's entertaining performance does elevate them and makes them watchable. Just don't expect anything too gripping if you feel compelled to watch the final two in the series.

It may be only my opinion but I've always preferred a Funeral in Berlin . . over The Ipcress File. Other than the gritty setting of cold war Berlin, former Nazis etc. I just think it runs better, and that Colonel Stock is a brilliant character. In fact I'd go so far as calling this film a New Broome !!

Elleston Trevor (aka Adam Hall) wrote the Quiller Memorandum and it is one of those under-rated thrilling espionage classics whether in writing or on the silver screen that deserve so much more adulation. If you liked Len Deighton’s masterpiece Funeral in Berlin or the Deightonesque Bill Fairclough’s epic raw and noir spy novel Beyond Enkription in The Burlington Files series, you are going to love the Quiller Memorandum and vice versa. Why mention Deighton and Fairclough you may ask? Critics have described Fairclough who was an MI6 agent (codename JJ) in real life as a posh Harry Palmer and his parents worked for MI1 in Germany in the aftermath of World War II just as Quiller did. Both Elleston Trevor and Bill Fairclough (aka Edward Burlington) used many pseudonyms. Given Bill Fairclough was a spy that is not unexpected but why Elleston Trevor (born Trevor Dudley-Smith) published over one hundred books under about a dozen nom de plumes remains a conundrum. The Quiller Memorandum, Funeral in Berlin and Beyond Enkription are “must reads” for espionage cognoscenti. See everipedia.org/wiki/lang_en/bill-fairclough + theburlingtonfiles.org.

Oscar Homoloka went on to play the KGB chief in The Tamarind Seed

I'm watching the film for the first time before watching your review. I didn't know Nikki van der Zyl dubbed the leading lady but her voice is unmistakable to Bond fans. I instantly recognised it.

I thought it was a bleak, complex as he'll cold war thriller. But it was a really convincing performance by Caine

It's been about 7 years since I last saw this sequel. I think the idea is to understand the main part of the story and not all the details. It was a surprise as to exactly why what was going on was going on. It's not as memorable as the first film, but if anyone wants a twisty spy story then I don't think they'll be disappointed.

All three films of the Harry Palmer series are woefully underrated. IPCRESS is so iconic and a complete masterwork that it overshadows the two sequels which rarely if ever get mentioned. The series could’ve continued and nearly did with Horse Under Water but due to Caine’s reluctance and Saltzman’s constant other distractions what could’ve been the greatest serious spy film series of them all fizzled out. Both sequels had completely different director choices long before Tom Cruise lifted the idea for the M:I sequels. Brain is so completely bonkers and hypnotic that it jumps out at the viewer again making Funeral seem tame by comparison. Yet Funeral is an amazingly well produced film dedicated to spycraft, endless double crosses and character motivations. The script deftly manages to condense the very convoluted novel into a film runtime. Caine displays a greater sense of confidence which plays into Palmer once again being nearly obliterated by his assignment. Best of all is the amazing time capsule quality of being shot on location in Berlin. However the greatest and most long lasting achievement was showing Guy Hamilton could direct a serious straightforward spy thriller and it not become like Goldfinger. The added bits of humor are welcome and keep the energy alive for a story that goes quite dark quite fast. Paramount never supported the film and it came and went too quickly to be properly appreciated. It is a film intended for diehard spy fiction fans primarily. This meant that it also fared terribly on video for years. The cover image has never been good and we were lucky to get a widescreen dvd at all which went out of print almost immediately. That master finally got upgraded slightly for the recent USA Blu-ray release. Then Imprint in Australia did a limited boxset that took the hd masters for the trilogy and made some custom new extras for the sequels. Funeral remains a film that grows on you -especially after repeat viewings. It’s one of the hidden gems of spy films. While it may be more conventional on the surface when compared to the films around it-it still holds up incredibly well. Billion Dollar Brain is absolutely bonkers and Ken Russell had no business being hired to make it. The plot is so sparse that it will make you yearn for Funeral. But it’s the hypnotic weirdness that Russell brought to the film that will make it live in your head forever. Additionally Richard Rodney Benet’s hauntingly eerie score is life changing. I’m totally obsessed with the Palmer films and think it’s Caine’s signature role. But even that doesn’t make me praise the two 90’s Harry Allan Towers produced made for TV films. They’re musts just for Caine and the shooting in Russia but the stories behind their making are better than the films. It’s a shame the series never got to go out on a high note and that they are so criminally unknown.

I can only remember the start of Funeral in Berlin, and I can't tell if that means I never saw the end or it was just too confusing for me to remember at that age. As for Billion Dollar Brain,I've only seen the end of it, beginning with them leaving the titular Brain (so I'm not sure what it was for) and rushing off to save Latvia for some reason

The Harry Palmer series was the best of the new lot of spy films that followed the success of "Goldfinger" in the mid to late sixties. But I think the series suffered from not having a consistent team of directors, script writers and music composers that gave the Bond films such a signature look and sound.

Funeral in Berlin is my favourite of the trilogy, I think it's the cold war setting it's just so well done

Great Video Calvin. I must admit that i enjoyed Funeral a bit more than the Ipcress File. But I guess it has to do with the on Location shooting in Berlin which is such a unique time capsule. Ipcress i remember being rather psychodelic at least for my taste.

You have to see Billion Dollar Brain! It’s got so much style and visual punch, and it’s great fun.

"I love what Guy Hamilton brought to the Bond series. Goldfinger and Live and Let Die are wonderful films." Oh, Monsieur, tsk...

Yeah same here, I never knew there were many Harry Palmer movies, let alone it was the same character in all the others, or that Michael Caine was cast in Goldmember because of those movies. I always assumed its because he was just an icon of the 60's and not becauseof these movies. Really??!!! is there no bluray from Europe or germany available?? oo just want to say Calvin and i'm sorry, please forgive me for being nosey on your Twitter, but its great that you have finaly the 'Die Komplette serie' of Remington Steele. hope you enjoy man, i just wish it was on day time/afternoon on BBC back in the 90's like Colombo and Quincey was :)

Nice to see another Palmer review as I really enjoyed the Ipcress File review from a few years ago [I agree that's the only one that really gets discussed]. I also only watched this recently as it doesn't seem to pop on up TV much and is harder to get on DVD/Blu Ray [I ended up watching it on Amazon]. Ipcress has the selling point of it's kitchen sink approach and 60's London but this feels like a lot more typical spy story and it's not as memorable as Ipcress or Spy who came in from the cold but Caine is good and keeps it watchable and I preferred it a lot to Billion Dollar Brain [though look forward to seeing you tackle it someday].

Whilst we are split on SpyHards about which Harry Palmer film is the best, FIB is often a film we call back to as having a very complex story but somehow sticking the landing. Shame its not on the NOC list!

has anyone seen the tv-show that mas made last year ?

Here's an idea for a review of a movie that had Bond actors & crew involved: *"CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS: The Discovery",* the second live action film about the infamous explorer released in 1992 along with Ridley Scott's *"1492: Conquest of Paradise".* Directed by John Glen (his penultimate film as director, although he actually replaced the original director George P. Cosmatos of *"RAMBO: First Blood, Part II", "TOMBSTONE"* & *"LEVIATHAN")* with Bob Simmonds as a co-producer alongside producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind *("SUPERMAN 1, 2, 3"* and *"SUPERGIRL"),* though it's a shame that none of the Bond film composers (Barry, Kamen, Conti, or Hamlisch) were involved. And alongside big name stars like Marlon Brando, Tom Selleck and in her film debut Catherine Zeta Jones (before she worked on *"The Mask of Zorro"* & *"Entrapment")* were three Bond villains: Robert Davi, Benicio del Toro and Michael Gothard (in one of his last films before he tragically took his life). And originally Timothy Dalton (my personal favorite 007) was to play Christopher Columbus, before for one reason or another, he alongside Isabelle Rossalini (who was to play the Queen of Spain) bailed out of the film and were replaced by Georges Corraface and Rachel Ward.

Way back in 2019...Three years is not way back.

The only two Michael Caine/Harry Palmer films I have seen are, Billion Dollar Brain & Midnight in St Petersburg. I really like thoughs. :)

Michael Caine can’t do no wrong as an actor for me. F.I.B is a decent enough film without being in the least bit memorable. Actually the young and blonde Michael is just 33 here and may be a little young for the role. So I do concur with you Calvin.

Michael Caine was always intense. He's the British Al Pacino. Noone yells quite like them.

How about a review of the new Ipcress File series on AMC+. It’s really stylish, good story, ending is a little cluttered but I thought it was great.

I enjoyed all of the Harry Palmer films personally. I would like to hear your thoughts on Billion Dollar Brain.

I hope you do a video on Billion Dollar Brain, its definitely the weakest of the 60s trilogy but has its moments, including a title sequence by the great Maurice Binder!

I recently watched an early 90's Caine movie 'Blue Ice' where he plays an ex-spy called 'Harry Anders' but it does feel like a 'copyright skirting' additional Palmer film in many respects [including a homage to 'Ipcress']. While a fairly standard action film [directed by Russel Mulcahy of Highlander fame] hence it's 5.2 on IMDB, I found it better than the 'official' 90's Palmer films, boasts a strong supporting cast [including Bob Hoskins] and a score by LTK's Michael Kamen.

Can i recommend 'The Wild Geese' starring Roger Moore if you haven't reviewed it yet.

Have you seen the movie Argo starring you know who it is Ben Affleck, a 2012 movie set in 1979? I love that movie. Great movie And the old 1970s red and black Warner Bros logo is used.

I love that you’re slowly reviewing the Harry Palmer movies - please review the rest of them! To be honest I prefer Funeral in Berlin to The Ipcress File…

Given your appreciation of Michael Caine and fascination with Bond, The Man Who Would be King next? It’s bloody good.

Who's that old man telling background material at the start of this video?

You've probably got enough requests to deal with but I did think doing a revised version of 'Happy And Glorious'/2012 Olympic film between Bond and the Queen [though I like the original version] might be a nice idea as a tribute to her [and Daniel Craig has shared some memories of filming] or maybe a general 'The UK Royal family and Bond' video given members of the family have regularly attended premiers of the films and visited the sets.

Harry Palmer sound like a spoof James Bond name, like he’d be in Stickyfinger, You Only Love Twice, and In Russia We’ll Love lol

quick harry potter vs harry polmer, harry people fight who wins, also im reading the books or hearing the audiobook first, and then going into these film maybe that way it makes mroe sense.

I kinda felt the same way about Funeral. I’d probably feel the same about Ipcress if it weren’t for the visual flair. Just you wait for Billion Dollar Brain. One word … Bonkers!

Funeral in Berlin was a decent watch but I agree, it falls a bit short of Ipcress File. I would also like to mention that Billion Dollar Brain is worth watching at least once. I think it’s actually a really good spy film for the first 2/3 of it. Once the location changes and the villain is introduced it takes a massive left turn and definitely goes off the rails

You might be interested in reviewing The Quiller Memorandum, which is also a 1966 spy film set in Berlin. Billion Dollar Brain is bonkers, I'm sure you'd love it.

You might want to check out the Odessa file.

DUDE! WHAT THE HELL! wheres ur video covering goldeneye on switch and xbox and the two different versions!!!

That actually was Günter Meisner (aka Arthur Slugworth)!

I actually prefer Funeral to the first. It is the location that sways it for me. Billion Dollar Brain is really bad though. The villian is so out of place.

I'm intrigued to see what you think of Billion Dollar Brain, as I slightly prefer it to Funeral In Berlin! Ipcress remains my favourite though.

Oskar Homolka: did he ever play Brehznev? Because the resemblance is uncanny.

On the way to seeing The Ipcress File, John Lennon, with his wife Cynthia and chauffeur in the Rolls was stopped at a traffic light in London and a horde of teenage fans spotted him. "Girls banged on the doors and wings and blocked the road. "John, John" they screamed. He carried on reading and locked himself in. The chauffeur became irritable and was about to get out and push them away. 'Leave them,' snapped John. They bought the car. They've got the right to smash it up.' " (Cynthia's memory, in Ray Coleman, Lennon, p. 329) In the movie the turning point is when Harry's friend and fellow internal security officer is shot. They blew his mind out in a car. He didn't notice that the lights had changed. [That's because he was dead at the wheel. Sound of tooting drivers is then heard.] (The only difference I've made to the line in John Lennon's famous song is substitution of "they" for "he" to clarify that there are actually two "he"s in the sentence.) It has always been assumed that the person referred to in 'A Day In The Life' was Tara Brown, a close friend of Paul McCartney's, who died in a car crash in December 1966. However he died from driving too quickly in London late at night - a ute (Aussie term) appeared and he swerved to avoid it, crashing into a lamp post next to a parking meter, nowhere near an intersection. Paul McCartney has said that the person in the song isn't Tara Browne (which is obvious); apparently it was a government official - a politician or someone like that. With the song's theme "I'd love to turn you on" we can see deeper parallels to the ideas in The Ipcress File. I would suggest that the death of Paul's friend, decapitated in an horriffic accident while possibly high on drugs, triggered memories of the two scenes above in John Lennon's lateral mind, and combined to create the idea of the song. Incidentally, we are all waiting for you to review the first James Bond spoof/tribute, a movie that gets so many things right, which is amazing considering it came out just before Goldfinger. I mean, it has a much better villain's lair than the only one in the franchise to that point; its first baddie is Milchmann (Milk Man) who walks around carrying milk for delivery as a disguise and blows up an important government scientist; and the immortal Barbara Windsor makes her debut appearance as Daphne Honeybutt, a clever play on Honey Rider, a.k.a. Honeychile Rider, "with buttocks like a boy." I wonder how many people knew what Flemming was referring to with the term "honey". Suggest listening to the blues classic that came out that same year, 'I'm A King Bee' and then the many songs in its wake, like 'Black Dog'. Watch that honey drip, can't keep away. Apparently she likes riding the honey, which is slightly cruel.

The recent t.v. series of The Ipcress File was produced by the Saltzman children, and I have to say I enjoyed it a lot better than the original movie. I think the Broccoli kids have competition

Funeral in Berlin is quite a classic and the constant flip between 'who is the goody - who is the baddie' works well. I do rather like 'Billion Dollar Brain' too for its extraordinary shot set-ups and a few classic Harry quips but it is otherwise a bit over the top.

I would absolutely love to see a movie with Harry Palmer and James Bond working together 😃!!!

The Ipcress File and Funeral in Berlim are so so much better than most of Bond movies(except the first 4 Bonds). It´s tense, well written, with no nonsense. These are spionage trhillers for adults.

I'm really curious what you'd make of the Ipcress File novel! I love Len Deighton, and he writes in a crisp, easy to understand way...except for that first book, which is so dense and confusing it's the kind of book where you perpetually feel you've skipped over a sentence (or chapter xD) of vital context 😂 The following books are an improvement, and I like Billion Dollar Brain, particularly the exchanges between Palmer and Col. Stok. Not seen any of the films yet though, so I'm curious how it adapts the book! And as for the last two movies, it does make you afraid when they're DTV films from the 90s, haha. Maybe the 30 year gap is a blessing instead of a curse!

Review: If Looks Could Kill

Love the channel. I personally thought this was the weaker of the 3 films. I thought 1/2 of the film was excellent and on-par with the first. I just think the story started to lose its way by the time of the 'Funeral', I wasn't a fan of the score(compared to John Barry's ofcourse) and the film does overcomplicate itself with its numourous amounts of plot twists during the final third. Having said that, i'd still recommend it for many reasons, mainly Oskar Homolka's performance as Colonel Stok(my favourite character bar Harry Palmer in the entire franchise).

I've got them on DVD, I'm glad I'm not the only one to frequently stop and wonder what was going on, rewatches help but only a little. I've seen Billion Dollar Brain twice, I think. I still own it and don't recall hating it but I quite liked Funeral in Berlin but am frequently lost while watching it as I've said. The last 2 were tone wise very different, I remember enjoying Midnight in St Petersberg and being dissappointed by Bullet to Beijing. Having Jason Connery in them both was a strange nod at James Bond I suppose, I just knew him from an 80s Dr. Who story. I don't care for Blu Ray so mine are all on DVD. As I said, I'm an Old School Dr Who fan so effects, picture quality and things like that don't mean a thing to Me, we used to have to buy pirate VHS recordings with almost no picture and terrible sound for sometimes up to or more than a hundred pounds. Yes there was a black market dr who VHS operation going on from the late 80s through to the end of the 90s.

The third film is batshit crazy,closer in tone to the later Uncle films sadly than the realism of TIF. Would be interested to see what you think of The Eiger Sanction.

Personally, I love all the 60s Harry Palmer movies. I look on all three as a sort of down market Bond. They are probably far closer to how the cold war was fought than any of the Bond movies. In Dr No, when in M's office Bond is giver his Walther PPK and told that if he doesn't take it, he will return to standard intelligence duties. This was very likely where he might have run into Harry Palmer. Most of Palmer's duties were probably dull routine stuff. Like in Ipcress File at the beginning of the movie when he is doing a stake out that looks as exciting as watching paint dry. And yet that was probably 90% of spy work, with the occasional interesting mission. For which we have three movies.

Harry's arranging a funeral in Berlin, he just hopes it won't be his. I love the visuals of Ipcress File, but I find the plot of Funeral to be tighter, the story far grittier and the stakes to be quite a bit lower, but actually far higher due to being more personal (if that makes sense). "I can't shoot a man in cold blood!" "Well, provoke him, then." Also Ewa Renzi! Wow.

the first two Harry Palmer films depict a rather drab environment for our hero.....in the Ipcress File he has to struggle with the bureaucratic requirement of filling in those dreaded field report forms, the L101....James Bond never had to bother with such mundane tasks as filling in forms and ticking boxes so that his superiors could gauge his progress with the mission he had been assigned. Funeral In Berlin is I think my favourite cold war "adventure movie", having read Len Deighton's books I found this film easy to follow, ....try a movie based on a John Le Carre novel if you want to get totally confused....." The Spy Who Came In From The Cold " for example. Funeral in Berlin is quite a straight forward multi thread plot, the threads reveal themselves quite clearly I think, but yes you do have to pay close attention to catch them all!!!......Palmer gets given a fake passport in the name of " Edmund Dorf".......his indignation and desire to be named " Rock Hunter" somewhat deflects the key plot element as to the significance of that seemingly random name chosen for his fake passport.......the revelation that it is not random at all is the critical point that ties the threads together. 🙂

Guessing they are going to bring Harry Palmer back as a maybe much darker version of Bond?

Wait, there are two more after The Billion Dollar Brain???