The Ipcress File (1965)

The Ipcress File (1965)

Director: Sidney J. Furie

Starring: Michael Caine

The spy story of the century.

When yet another in a long line of British scientists goes missing the British intelligence send army-sergeant-turned-spy Harry Palmer to investigate.

Before he was Jack Carter, Charlie Croker or Alfie, Michael Caine had his first starring role in the Ipcress File as spy Harry Palmer. Released a year after Goldfinger and at the height of Bondmania comes this smart low-key alternative to the glamourous 007 movies. The juxtaposition between the Connery adventures and this movie are one of the highlights of the film for me too. While Bond is off having exciting times in Jamaica or Istanbul Harry Palmer is having to do paperwork detailing how much fuel he has used. While Bond is battling megalomania villains on a gold-plated aeroplane and driving his Aston Martin DB5, Harry Palmer is battling fellow customers as he tries to negotiate his shopping trolley around a store. Most amusingly while Bond has shown in Dr No that he is an expert in fine wines Harry Palmer instead reveals himself to be an expert in tinned foods. Also while M has a nice lavish office the spies in this film hide in plain sight and meet in a run-down warehouse room that pretends to be a storeroom for fireworks.

What makes these difference between the two styles of spy movies more interesting is that The Ipcress File comes from a lot of the same people who made the first three Bond films. Bond co-producer Harry Saltzman produces this movie too and he brought editor Peter Hunt, set-designer Ken Adams and composer John Barry along for the ride too. While such a low-key serious spy thriller such as the Ipcress File, which uses real buildings in London, can’t utilize Adams’ imagination to its full potential this might be the best work we’ve seen from editor Peter Hunt so far. Long gone are the awful jump cuts of Dr No and some of the edits here like when a ceiling lightshade in one scene fades into a soundwave reader in the next being an especially good transition. John Barry’s score might be my favourite of his so far and yes he still uses the movie’s, quite excellent, theme tune a lot at least here it is more suitable for the quieter moments than the exciting James Bond theme with its roaring brass band.

Michael Caine is just great as Harry Palmer giving the role of all his natural cockney cocky attitude. He might not have 007’s airmiles or salary (I really liked him asking his boss if he was getting a pay rise after he was given a promotion, something I can’t imagine Bond doing with M) but he still has a way with women as we see in the opening scene where he finds a bracelet in his bed from the night before along with… his gun? I guess Harry is into some extreme kinky foreplay… I like Caine’s performance (I like Caine in everything I’ve seen him in) and Harry is a fine character, but he oddly doesn’t really do anything. Yes at the start he tracks down the bad guy, but then he lets him slip through his fingers right after. It’s odd that in this thriller our hero doesn’t solve any of its mysteries and what is solved is done by Craswell (The Great Escape’s Gordon Jackson) while everything else just sort of falls into his lap. He’s probably the least proactive lead we’ve seen in a movie so far in this blog.

The rest of the cast are serviceable if unmemorable aside from Guy Dolemon’s M-like stern, never-smiling Colonel Ross and Jackson who I have tons of good will towards thanks not only to the Great Escape but to his role as Geoff Cowley in The Professionals which was Britain’s answer to Starsky & Hutch and the coolest show ever to my young self.

Caine might be the leading man but the real star of the film for me was director Sidney J. Furie. I don’t really enjoy getting too deep into film production as like the Big Lebowski’s Donnie I am out of my element really but I just adored the direction of this film. Almost every shot is filmed as if we are spying on the characters which given the subject matter is simply inspired. You can see a small example of it in the picture I have used for this article, where Harry's face is partially obscured, but there are far better instances of it. One of the first shots is Palmer walking down the street towards a safe house and Furie films this from the other side of the road with the camera running parallel to Michael Caine, but suddenly Harry stops to go into the secret house, but the cameraman keeps on walking a little bit further like he was taken by surprise, almost as if the cameraman didn’t know where the safe house was either. We spy on our characters through slightly ajar doors, in reflections of parking meters, over the shoulders of other characters and in one of the most incredible shots I’ve ever seen we see a dead man’s face through a tiny hole of a cell door.

That last one of the dead man is a twenty five second tracking shot following Caine, Jackson and a policeman down a corridor to the cell, opening and closing the door and the victim’s head is perfectly framed within one of the door’s holes and I simply can’t fathom how many times it must have taken in order to get that shot as perfect as it is. It’s simply a piece of movie magic and that take, along with the movie as a whole, represents cinema as an art form at its finest. I looked up Furie’s other directional work as I was so impressed and wanted to know what else he had done and while he was helmed a lot of projects the only other movie I had even heard of is the infamous Superman 4. Too bad as it looked like he was a very talented man based on this evidence.

I had so much fun marvelling at the cinematography and composition at the shots but I wish the plot matched the rest of the films brilliance. I know it was based on Len Deighton’s novel of the same name and I have no idea how closely this film stayed faithful to it but not a lot seemed to happen. I am not saying I want thrilling action scenes or huge explosions, but just when the plot got really interesting Caine’s character ends up getting abducted and then hypnotised (in scenes that do look rather dated fifty years on) before he breaks free and the movie wraps itself up soon thereafter. The hypnotising scenes also seemed to open a small plot hole where the film’s bad guy nicknamed ‘Blue Jay’ very specifically orders Palmer to obey his voice commands, but then later the secondary bad guy tells Harry, who has since escaped, to obey his voice too, which seems to contradict the whole point of the hypnotising scene which was to make Palmer obey only the Blue Jay’s voice. The ending was very abrupt too with the death of the secondary bad guy whilst Blue Jay is still at large, perhaps to appear in another novel in the series one would assume.

This is not an action film, but I thought it would be interesting to get a different take on a secret agent movie and overall this is a really slick, clever well made film with Michael Caine as his most famous character and one which would go on to influence The Kingsman, where Caine himself stars, with Colin Firth’s character wearing the thick-rimmed glasses in a tribute to Palmer, in addition to the Austin Powers series where Mike Myers, and later Caine too playing Austin’s Father, also wear the same glasses.

8/10- A really enjoyable realistic take on espionage with beautiful direction and a super charismatic lead actor.

Best quote: “You won’t have time for cooking. Dalby works his men and he doesn’t have my sense of humour.” “Yes, sir. I will miss that, sir.” Said in the most deadpan sarcastic way possible by Caine.

Best scene: Palmer and Russ meeting in the supermarket just for how absurdly mundane it is.

Kick-ass moment: Palmer kicking open the door to the safe houses bedroom to scare his colleague simply for his own entertainment. “Morning.”

Next time on A Bloody Tomorrow we go from this small subtle spy thriller to the biggest adventure so far from the most famous of secret agents. I think you get the point.