The Harry Palmer Trio!

"The Harry Palmer Trio" sounds like a late 1950's jazz act, but in actuality I'm referring to three movies featuring a character named Harry Palmer who was played with quite bit of verve and finesse by the great Michael Caine. The first of these of course is the outstanding movie The Ipcress Files. The 1965 movie was based on the 1962 Len Deighton novel of the same name. What Deighton didn't name was the protagonist, and that was left to Caine and others to concoct. This is not a suave spy like James Bond, but an everyman's spy who shows up for work to do his spying, but with scuds of paperwork. 

The Ipcress File is a clever movie cleverly shot. We are often given bug's eye views of the action and the director even made a thing of obscuring the action. Actually, the technology of "Techniscope" was difficult and lead to the camera man making some odd choices. This is a classic Cold War yarn with kidnapped scientists and bizarre clues and duplicitous allies. Nigel Green is outstanding in the movie and a visual equal to the impressive Caine. I'm very hesitant to discuss it too much so as not to spoil one of my favorite movies for anyone who decides to give it a glimpse. I certainly recommend it. 

The success of The Ipcress Files prompted a sequel, but with a change of director, the oddball characteristics which made the first one so different vanish Funeral in Berlin. That said, this is still a pretty nice tale with Harry heading to Berlin to oversee the defection of a seemingly disaffected military man played with enthusiasm by Oscar Homolka. It was interesting to be reminded of those days when there were two Germanys and life was exceedingly different depending on which side of the wall you happened to be on. 

Billion Dollar Brain is something else again. The fragments of what made a Harry Palmer movie click disappear in this wild fantasy about a mad billionaire who decides to use his personal army to help knock over the Soviets after setting loose a virus to rouse the populace in anger. Directed by Ken Russell, the only thing connecting this one to the earlier films are Harry's specs. (And even they vanish from time to time.)  This one is only for completists like me. 

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