The Bond films have their place. I've seen them all a minimum of three times and some probably seven or eight times. They're good comfort for a tired brain and the formulaic aspects can be like old friends. Sometimes, however, you might be in the mood for a genuine spy thriller, with characters that resonate as real people rather than cartoon characters. Here's a delicious film from director Sidney Furie that can fit the bill.

Historical Background: Director Sidney J. Furie was born in Toronto in 1933. He began working as a director for Canadian television at age 21 and graduated from the prestigious Canadian Broadcasting Corporation TV-director talent pool. He was promoted to producer before he turned 25. His most successful television series was Hudson's Bay. He directed his first feature film for the big screen, A Dangerous Age, in Canada in 1957. In 1960, he moved to England, where he made such films as The Leather Boys (1963) and The Ipcress File (1965). The latter film enjoyed a high degree of box-office success and earned Furie a trip to Hollywood, where his best films have included The Naked Runner (1967), Big Fauss and Little Halsy (1970), and Lady Sings the Blues (1972). After a decade or so of second rate work, Furie returned to form with Iron Eagle (1986). Some of his more recent work has included Road Rage (2000) and Rock My World (2002).

Furie is better known for the form of his films than for their substance. His surface visual style features a lot of high, low, and tilted camera angles. He also frequently frames key portions of the image field through, over, or under foreground objects. Billy Wilder once complained that Furie couldn't shoot a scene without framing it through a fireplace or the back of a refrigerator. It was a harsh way to put it, but Wilder had a point. The extremity of Furie's style (and that of his cameraman Otto Heller) has increased over time and become increasingly pointless. In The Ipcress File, from 1965, the technique works rather well because it gives the impression of a jigsaw puzzle with missing pieces, which is exactly what a spy thriller should suggest. The Ipcress File became the first in a small series of anti-Bond spy thrillers, all featuring Harry Palmer, that ultimately included Funeral in Berlin (1966), Billion Dollar Brain (1967), Bullet to Beijing (1996), and Midnight in St. Petersburg (1996).

The Story: Harry Palmer (Michael Caine) is a spy who would very much prefer not to be one. He only took the job in lieu of a prison sentence for stealing. He's known to be insubordinate and undependable and he acknowledges as much himself. His current boss, Colonel H.L. Ross (Guy Doleman) in the Ministry of Defense, calls Palmer into his office to advise him that he's been transferred to the Counter-intelligence Bureau, where he will report to Major Dalby (Nigel Green). Colonel Ross, who never cracks a smile or sports a warm look on his face, warns Palmer, "Dalby doesn't have my sense of humor," to which Palmer replies curtly, "Oh I'll miss that, Sir."

Palmer joins a team of six agents, including Jock Carswell (Gordon Jackson) and Jean Courtney (Sue Lloyd), working under Maj. Dalby. Palmer is replacing an agent who was killed while protecting a scientist, Dr. Radcliffe (Aubrey Richards), who was kidnapped from a train. British authorities are distressed because some seventeen British scientists have inexplicably disappeared or become suddenly unfit for work. The job for Harry and his colleagues is to make contact with Ashley Grantby (Frank Gatliff), codenamed "Bluejay," a man who deals in human trafficking. The British authorities are willing to pay to get Dr. Radcliffe back alive.

Harry succeeds in making contact with Grantby, partly because he ignores protocol while his colleagues waste time on forms. A warehouse raid, at Harry's instigation, fails to turn up Radcliffe, but provides a lead in the form of a small section of audiotape. An exchange of Radcliffe for £25,000 is ultimately arranged, but Radcliff is found to have been "brainwashed" and no longer useful as a scientist. Meanwhile, Palmer becomes romantically involved with Courtney, though he is also suspicious that she might be secretly working for Col. Ross. Carswell has been given the task of studying the audiotape and generates a file with his findings. Palmer learns that it apparently relates to some kind of mind-control technique, but before he can study the full film, Carswell is shot to death at a stoplight, while driving Palmer's car, and the file mysteriously disappears.

Palmer discovers a dead American agent in his apartment and suspects that he's being set up to take the rap. He goes into hiding but is seized by henchmen working for Grantby. Palmer is stuck in a cell, starved and sleep-deprived, and then subjected to the same mind-draining technique applied to the missing scientists. Palmer's insubordinate streak makes him more than typically resistant to the technique, however, and he manages to escape. He's determined, now, that either Ross or Dalby is a traitor and double-agent, but which one? Check out the film to find out how Palmer resolves the issue and saves the world as we know it.

Themes: There is a bit of a theme underlying this thriller and more of one than you'll typically find in a Bond film. There's a low-level critique of the stifling British bureaucracies and the civil service, in particular, that runs through the entire story. The agents working under Maj. Dalby can make no progress because they spend much of their time filling out forms. Only the worker who refuses to play by the rules has time enough to come up with a lead. Then, the bureaucratic structure is effectively linked to the class system that stiffles initiative by preventing reward for merit. The top men in both Defense and the Intelligence Bureau are stiff-backed aristocrats determined to keep their positions of privilege secure by reinforcing the trappings of authority and respect. Palmer is an illustration of precisely why healthy societies need some members who are irreverent, suspicious, anti-authoritarian, and unwilling to follow orders without questioning. Such people may be a pain in the neck, at times, but they also help to keep societies from traveling too far or too fast down that slippery slope to Hades.

Production Values: The screenplay was written by Bill Canaway and James Doran, as a not especially faithful adaptation of a novel by Len Deighton, also called The Ipcress File. The producers for this film, Harry Saltzman and Cubby Broccoli, had also been producers for the Bond film Goldfinger. The Bondwagon was on a roll and Saltzman felt that the market could sustain two spy thriller franchises. Instead of setting out to imitate the 007 series, however, they intentionally opted for a protagonist and style that would be thoroughly distinguishable from those of Fleming. Harry Palmer was not much of a lady's man, though he took note of those in his vicinity. Harry had no extraordinary gadgets and no super-agent training. He had to depend on his wits to get out of tight fixes, rather than charm, athleticism, or toys. Harry had none of Bond's devotion to Queen and country. Instead, we was a man with a strong anti-authoritarian streak, who had been pressed into working in the intelligence division in lieu of serving a prison sentence for theft. Instead of continent-hopping from one gorgeous, exotic location to another, Palmer was stuck in a grimy, seedy section of London. Palmer's London was neither the mod, swinging London of Austin Power nor the up-scale gentlemen's clubs frequented by Bond. Bond may have been relegated to a public school education, but Palmer was no better than a working class bloke. In Harry's unglamorous line of work, a man still punches a time clock and fills out endless forms, even if he is a spy. Harry even wears glasses, which would be far to un-cool for Bond. Instead of waking up beside some gorgeous babe, Harry is awakened by an irritating alarm clock. In short, Harry resembles a real person rather than a cartoon-style superhero. Don't get me wrong. I love the Bond series of films. They have a visceral appeal while The Ipcress File has an appeal that is more cerebral. The marketing line for this film was "The thinking man's Goldfinger," and so it was.

The Bond series was intentionally designed to appeal to American sensitivities while retaining a British flavor. Bond has an American friend who works for the CIA, Felix Leiter. When American agents appear in the Bond stories, they are given favorable treatment. They may not be as shrewd as Bond, but at least their hearts are where they should be. By contrast, in The Ipcress File, two American agents are killed, one by the protagonist and one after tailing the protagonist. The plot of The Ipcress File advances by diligent legwork and deskwork, not by some daring penetration into the arch-villains lair. The proximate villain is a man or ordinary appearance, though he does have a bald, thuggish henchman. Bond and Palmer do have one thing in common. Both are men of taste. Bond can identify when and where any sample of cavier comes from but Harry is a gourmet cook. Both enjoy classical music. Bond takes his Martini shaken, not stirred, but one presumes Palmer would stir his energetically.

Shot in Techniscope, The Ipcress File features drab London scenes and mostly mellow colors, probably made somewhat paler by the aging print. The cuts are quick and the fluid camerawork entails many close-ups of objects, such as train wheels, guns, and traffic lights, as well as people. Then, of course, there is the splendid assortment of Furie's patented shots through small apertures in doors or objects in the near field. All of this adds to the tension and intrigue and also makes The Ipcress File feel very much like a recent film. Only the emphasis on ex-military types in administrative positions seems dated.

This is Michael Caine's film all the way and helped establish Caine as a film star. Caine had made a strong impression in a supporting role in Zulu, but this was his first lead role in what would become a long career. Some of his many other roles were in Alfie (1966), The Italian Job (1969), Get Carter (1971), The Man Who Would Be King (1975), A Bridge Too Far (1977), Educating Rita (1983), The Whistle Blower (1986), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), Death Becomes Her (1992), The Cider House Rules (1999), and Austen Powers in Goldmember (2002). Caine plays the part with a Cockney accent. He came from the East End and didn't hang out with other film stars. Thus, playing Palmer was no real stretch for him. He plays the part with wit and an acerbic demeanor that gives his character real personality. Caine was an experienced Thespian before turning to movies.

In the supporting roles, Nigel Green is exemplary as the sarcastic Dalby and Guy Doleman is excellent as Ross. Nigel Green also appeared in The Masque of the Red Death (1964), Zulu (1964), Khartoum (1966), and The Ruling Class (1972). Guy Doleman appeared elsewhere in On the Beach (1959), Thunderball (1965), and Funeral in Berlin (1966). Sue Lloyd was a better than clichéd love interest. She later appeared in The Return of Mr. Moto (1965), The Revenge of the Pink Panther (1978) and The Bitch (1979).

Bottom-Line: I enjoyed this film a lot. I not going to say that it's better than every Bond film, but it's better than more than half of them. I've always preferred the Bond films in which there's some real human interest and not simply toys and special effects, which means, generally, the older ones. This film takes that notion a whole other step, virtually eliminating the toys and daredevil stunts, but giving us a spy with vulnerability, weaknesses, human frailties, but genuine courage. This film is really more along the lines of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, with Richard Burton, than the 007 series. The Bond films are best classified as action/adventure, while this film and the Burton film are genuine thrillers.

Recommended:
Yes

Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older