The Ipcress File | | Cast : | Michael Caine, Nigel Green | | Director : | Sidney J. Furie | | Studio : | Anchor Bay Entertainment | | Format : | Color, Widescreen | | Released Date : | August 02, 1965 | | DVD Released Date : | October 12, 1999 | | Language : | English (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | NR (Not Rated) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | May 27, 2005 | | Summary | One Of The Best Espionage Films. And It's No Spoof. | Content
 | "Let's see," says Major Dalby, head of the Counter-Intelligence Bureau, as he reads Sergeant Harry Palmer's personnel file. "'Insubordinate. Insolent. A trickster. Perhaps with criminal tendencies.' Well, that last one may just be put to good use."
Harry Palmer (Michael Caine) has been sent to Dalby (Nigel Green) by Col. H. L. Ross (Guy Doleman) of Britain's Ministry of Defense. Scientists have gone missing, and the few who have shown up later seem to have been brain washed. They are no longer useful. Dalby's unit is charged with finding out what's going on. And Harry Palmer, like it or not, who loves to cook and loves the birds, who wears glasses, who is not impressed with authority, who can be a bit unreliable when he chooses to be, and who actually is a pretty good spy, is assigned to help break the case. Eventually he does, but not without a lot of pain and a fair amount of violence. Palmer can take it, but he can dish it out as well. He also has a shrewd, analytical mind. He's willing to gamble and sometimes he's off the mark. And all the while he has to deal with the bullying, condescending Dalby, "a passed-over major," as well as Col. Ross, who drips condescension like an ice cube on a hot day. Harry Palmer doesn't have it easy.
I think this is one of the better espionage movies made. It's not a spoof, like the Bond movies. Harry Palmer, based on the Len Deighton character (to whom Deighton never gave a name), as played by Caine is immensely likable because he takes the measure of the stuffed shirts and is amused by their pretensions. The character also works because as the story proceeds you realize that Palmer knows his job. The two secondary actors, Green and Doleman, bring a lot of depth to their roles and a lot of interest to the movie. Their attitudes are so imperviously superior it would be amusing except that they both wield quite a bit of power.
This is a movie that I can watch many times and still enjoy for its style and story-telling prowess. Furie throws in some directorial flourishes common then that now seem a bit dated, but that's a minor quibble for a well made and well acted movie. The DVD transfer is just fine. |
| Rating | | | Date | February 11, 2003 | | Summary | A LIttle Contrasting POV | Content
| I got this film with memories of the tight plot and the cataclysmic twist at the end. Thirty years has dulled considerably the enjoyment I once felt. Everyone else finds Caine's performance riveting. I found it silly and stilted. I never bought in, never experienced anything other than an actor saying his lines, and not especially good lines at that. The other characters are all minor actors who fulfilled the stereotypes required for this film. But spy films live and die on plot, and this one is pretty lame. The ease with which Palmer locates his prey, and the anvil like clues about who is the good guy and who is the bad guy, did a good job at diminishing whatever suspense it created. The big conclusion left me laughing....was I really supposed to see a choice here? Never doubted for a moment. Anti-climax implies climax. This was just silly. This was not bad, but an uncharismatic Caine and a predictable plot combined to create a mediocre experience. And DVD extras were quite nominal. |
| Rating | | | Date | December 02, 2002 | | Summary | The Anti-Bond, If You Will... | Content
| Michael Caine's Harry Palmer -- the character is nameless in the Len Deighton novels; as he is also the first-person narrator, this works, but for this film, (third-person all the way) it was felt that he needed a name -- is just as escapist a fantasy as Connery's Bond, but in a different manner. Deliberately deglamorised and *presented* as just a relatively ordinary man, if of a somewhat dubious moral character, doing his best to keep out of trouble, Palmer nonetheless is, underneath, a bit more. Blackmailed into espionage with the threat of well-earned prison time, Palmer is a useful foot-soldier in the sordid, quiet war of espionage and counter-espionage, set to unmask a traitor -- but who *is* the traitor -- is there anyone at all that he can trust? Michael Caine (this was the first film in which i had seen him) inhabits the role of Harry Palmer and makes it totally his, a man of contradictions -- a working class man, but one who genuinely loves and appreciates the finer things, unlike Fleming's (and, to some extent, the Bond movies') Bond, an amoral thug who apes the manners and tastes of his betters. The apparently-realistic dreary grey London streets and settings add to this film's apparently-realistic approach, all the better to persuade the viewer to suspend his disbelief and accept the rather complex plot, especially when we get to the brainwashing parts... First of three films, this was a series that *could* have rivalled Bond but fizzled out in the end. All three, however, are well worth your time. |
| Rating | | | Date | November 22, 2002 | | Summary | The IPCRESS File - Michael Caine | Content
| The Ipcress File is without a doubt the best of the Hollywood action spy thrillers of the 60's. It is what the James Bond series started out to be and never quite became. Michael Cane in neither a tough guy nor a slick CIA/KGB type. He is a foot soldier, literally in this case, in the cold war. His opinions are neither sought nor listened too. He is only sent in when the situation becomes too clouded for the professional intelligence officers to unravel. An army sergeant convicted of shady dealings and condemned to one prison or the other, Harry Palmer (Michael Cane) chooses the one without walls, but great danger. The problem for Harry isn't to solve the mystery; it is to figure out just what the mystery is. Everyone about him is so stiff upper lipped and bowler-hated that it is difficult to see any movement, and as a good foot soldier, Harry Palmer knows that you can't shoot until someone moves and gives away their position. Finally the story plays out in a London back-alley where the street savvy, uneducated but intelligent Palmer is called upon to make the right choice. With a plot that is slightly too fanciful and a hero slightly too suave for reality, this is none the less a very believable film, beautifully photographed and edited. Watch The IPCRESS File in a triple bill with the much grittier and more realistic 1965 B/W film, The Spy Who Came In Form The Cold starring Richard Burton and the 1962 B/W film The Manchurian Candidate starring Frank Sinatra and Lawrence Harvey if you want to know what Hollywood's view of the Cold War was at the dawn of the Viet Man War. |
| Rating | | | Date | August 14, 2002 | | Summary | Intelligent, well-acted spy thriller | Content
| "The Ipcress File" is a gripping spy thriller that was a big hit back in 1966. This was the time when Michael Caine was a rising young star, and this movie was an excellent showcase for his talent. Visually, the movie is dated in spots, especially in its use of psychedelic colors and images in the brainwashing sequences. These images, along with Caine's character's wearing of thick-lensed, horn-rimmed eye glasses, were later parodied in spy spoofs, most notably in the Austin Powers series. Fortunately, the story is as engrossing as ever, and Caine's Harry Palmer remains one of the most indelible movie characters ever. Harry Palmer is a shrewd, cocky, amoral Army sergeant who was busted in Germany for some illegal trading. Sensing his abilities, the British army has offered to keep him out of prison in exchange for his becoming a spy. It's the threat of prison that keeps the freedom-loving Harry in line. [This plot device has been used countless times since "The Ipcress File" was released, most recently in "XXX".] When a prominent British scientist is kidnapped, Harry's boss loans him out to another department. What our confident hero doesn't realize is that he's being used as bait. By whom and for what purpose is what keeps the suspense going right up to the movie's tense climax. "The Ipcress File" is in the category of spy movies which, unlike James Bond films, portray the characters as participants in a dark, sinister and deadly serious game. In this game, only the hero can be trusted. |
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