Ipcress - top secret

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Movie
German title Ipcress - Top Secret
Original title The Ipcress File
Country of production Great Britain
original language English
Publishing year 1965
length 107 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Sidney J. Furie
script Bill Canaway ,
James Doran
production Harry Saltzman
music John Barry
camera Otto Heller
cut Peter Hunt
occupation

Ipcress - Top Secret (Original Title: The Ipcress File ) is the 1965 film adaptation of Len Deighton 's novel of the same name, directed by Sidney J. Furie . In the thriller produced by Harry Saltzman , the secret agent Harry Palmer, played by Michael Caine , made his first cinema appearance as a "rebellious spy from the working class" during the Cold War era . The film has been dubbed " the thinking man's gold finger".

action

London in the 1960s: Sergeant Harry Palmer, in the service of the Department of Defense , according to the personnel file "arrogant, presumptuous, unruly and extremely opaque", is quoted from an observation of his superior Colonel Ross. Ross orders him to move to a smaller counterintelligence unit led by Major Dalby. Palmer replaces an agent who was killed trying to prevent the kidnapping of the British nuclear physicist Radcliff.

Dalby's team includes the young Jean Courtney, who is eyed by Palmer - at first apparently one-sided - and the friendly Jock Carswell. Dalby asks her to find a person of Albanian origin named Grantby and his right-hand man Housemartin. Dalby believes the kidnapping was about ransom and Grantby was the mastermind.

Despite a lot of unnecessary bureaucracy, Palmer tracks down Grantby and Housemartin through a contact at Scotland Yard, but the two outsmart him and escape. When Palmer returns to his apartment, he finds Courtney there, who has been sent by Dalby to look after him. The two become friends. Carswell and Palmer learn that Housemartin has been arrested, but when they reach the police station, they find him dead. He was liquidated by someone posing as Harry Palmer . When searching the warehouse in which Housemartin was picked up, all that was found was a loose tape with the inscription "Ipcress". There is a disturbing background noise on the tape.

While shopping, Palmer is intercepted by Ross, who asks him to investigate Dalby's activities. Palmer refuses, initially assuming Courtney is spying for Ross. Palmer apparently dismisses this thought and begins a love affair with Courtney.

Grantby is contacted and arrangements are made to hand over nuclear physicist Radcliff for £ 25,000. After the exchange, Palmer shoots an emerging intruder. The dead man was a CIA agent who was also assigned to Grantby. Palmer is then threatened by a CIA man named Barney with the threat of killing him if he finds out it wasn't an accident. Days later it becomes clear that Radcliff has been mentally badly damaged and can no longer be used as a scientist. Carswell, meanwhile, has found out that Radcliff has been brainwashed .

Carswell borrows Palmer's car to investigate Radcliff and is shot dead at a red light. Palmer suspects the bullet was aimed at him and moves in with Courtney until the matter is over. In the office, he discovers that Carswell's Ipcress file, which lists 16 other scientists treated, has been stolen from his desk. In his apartment he finds the body of CIA man Barney. Palmer then reports to Major Dalby what happened and accuses Ross of treason. Dalby advises him to go into hiding. On the train to Paris, Palmer is captured by Grantby's men.

After seven days in a cold cell, apparently in Albania, with no sleep or food, Palmer realizes that this was just the prelude to brainwashing. During the psychological torture sessions, in which the drugged Palmer is conditioned to the tones of the ipcress tape, the words Grantby, and psychedelic images, he inflicts pain on himself with a nail from his cell to distract himself from the ordeal and the Conditioning to counteract this. After another three days, he appears to be responding to the procedure. Grantby anchors a keyword in Palmer's subconscious that turns off his free will and lets him carry out any command.

Palmer manages to overpower the guards. He takes a gun and escapes. Outside he realizes that he was in the middle of London the whole time. He calls Dalby, who now turns out to be in cahoots with Grantby. Dalby speaks the key word and has Palmer Ross summoned to the building. When Dalby and Ross arrive one after the other, Palmer is unsure which of the two is the double agent. Using the keyword again, Dalby finally tells him to shoot Ross. At the last moment, Palmer resists carrying out the fatal shot. Palmer overcomes the psychological programming and shoots Dalby when Dalby is about to start the shot himself. Ross had long suspected Dalby and had put Palmer on him precisely because of his tendency to insubordinate him. It is also true that Courtney was commissioned by Ross. Palmer accuses Ross of using him unscrupulously and putting him at risk of death. Ross replies that is what you pay Palmer for.

Production and Background

The film was designed as a more realistic alternative to the James Bond films, which were already popular at the time, and endeavored to adhere particularly to the spirit of the novel. This puts the film on par with early Bond films such as James Bond chasing Dr. No and greetings from Moscow closer than the later, more and more elaborate Bond spectacles. This speaks for the flexibility of the producer Harry Saltzman , who is also responsible for the Bond series , who always asked for "bigger and more unusual ideas", as can be seen in the MGM Home Entertainment documentary "Harry Saltzman: Showman". Four well-known members of the Ipcress crew - in addition to Saltzman, film editor Peter R. Hunt , composer John Barry and production designer Ken Adam  - also worked for the Bond films, and projects like this ultimately led to Saltzman's departure from Eon Productions and the sale of Danjaq , LLC to United Artists in 1975.

Despite the general orientation, The Ipcress File is very different from James Bond films: There are almost no action or fight scenes, the villain is not highlighted (and is not even known to the viewer for a long time) and there is just a relationship with a woman. While Bond is a charming macho figure who can be identified, Palmer seems more inaccessible to the average viewer. He is short-sighted, likes to cook, listens to classical music and only works for the secret service, because the latter blackmailed him for shoving during his military service in Berlin. The film also stands out due to its original camera settings (by Otto Heller).

Ipcress - Top Secret was released on July 2, 1965 in the cinemas of the Federal Republic of Germany, the television premiere was on November 13, 1969 on ARD.

Reviews

"Caine, [...] photographed exactly at the moment when he became a star."

- Angie Errigo : empireonline.com

" Ipcress - Top Secret is the first and best thriller in the Harry Palmer series [...] apart from the exciting story and the safe, somewhat mocking portrayal of the almost unknown Michael Caine in the lead role, the film comes with a good portion of unusual image settings and camera -Tricks that are not necessarily justified by the script. With his eerie score, composer John Barry [...] effectively went against all expectations. "

- Arne Laser : The great film lexicon

"Lurid spy film of considerable formal quality."

- Lexicon of international film

“It is almost touching to see the care with which an antihero of the espionage business has been devised, the man who will show us what is going on behind the scenes in 007. Glasses, a London accent , a penchant for Mozart and cooking, a supermarket lover and hostile to authority - Palmer's characteristics could have been determined by the adding machine. "

- Monthly Film Bulletin ( BFI )

"Surprisingly well and variedly designed thriller, which in technical terms consistently follows the line of the Bond films, but remains unclear in the plot and its motivation despite numerous ironic accents, which makes identification more difficult, but also eases the tension."

- Protestant film observer

The BFI ranked the film 59th on a list of the 100 best British films of all time in 1999.

Continuations and borrowings

Immediately followed by the sequels Finale in Berlin (OT: Funeral in Berlin , Director: Guy Hamilton , 1966) and The Billion Dollar Brain (OT: Billion Dollar Brain , Director: Ken Russell , 1967), both again with Michael Caine in the Main role of the secret agent Harry Palmer. Decades later, Caine returned as Harry Palmer in the two films produced by Harry Alan Towers The Palmer Files - The Red Death (OT: Bullet to Beijing , Director: George Mihalka, 1995) and in The Palmer Files - Lords of the Apocalypse (OT: Midnight in St. Petersburg , directed by Doug Jackson, 1996).

Caine played a similar character in the film Austin Powers in Gold Stand (2002), in which he portrayed Nigel Powers, who was consciously based on the character of Harry Palmer and passed on the secret agent profession to his son Austin Powers.

various

The protagonist in Deighton's novel has no name. The first name then used can be traced back to a line from Chapter 5 of the book: "My name is not Harry, but in this business it is difficult to see whether it wasn't even Harry."

When Palmer is preparing food for Jean in the kitchen, a newspaper clipping is hanging there, a cookstrip  - one of a series of cartoon-like recipes by the author Len Deighton , published in The Observer in London from the early to mid-1960s. A collection of the strips appeared in the United Kingdom in 1965 as Len Deighton's Action Cook Book and in 1966 in the United States as the Cookstrip Cook Book .

Nigel Green and Michael Caine played together in a number of films and television episodes, such as Zulu and Play Dirty . Zulu was Michael Caine's big breakthrough, where he was cast against the grain as an aristocratic lieutenant with Green with the rank of color sergeant . At Ipcress , Green became the major and Caine the cockney sergeant .

The IMDb According were Christopher Plummer , Richard Harris and Harry H. Corbett for the role of Harry Palmer in conversation, Joan Collins for the Jean Courtney.

The invented acronym "Ipcress" stands for " I nduction of P sychoneuroses by C onditioned R eflex Under Str ess " (about "triggering psychoneuroses by conditioned reflex under stress").

The ska group Madness released a single in 1984 called Michael Caine , on which the voice of the actor can be heard. The video is based on the film Ipcress.

Awards and nominations

British Film Academy Awards 1966

  • British Film Academy Award for Best British Production Design (Color) for Ken Adam
  • British Film Academy Award in the category Best British Camera (Color) for Otto Heller
  • British Film Academy Award for Best British Film for Sidney J. Furie

Cannes International Film Festival 1965

  • Nomination for the Golden Palm for Sidney J. Furie

Directors Guild of America 1966

  • Nomination DGA Award in the category Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures for Sidney J. Furie

Edgar Allan Poe Awards 1966

  • Edgar in the Best Foreign Film category for Bill Canaway and James Doran

The British Film Institute chose Ipcress in 1999 at number 59 of the best British films of the 20th century .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for Ipcress - top secret . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , November 2003 (PDF; test number: 33 987 DVD).
  2. ↑ Henning Hoff: 003½ for 007 . In: ZEIT online , February 15, 2006, accessed on January 18, 2008.
  3. ^ From the (deleted) film poster in the English language Wikipedia
  4. ↑ Lexicon of International Films , p. 1527.
  5. ↑ empireonline.com , accessed January 17, 2008.
  6. ↑ Arne Laser. In: Dirk Manthey, Jörg Altendorf, Willy Loderhose (eds.): The large film lexicon. All top films from A-Z . Second edition, revised and expanded new edition. Verlagsgruppe Milchstraße, Hamburg 1995, ISBN 3-89324-126-4 , p. 1458 .
  7. ↑ Ipcress - top secret. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed October 4, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  8. ^ Monthly Film Bulletin (BFI), Issue 32, Number 376, May 1965, pp. 70-71
  9. ↑ screenonline.org.uk, accessed on January 17, 2008.
  10. ↑ Evangelischer Presseverband München, Review No. 353/1965.
  11. ↑ bfi.org.uk ( Memento of the original from June 30, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved January 17, 2008. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bfi.org.uk
  12. ↑ a b c Worth knowing. Internet Movie Database , accessed May 22, 2015 .