The Ipcress File (PG)
- Consumer Advice: Contains mild violence and language
- Run time: 1 hour 47 mins
- Genre: Thriller / Drama
- Release date: 13th January 2006
- Starring: Michael Caine, Nigel Green, Guy Doleman
- Directed by: Sidney J. Furie
- Distributor: Sound & Media
Plot Synopsis
Len Deighton's working-class spy, the antithesis of the snobby toff James Bond, was the original Man with No Name until producer Harry Saltzman decided to call him Harry Palmer. (Why Harry, do you suppose?) The then little-known Michael Caine was ideal casting for the role: chippy, mouthy, bespectacled - everything Bond was not, except perhaps between the sheets. (Palmer to his rumpled companion of the night before: 'You're useless in the kitchen. Whyn't you go back to bed?') The plot, complex but ingeniously worked out, involves KGB moles in the British secret service, a missing scientist, mysterious bits of recording tape and a chilling sequence in which Palmer is abducted by the bad guys and brain-washed in a bizarre torture chamber. The trick in any such thriller is to keep things moving without totally baffling the audience, and the combination of Sidney Furie's confident direction and the screenplay by Bill Canaway and James Doran does this very well. In all the tension the necessary leavening of humour is provided mostly by Palmer, who has a nice line in dumb insolence towards his lofty superiors, Nigel Green and Guy Doleman, to whom he is clearly an irritating but unfortunately useful oick. A touch of class war here, you see.