Michael Caine had a lot of great movie roles in the sixties, Zulu, Archie, the Italian Job, and he is rightly acclaimed for them. It is a mystery to me, however, why the three films in which played Harry Palmer aren’t regarded as his finest achievements. The IPCRESS File, Funeral in Berlin, and Billion Dollar Brain were unique among the spy films of the sixties, and Caine’s performance as Harry Palmer, an opportunistic ex-criminal turned spy, is central to them. Palmer is the anti-bond, a cynical, un-patriotic, working class breed of spy, who doesn’t glamorously save the world from megalomaniacs with lasers, but walks through the unpleasant grey areas of Cold War Politics. Of the three films in which he played the part, 1966s Funeral in Berlin is undoubtedly the best. Set against the back drop the Berlin Wall, the plot involves the defection of a high ranking Soviet office, and the shady business of people trafficking, getting them from east to west.
Caine is fantastic, nonchalantly wandering through international incidents like he’s gliding through the bloody Matrix. When Palmer beds a beautiful girl he isn’t smug, he’s suspicious (rightly so, as one of them turns out to be an Israeli secret service agent), and when the going gets tough, he strategically hides and lets someone else get shot instead. His appearance, blue Mohair suite and think rimmed glasses, may have been the blueprint for Austin Powers, but this is no spoof.
I think that part of the films edge comes from the fact that the writer, Len Deighton, was a military historian, not a former intelligence officer like Ian Fleming, or John Le Carré. Espionage stories written by ex-practitioners tended to be very pro-British, and slightly blinkered in terms of international politics. Deighton could stand back and look at the big picture, seeing both side of the political (and literal) wall acting as appallingly as each other. Palmer’s upper-class superiors are cast as the same manipulative control freaks as their KGB counterparts.
As spy thrillers of the 60s go, this is way above the likes of James Bond, but because it wasn’t flashy, patriotic, or particularly sexy, it couldn’t compete. Let’s hope with a new adaptation of John Le Carrés Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy coming out in 2011, that these works get dug out for a much deserved reappraisal.
