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xsBusiness - Ipcress File
![Ipcress File]()
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List Price: $14.98
Our Price: $6.99
Your Save: $ 7.99 ( 53% )
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Manufacturer: Universal Studios
Starring: Michael Caine, Nigel Green, Guy Doleman, Sue Lloyd, Gordon Jackson
Directed By: Sidney J. Furie
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9786300185838
Format: Color
ISBN: 6300185834
Label: Universal Studios
Manufacturer: Universal Studios
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Universal Studios
Release Date: 1992-03-01
Running Time: 109
Studio: Universal Studios
Theatrical Release Date: 1965-08-02
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: "Spy High"
Comment: Maurice Micklewhite (Michael Caine) has always been one of my favorite actors. I saw this 007 Era movie when it was first released and watched it again more recently. It is a FAB movie. It has lost nothing over time and can even be more appreciated today. Caine is very magnetic as the oh so sexy but slightly nerdy instrument of espionage. A great, suspenseful movie that is effective without all the 007 gimmicks.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Palmer, Harry Palmer...
Comment: 1965's "The Ipcress File" is an extremely well executed dramatization of Len Deighton's excellent spy novel of the same name. In one of his earlier roles, Michael Caine stars as British secret agent Harry Palmer, working class spy but smarter and tougher than he looks.
Palmer is assigned to a mysterious case in which top British scientists disappear for a few days, then reappear having been brainwashed to uselessness. The only clue is a fragment of recording tape with the word "Ipcress." Whoever is kidnapping the scientists is prepared to kill to protect the process, as Palmer's colleagues discover. When Palmer gets too close to the secret, he too is kidnapped. Palmer will struggle for his freedom and his very sanity to complete his mission.
The movie borrows the crisp, snappy dialogue of the original novel, while Michael Caine nicely captures Harry Palmer's working class, anti-James Bond personna. While the plotline is perhaps deliberately opaque, the direction is crisp and the movie uses a variety of intriguing shooting angles to add to the suspense, which builds nicely to a surprise ending.
This movie is highly recommended to fans of Michael Caine and of Len Deighton, who will find this a dated but still very enjoyable film.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Pretty good... IPCRESS FILE
Comment: Michael Caine plays ex-con turned spy Harry Palmer in this very cool British spy thriller from the 1960s. His understated performance and the great and stylish directing of Sidney J. Furie really lift this movie several echelons above other films in the genre. Also, a nice score by John Barry (from 007 fame) adds to make this one of the classics of the time period. highly recommended, especially for michael caine fans.
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Summary: The Non-Glamorous, "Gourmet" Spy
Comment: "The Ipcress File," is first in a series of three movies made from Len Deighton books, produced by Harry Saltsman, directed by Sidney J. Furie, and with a sound track by John Barry, all of them apparently taking breaks from their other, more famous spy series, the James Bond 007s. As one of Michael Caine's earlier films, it undoubtedly helped make him a star. However, as most people would say, he's the anti-Bond in this series, cockney accented before it was cool, wearing glasses and ill-fitting suits, living in a humdrum flat, and taking busses where he needs to go. Harry Palmer, Caine's character, further differs from 007 in that he's not a spy by choice; he just prefers it to going to jail for wartime fiddles in the not particularly glamorous, nor applauded, Quartermasters' Corps. And poor Harry, at least in this movie, never goes anywhere glamorous. No Caribbean island for him: it's all damp, cold England.
This movie finds Palmer seconded to a new, secret, domestic spying bureacracy, assigned to a puzzling case: important British scientists are disappearing, and coming back useless. His supervisors hope his rebellious streak, his non-organization man personality-- his sheer rudeness to his betters--may help him prevail where several others have failed.
It's a tightly plotted, entertaining movie, and takes a lot of flavor from its London setting. It's a particular favorite of mine, since I always thought the young Michael Caine to be quite a tasty dish. Supporting players are well-cast; however, not much has been seen of Sue Lloyd, Palmer's love interest before or since. (Not that many Bond girls have had outstanding careers, either.) Finally, for reasons unknown, the two CIA men important to the plot are made to virtually wear flashing red "Notice Me" signs: one, already noticeably black, also wears broken glasses mended with cellophane tape.
The movie is also remarkable as a snapshot of the mid 1960's, a time when England was still very much as it had always been, but was about to change, and London was about to start swinging. The smoke in the spies' office is so thick that, considering they also work in a dangerous trade, Her Majesty's Government is unlikely ever to have to give any of them pensions. Supervisors wear fine Savile Row suits, drive elite cars, and enjoy their private clubs. Military bands play in the parks. And yet, the Ipcress File, when we do actually see it, is a psychedelic light show that might accompany any of the new rock and roll bands.
When Ross, Palmer's ultimate supervisor, finds his employee pushing a cart in an American-style supermarket, he remarks that he does not care for this new American style of grocery-shopping, surely very different from the small, full-service grocery stores that were mainstays of British life. (Although it's doubtful that any Englishman of Ross's stature bought his own groceries at that time.) And Ross echoes the widely held view that Palmer is a gourmet cook: doesn't he buy fancy French canned mushrooms, labeled "Champignons," in preference to plain old fresh English ones. What a gourmet is our Palmer.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Outstanding British espionage thriller
Comment: Michael Caine stars as reluctant, unregulated British secret agent Harry Palmer, a role which propelled him to stardom in "The Ipcress File". Filmed in the midst of the cold war and in competition with the popular James Bond series, this movie, the first of the Harry Palmer trilogy, has far more plausiblity.
Palmer, an ex-thief, food and music connoisseur and still a sergeant in the British army is transfered by his superior, intelligence agent Col. Ross played by Guy Doleman. His new boss Maj. Dalby played by the excellent authoritative South African star Nigel Green, assigns him to a sensitive mission. British scientists have been abducted, only to reappear soon thereafter with all their technical knowledge brainwashed from their memory.
Caine is put on the tail of suspected mastermind Dr. Grantby, a man with Albanian connections played by Frank Gatliff. He and his mates soon find an audio tape entitled Ipcress which seems to hold a key for the brainwashing scheme. Soon agents surrounding Caine begin getting killed and he is captured and also subjected to the Ipcress treatment. Apparently there is a double agent within the British service but who is it?
Michael Caine's low key and minimalistic portrayal of Palmer established a cool professional air envisioned by author Len Deighton, whose novel provided the basis for this film. Producer Harry Saltzman burned the candle at both ends, having produced nine of the James Bond flicks as well as the Harry Palmer trilogy.
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Editorial Reviews:
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In the spy-crazed film world of the 1960s, Len Deighton's antihero Harry Palmer burst onto the scene as an antidote to James Bond. Here was a British spy who had a working-class accent, horn-rimmed glasses, and above all really didn't want to be a spy in the first place. As portrayed by Michael Caine, Palmer was the perfect antithesis to Sean Connery's 007. Unlike the globetrotting spy's exotic locales, Palmer's beat is cold, rainy, and dreary London, where he spends his days and nights in unheated flats spying on subversives. He does charm one lady, but she's no Pussy Galore--just a civil servant he works with, sent to keep an eye on him. Eventually he's assigned to get to the bottom of the kidnapping and subsequent "brain draining" of a nuclear physicist, all the while being reminded by his superiors that it's this or prison. Things begin to get pretty hairy for Harry. Produced by Harry Saltzman in his time off from the James Bond series, the film also features a haunting score by another Bond veteran, composer John Barry. --Kristian St. Clair
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