The Ipcress File (1965), separately produced by Bond bigwig Harry Saltzman offered an offbeat espionage alternative to Bondian capers in Harry Palmer, perfectly played by Michael Caine.
The only thing Palmer shares with 007 is his unbridled libido......he never fails to glance at whatever mini-skirt crosses his eyeline.
Other than that, he's a downtrodden civil servant, a British army sergeant whose black marketeering earned him not prison, but servitude as an MI6 spy for the imperious Col. Ross (Guy Doleman).
Ross generally despises Palmer for his deadpan insolence which Harry merely takes in his stride. For our reluctant smartass agent's latest mission, Ross lends Harry to a rival spymaster, Major Dalby (the equally snobbish Nigel Green). Dalby's on the trail of a lethal extortionist who's kidnapping top scientists and scrambling their brains before auctioning them off to the highest bidder.
What proved a terrific combination here was Caine's ultra-dry underplaying of this working class hero along with director Sidney Furie's visually stylish filmmaking......filled with tilted angles and sequences shot with a casual, cold flair.
Harry Palmer's spycraft, unlike Bond's, has more in common with an overworked police detective, running down clues and leads before returning home to cook himself a meal in his tiny apartment. (To make Harry extra anti-Bond, he can hardly see a thing without his signature horn-rimmed glasses.)
When Harry's forced to fight one of the villain's thugs, we only see some it from the back window of his car. And unlike the perfectly choreographed Bond battles, Harry's punch-up looks like a real fight.......ugly, clumsy and inconclusive
Then add on a deft, jazzy John Barry score (no 'Goldfinger' waaa-waaa brass here) and you're transported to a spy world entirely different from the Bond fantasy universe, which had hit its all time peak the same year "Ipcresss File" hit theaters.
But if you're willing to go with it, the film's just as thrilling, humorous and entertaining as any of the Bonds........
And that's why it's still a 4 star (****) diversion for us.
What's interesting about the three Harry Palmer feature films is that three different directors put their own stamp on each film. That Bond-ian Field Marshall Guy Hamilton took control of the next one "Funeral In Berlin" and wild man Ken Russell brought his own over-the-top craziness to "Billion Dollar Brain" (see our post of 3/11/17 on that one)
(We promise to cover "Funeral In Berlin" in the very near future.....stay tuned...)
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