Reporting For Duty
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Categories
Harry Palmer returns
mtm
United Kingdom
Very interesting to see that ITV are making a big lavish adaptation of The Ipcress File (first made by Harry Saltzman at the same time he was making Bond movies and starring Michael Caine with a John Barry soundtrack), featuring the flipside to 007's 60s spy crown, Harry Palmer.
Joe Cole is the new Palmer with a script by Trainspotting's John Hodge, and it sounds rather impressive:
https://deadline.com/2020/12/itv-the-ipcress-file-john-hodge-joe-cole-lucy-boynton-tom-hollander-1234653664/
The adaptation will be penned by BAFTA-winning Trainspotting writer John Hodge, while the cast will be led by Gangs Of London and Peaky Blinders star Joe Cole, alongside Bohemian Rhapsody actress Lucy Boynton, and The Night Manager’s Tom Hollander. The Crown and Rush producer Andrew Eaton will serve as an executive producer, while the six-part Berlin-set series will be helmed by McMafia and Black Mirror director James Watkins.
Joe Cole is the new Palmer with a script by Trainspotting's John Hodge, and it sounds rather impressive:
https://deadline.com/2020/12/itv-the-ipcress-file-john-hodge-joe-cole-lucy-boynton-tom-hollander-1234653664/
The adaptation will be penned by BAFTA-winning Trainspotting writer John Hodge, while the cast will be led by Gangs Of London and Peaky Blinders star Joe Cole, alongside Bohemian Rhapsody actress Lucy Boynton, and The Night Manager’s Tom Hollander. The Crown and Rush producer Andrew Eaton will serve as an executive producer, while the six-part Berlin-set series will be helmed by McMafia and Black Mirror director James Watkins.
^ Back to Top
The MI6 Community is unofficial and in no way associated or linked with EON Productions, MGM, Sony Pictures, Activision or Ian Fleming Publications. Any views expressed on this website are of the individual members and do not necessarily reflect those of the Community owners. Any video or images displayed in topics on MI6 Community are embedded by users from third party sites and as such MI6 Community and its owners take no responsibility for this material.
James Bond News • James Bond Articles • James Bond Magazine
Comments
I re watched this last year, Mia Sarah was the highlight.
Personally my favourite of the films was Funeral in Berlin.
I've always loved Billion Dollar Brain, largely due to how perverse it is to see Ken Russell attempt (and fail) to make a normal movie.
His visual and editing sense is so on point though, that I would have genuinely liked to have seen him tackle an official Bond film.
It's the most Bond-ish of the three and I do think it starts quite well (and there's a little bit of pervy in there for Russell fans!) but it gets quite flat in the middle I think.
The locations are wonderfully striking though, it makes you wonder why more Cold War films didn't go to Finland, it's perfect.
As for the films, the first two are the best, followed by the two 90's films, then the 3rd film last.
The Ipcress File and Funeral in Berlin are both wonderful films. They are bursting with 1960s chic from every pore and they are oozing genuine Cold War tasty goodness, probably because they genuinely are sixties films, made at the time rather than decades later. They are authentic.
I’m not entirely confident that a 2020s remake will recapture that lightning
Well, we shall see, I suppose
Yeah, from the synopsis alone it sounds like they'll be adding to the book (this sounds like we'll see the origin story that the books mention), but then the film wasn't exactly faithful so I think there's no problem with another version.
I quite like that they've stuck to the Palmer name though. I wonder if he'll get the glasses! :)
Yes there's no doubt it won't feel as genuinely 60s as those (a good argument for not doing period Bond films like people keep asking for) but I don't think the character works outside of that.
It really is. John Huston made good use of it in the Kremlin Letter, though that tends to be another one of those "love it or hate it" films.
https://www.theknowledgeonline.com/the-knowledge-bulletin/post/2020/12/10/the-ipcress-file-to-shoot-in-liverpool-and-croatia-
Indeed, there's always room for another version (though I doubt it will be as good as the film!). The advantage with a TV adaption, is that they can flesh out the story quite a bit, and that's really interesting.
I really hope they'll give him the Michael Caine glasses. It's hard to imagine a Harry Palmer without them!
Still, there's some valid points:
"Sometimes we start at Z and work backwards, just for fun."
"Dead? But of course he's dead. His death certificate says so."
I'd still like to see these two later Palmer movies. I like Mia Sara, she's a good actress.
The first two are superb but BILLION DOLLAR BRAIN is the most outlandish and even satirical. If I have a complaint, it's that Palmer's character isn't always consistent -- in THE IPCRESS FILE he's supposed to be a gourmet cook but in BILLION DOLLAR BRAIN he's living on Corn Flakes.
Caine and Saltzman were at one point planning to collaborate on another Palmer adventure based on the second novel, Horse Under Water, but that obviously didn't happen.
I really enjoyed reading Horse Under Water. Who knows? If this upcoming series is a success, maybe they'll look to adapt it.
I thought Palmer stayed pretty consistent: I like the way everyone thinks they're getting one over on him and using him as a pawn until right at the end he shows how he's been quietly cleverer and switched the game on them. A lot of that is down to Caine's magnetically still performance, it'll be interesting to see a new version of Palmer.
Somehow the character name alone is pretty cool so I'm happy for him to be back! :)
It took me a while to get into Horse Under Water too, but it got better in the second half. I hope to read Billion Dollar Brain this Christmas – the only book in the series I haven't yet read.
He's very good. And he's a nicely offbeat choice, which piques my interest.
I know you can't go by a synopsis, but it sounds like they might be leaning on Palmer's insubordination a bit more in this one: in the Caine movies he was often accused of it but really didn't do much more than make a couple of sarky quips under his breath, I feel like maybe they want to use that a bit more strongly this time.
I've found him thoroughly underwhelming and borderline irritating in anything I've seen him in. Maybe he'll surprise me.
Given that about 40% of it is going to be shot on location overseas, it looks like they may be sticking to the novel a little more closely. Unlike the film, 99% of it didn't take place in London.
In a way, I'm glad they picked a very un-Caine actor because it means they might be trying to go in a different direction.
Yes that might work. If they stick too closely to Caine then they’re just setting themselves up to fail, really.
I might be a lone voice here but overall I think that the film version of Funeral in Berlin is actually better than the book. The climax to the novel takes place during a fireworks night in London (really!) and I think that moving the climax to Berlin was a good decision.
Must admit I've never read it as I've never really found Deighton all that gripping, and I just like the feel and look of the movie too much to bother with trying to imagine it! :) Plus Caine says the lines better than my head does :D
It is a shame that this new TV show won't ever be able to do 60s Berlin as well as Funeral did of course. Although it might be able to do a goodish job of East Berlin, it's going to be tough for Croatia to get that lovely concrete modernism feel of the city that's so evocative. Maybe some of Liverpool can, I don't know. There's the cathedral of course.
Yeah, Berlin will be tough to recreate but I'm guessing a mixture of both locations plus a healthy dose of CGI should do the trick.
I'm actually a bit surprised that they aren't going to make the whole show in Berlin considering how good the German tax credits are.