As said above this is the sequel to “The Ipcress File”, which the posters are naturally keen to push as one of the selling points of the film along with the presence of the now established Michael Caine in the starring role so yes, not much variety. I've still got my paperback (British version)! Along with a few other films of the period the plot and some action centre on the still relatively new Berlin Wall.
It was even newer in the novel by the recently deceased Len Deighton. The film simplifies the plot, which some might say is no bad thing since the book is almost incomprehensible on first reading, while retaining most of the characters. Eva Renzi plays the leading lady (who has various names) and is dubbed by our own Nikki van der Zyl. Another Bond alumnus is Guy Doleman as Palmer’s boss Colonel Ross (this is another simplification from the novels), who had played Count Lippe in TB. The most important Bond veteran here (apart from Harry Saltzman as producer of the whole Harry Palmer series) is director Guy Hamilton, doing a masterful job of creating intrigue while keeping the plot points as clear as possible.
Yes, the now very busy John Barry (5 or 6 films/TV shows this year – his first two Oscars were on their way) didn’t return, the music here being provided by one Konrad Elfers.
The whole film is stolen by Oscar Homolka as Colonel Stok, whose cheerfulness masks his iron character. Stok would return in the next Palmer movie.
Those UNCLE guys return in another edited two-parter with a great turn from Rip Torn as the bad guy. Yvonne Craig (the Bond movies missed out on casting her) acted out scenes not in the television episodes.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
60s-cool posters, quite inventive within their boundaries. I like no5 and the French one.
Alas, the movie is definitely a downstep from the previous entry. Formula has taken over, and apart from a few moments (eg the pendulum part) this is no match for it's predecessors.
Yvonne Craig was once Batgirl and her added scenes go a bit further than tv would allow back then. Just a little - Bond films level, without the class. I believe some parts of the tv episodes this was derived from were taken out to make room, though I don't know which (never seen those ones).
My favourite non-Bond spy movie. Some sources date this as 1965 because it got a Canada showing on 29th December but the US release was 16th January so 1966 is the official date used, as per the lobby card below. This was James Coburn’s first starring role as the lead actor, he had had an impressive line-up of supporting roles in previous films. He really is the King of Cool, cooler than McQueen in my eyes, and is in my top 10 favourite actors list.
The movie tie-in book is pretty good and includes scenes not in the released movie. That’s not unusual for tie-ins as the author uses the original screenplay which is usually altered many times during production.
Over to you, Barbel.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
Yes, Coburn really was the King of Cool in this, a sharp 007 spoof much better than the Matt Helm films and others of the era. I have to admit that, although I prefer Helm personally.
There's a short scene where he runs into a character he calls 0008 who looks very like Sean Connery and they stage a bar fight (which of course Flint wins).
Lee J. Cobb is equally straight-facedly funny as his boss, and the sound of his telephone ringing when the President calls is hilarious.
Jerry Goldsmith's music fits right in, again being OTT and straight-faced at the same time.
The sequel "In Like Flint"* wasn't quite as good, and there's a little known third film, made for tv and not starring James Coburn.
*a riff on an old saying "In Like Flynn" ie Errol Flynn, the old movie star legendarily irresistible to women.
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 31,111Chief of Staff
Fabulous posters…I’ve seen the two Coburn/Flint movies, but hadn’t heard of the third one Barbel mentions…🤔
Both Flint films are very enjoyable…as stated the first is the better one though…
I’m a little surprised these films haven’t be remade or ‘reimagined’ over the last decade…
Likeable spy spoof that stars a host of well known actors, the low budget shows but the story is something that Hitchcock would have had fun with. It was renamed Bang! Bang! You’reDead in the US. The range of posters is interesting, the UK went Bond style, the US with a comedic style and other territories with a serious spy style. The film is a little of each. Well worth watching.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 31,111Chief of Staff
Love the first poster…quite a few Bond references in some of them 😁
Just watched the trailer - looks fairly amusing, and has a good cast too…with one scene reminding me of one almost identical in QoS 🤭
Yes, some very Bondian references there - especially no5 which refers to a Bond film which hadn't been made yet! That's amazing marketing.
Gosh, this one made so little an impression on me that I can't pull it out of my ageing memory and distinguish it from so many others. Senta Berger, as I've definitely mentioned before, was a frequent presence in 60s spy movies (eg Matt Helm, Quiller) and Terry-Thomas doing his usual schtick was in one or two as well.
This would be at the peak of Tony Randall's movie stardom. Always likeable and at his best in light comedy.
The one thing I do remember well is that, and I make no apology for mentioning it again because these movies do it again and again, it uses the standard plot of an innocent civilian (Randall here, obviously) becoming involved in espionage which is the main reason it doesn't stand out. That and Senta Berger, of course.
I suppose there must have been fans of Doris Day back in the 50s and 60s as she made a load of movies, I’ve never understood why though. I hadn’t seen this before but for the sake of research I watched it a few nights ago and wished I hadn’t. To say it’s poor would be to inflate its worth. Rod Taylor is back in another 60s spy mania movie and he’s the only decent thing in it. It was retitled as The Spy In Lace Panties but Day has the appeal of a week old loaf of bread.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
Yup, Doris Day is the innocent civilian who finds herself caught up in espionage. Naturally (at least for the time; things might be handled differently today) she doesn't meet beautiful ladies but a handsome man, Rod Taylor.
It's all played for comedy, and pretty weakly too. Saw it on tv many years ago and did manage to last till the end, but wouldn't watch it again.
We get to the halfway point in this series and it’s the turn of the fairer sex to lead the way (Babs Windsor notwithstanding). For a change there is a good wide range of differing artwork on the posters.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
Nice variety of posters there. I'm sure the sixth is from the wrong film, though.
I'm sure we've covered Modesty Blaise in detail before, so I'll just mention that she was created by Peter O'Donnell for a long running comic strip which spawned a series of novels.
The film was directed in a ridiculous way by Joseph Losey - blatant continuity errors, the main characters changing their hair colour at random, showy photography - and was very unfaithful to the original characters, especially when Modesty and her friend Willie decide to get married. And then sing and dance about their love. Anyone who's read the books will know how wrong this is.
O'Donnell was extremely unhappy about what the film was doing to his characters (his screenplay was almost totally ignored) and continued to express his unhappiness every chance he got for the rest of his life.
It was not a success at the box office, so if there had been plans to make more (I don't know) they were cancelled.
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 31,111Chief of Staff
I do like the first poster…but, having heard it’s quite a poor movie, I’ve never seen this either…
Supposedly from an idea by Ian Fleming. This didn’t get a UK release until 1967 but it was shown in most other territories in 1966. The title Danger Grows Wild was only used in the UK, it had other titles elsewhere as shown below. When I saw this upon release I was excited by Harold Sakata being in it.
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
Good posters, but a terrible film. It has big names both behind and in front of the camera but it's a dull mess of a movie, changing scenes abruptly to accommodate whoever of the cast could fit in a day or two's shooting - a bit like CR67, but not played for laughs. I watched it once, never again.
Fleming’s name is prominent (more prominent than in the Bond films after GF) obviously as a sales pitch, and Young's Bond connection gets pushed as well. Not recommended.
Sir MilesThe Wrong Side Of The WardrobePosts: 31,111Chief of Staff
That’s some cast list…another one to add to the “not to watch” list 👀
The thing with movies with terrible reputations is that I have to see them (applies to pre-80s movies) just for fun (I don’t always get to see them to the end though).
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
Silhouette ManThe last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 9,330MI6 Agent
edited July 17
Modesty Blaise is one mad film! Deliberate continuity errors and people being in more than one place at once in the same scene (the sheik guy). There's a good interview with the author Peter O'Donnell on the extras menu on the My Name Is Modesty DVD. I think O'Donnell said that he only recognised one line that he'd written in his original script in the finished film so it was a travesty of his book. Still, Modesty Blaise remained very popular and he kept on writing about her up until 1996.
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
The 3rd is my favourite. Some artists have been rather interpretive in their renderings of George Segal, though Alec Guinness is instantly recognisable - "these aren't the memoranda you're looking for" ....
Adam Hall (aka Elleston Trevor) wrote a series of books about bleakly professional agent Quiller. As well as this film (book entitled "The Berlin Memorandum") there was a TV series in the 70s starring Michael Jayston. Low budget and mostly studio bound, and IIRC it only adapted one book, the rest of the episodes being written for the series. Good theme tune, though.
Speaking of which, John Barry composed a nursery rhyme like theme for the film called "Wednesday's Child" as a deliberate contrast to the cold action onscreen. It's haunting, and there's also a vocal version from our own Matt Monro.
There are some nice shots of mid-60s Berlin, some even on the always crowded Ku'damm.
Alec Guinness and Max von Sydow (Blofeld in NSNA, of course) have no difficulty being cold and unemotional, though accepting George Segal as Quiller is a bit harder. Oh look, there's Senta Berger - this must be a 60s spy movie, then.
Good posters, I'd say they're better than the film.
Paul Newman was keen to work with Hitchcock. Julie Andrews was keen to lose her sugar sweet image. Unfortunately they picked the wrong film, with Hitch being off-form and appearing barely interested if the movie's anything to go by.
It's dull and drab, and there's no chemistry between Andrews and Newman. They're more like two people waiting on a bus than an engaged couple.
The most remembered scene is the protracted killing of a KGB (or whatever, I'm not watching it again) agent in a farmhouse. It drags on without much sense of tension - and this is from Hitchcock? The film does get a little better towards the end, but it's a long slog to get there.
Composer Bernard Herrmann had formed a fruitful and satisfying collaboration with Hitchcock (go on, think of "Psycho". You're hearing those violins shriek, aren't you?) but they quarrelled here and that sadly came to an end. The replacement score was unmemorable.
I'd agree with that summary @Barbel. Torn Curtain was the beginning of a sudden decline for Hitch IMO. There was a Julie Andrews documentary on telly a few weeks back and it completely skipped over the film - which I found remarkable given the status of the director and his famous love for blonde actresses. It would have been nice to get a few posies of info. The replacement score is by the underrated John Addison, although I don't remember being impressed by it. Like you, I have not seen the film for decades. Halliwell's calls it 'patchy Hitchcock with some mechanically effective suspense sequences, a couple of efforts at something new, a few miscalculations, some evidence of carelessness, and a little enjoyable repetition of old situations.' It gets two stars. I must have been watching a different movie.
Comments
As said above this is the sequel to “The Ipcress File”, which the posters are naturally keen to push as one of the selling points of the film along with the presence of the now established Michael Caine in the starring role so yes, not much variety. I've still got my paperback (British version)! Along with a few other films of the period the plot and some action centre on the still relatively new Berlin Wall.
It was even newer in the novel by the recently deceased Len Deighton. The film simplifies the plot, which some might say is no bad thing since the book is almost incomprehensible on first reading, while retaining most of the characters. Eva Renzi plays the leading lady (who has various names) and is dubbed by our own Nikki van der Zyl. Another Bond alumnus is Guy Doleman as Palmer’s boss Colonel Ross (this is another simplification from the novels), who had played Count Lippe in TB. The most important Bond veteran here (apart from Harry Saltzman as producer of the whole Harry Palmer series) is director Guy Hamilton, doing a masterful job of creating intrigue while keeping the plot points as clear as possible.
Yes, the now very busy John Barry (5 or 6 films/TV shows this year – his first two Oscars were on their way) didn’t return, the music here being provided by one Konrad Elfers.
The whole film is stolen by Oscar Homolka as Colonel Stok, whose cheerfulness masks his iron character. Stok would return in the next Palmer movie.
Edit: for more details see https://www.ajb007.co.uk/discussion/46150/the-60s-bond-rivals-2-harry-palmer/p1
Great posters…good film 😁
Ah, now I see .... FIB.
😀 and the sequel is BDB.....
60s SPY MANIA #21/50 ONE SPY TOO MANY (1966)
Those UNCLE guys return in another edited two-parter with a great turn from Rip Torn as the bad guy. Yvonne Craig (the Bond movies missed out on casting her) acted out scenes not in the television episodes.
60s-cool posters, quite inventive within their boundaries. I like no5 and the French one.
Alas, the movie is definitely a downstep from the previous entry. Formula has taken over, and apart from a few moments (eg the pendulum part) this is no match for it's predecessors.
Yvonne Craig was once Batgirl and her added scenes go a bit further than tv would allow back then. Just a little - Bond films level, without the class. I believe some parts of the tv episodes this was derived from were taken out to make room, though I don't know which (never seen those ones).
60s SPY MANIA #22/50 OUR MAN FLINT (1966)
My favourite non-Bond spy movie. Some sources date this as 1965 because it got a Canada showing on 29th December but the US release was 16th January so 1966 is the official date used, as per the lobby card below. This was James Coburn’s first starring role as the lead actor, he had had an impressive line-up of supporting roles in previous films. He really is the King of Cool, cooler than McQueen in my eyes, and is in my top 10 favourite actors list.
The movie tie-in book is pretty good and includes scenes not in the released movie. That’s not unusual for tie-ins as the author uses the original screenplay which is usually altered many times during production.
Over to you, Barbel.
Love those posters!
Yes, Coburn really was the King of Cool in this, a sharp 007 spoof much better than the Matt Helm films and others of the era. I have to admit that, although I prefer Helm personally.
There's a short scene where he runs into a character he calls 0008 who looks very like Sean Connery and they stage a bar fight (which of course Flint wins).
Lee J. Cobb is equally straight-facedly funny as his boss, and the sound of his telephone ringing when the President calls is hilarious.
Jerry Goldsmith's music fits right in, again being OTT and straight-faced at the same time.
The sequel "In Like Flint"* wasn't quite as good, and there's a little known third film, made for tv and not starring James Coburn.
*a riff on an old saying "In Like Flynn" ie Errol Flynn, the old movie star legendarily irresistible to women.
Fabulous posters…I’ve seen the two Coburn/Flint movies, but hadn’t heard of the third one Barbel mentions…🤔
Both Flint films are very enjoyable…as stated the first is the better one though…
I’m a little surprised these films haven’t be remade or ‘reimagined’ over the last decade…
60s SPY MANIA #23/50 OUR MAN IN MARRAKESH (1966)
Likeable spy spoof that stars a host of well known actors, the low budget shows but the story is something that Hitchcock would have had fun with. It was renamed Bang! Bang! You’re Dead in the US. The range of posters is interesting, the UK went Bond style, the US with a comedic style and other territories with a serious spy style. The film is a little of each. Well worth watching.
Love the first poster…quite a few Bond references in some of them 😁
Just watched the trailer - looks fairly amusing, and has a good cast too…with one scene reminding me of one almost identical in QoS 🤭
Yes, some very Bondian references there - especially no5 which refers to a Bond film which hadn't been made yet! That's amazing marketing.
Gosh, this one made so little an impression on me that I can't pull it out of my ageing memory and distinguish it from so many others. Senta Berger, as I've definitely mentioned before, was a frequent presence in 60s spy movies (eg Matt Helm, Quiller) and Terry-Thomas doing his usual schtick was in one or two as well.
This would be at the peak of Tony Randall's movie stardom. Always likeable and at his best in light comedy.
The one thing I do remember well is that, and I make no apology for mentioning it again because these movies do it again and again, it uses the standard plot of an innocent civilian (Randall here, obviously) becoming involved in espionage which is the main reason it doesn't stand out. That and Senta Berger, of course.
I watched it a few years ago. Some of the posters are better than the film.
60s SPY MANIA #24/50 THE GLASS BOTTOM BOAT (1966)
I suppose there must have been fans of Doris Day back in the 50s and 60s as she made a load of movies, I’ve never understood why though. I hadn’t seen this before but for the sake of research I watched it a few nights ago and wished I hadn’t. To say it’s poor would be to inflate its worth. Rod Taylor is back in another 60s spy mania movie and he’s the only decent thing in it. It was retitled as The Spy In Lace Panties but Day has the appeal of a week old loaf of bread.
I don't think any of those posters would have pulled me in to see this film at the time and certainly they wouldn't now.
You have exactly one guess as to the basic plot this film uses.
Yup, Doris Day is the innocent civilian who finds herself caught up in espionage. Naturally (at least for the time; things might be handled differently today) she doesn't meet beautiful ladies but a handsome man, Rod Taylor.
It's all played for comedy, and pretty weakly too. Saw it on tv many years ago and did manage to last till the end, but wouldn't watch it again.
60s SPY MANIA #25/50 MODESTY BLAISE (1966)
We get to the halfway point in this series and it’s the turn of the fairer sex to lead the way (Babs Windsor notwithstanding). For a change there is a good wide range of differing artwork on the posters.
Nice variety of posters there. I'm sure the sixth is from the wrong film, though.
I'm sure we've covered Modesty Blaise in detail before, so I'll just mention that she was created by Peter O'Donnell for a long running comic strip which spawned a series of novels.
The film was directed in a ridiculous way by Joseph Losey - blatant continuity errors, the main characters changing their hair colour at random, showy photography - and was very unfaithful to the original characters, especially when Modesty and her friend Willie decide to get married. And then sing and dance about their love. Anyone who's read the books will know how wrong this is.
O'Donnell was extremely unhappy about what the film was doing to his characters (his screenplay was almost totally ignored) and continued to express his unhappiness every chance he got for the rest of his life.
It was not a success at the box office, so if there had been plans to make more (I don't know) they were cancelled.
I do like the first poster…but, having heard it’s quite a poor movie, I’ve never seen this either…
@Barbel wrote: blatant continuity errors - as bad as my mistake in posting a picture of an unrelated movie 😁
Modesty Blaise is all wrong right from initial casting. The book is pretty good. Neat posters [Girl with a Pistol accepted...]
60s SPY MANIA #26/50 DANGER GROWS WILD (1966)
Supposedly from an idea by Ian Fleming. This didn’t get a UK release until 1967 but it was shown in most other territories in 1966. The title Danger Grows Wild was only used in the UK, it had other titles elsewhere as shown below. When I saw this upon release I was excited by Harold Sakata being in it.
Good posters, but a terrible film. It has big names both behind and in front of the camera but it's a dull mess of a movie, changing scenes abruptly to accommodate whoever of the cast could fit in a day or two's shooting - a bit like CR67, but not played for laughs. I watched it once, never again.
Fleming’s name is prominent (more prominent than in the Bond films after GF) obviously as a sales pitch, and Young's Bond connection gets pushed as well. Not recommended.
That’s some cast list…another one to add to the “not to watch” list 👀
The thing with movies with terrible reputations is that I have to see them (applies to pre-80s movies) just for fun (I don’t always get to see them to the end though).
Modesty Blaise is one mad film! Deliberate continuity errors and people being in more than one place at once in the same scene (the sheik guy). There's a good interview with the author Peter O'Donnell on the extras menu on the My Name Is Modesty DVD. I think O'Donnell said that he only recognised one line that he'd written in his original script in the finished film so it was a travesty of his book. Still, Modesty Blaise remained very popular and he kept on writing about her up until 1996.
60s SPY MANIA #27/50 THE QUILLER MEMORANDUM (1966)
This is the 4th movie that Austrian actress Senta Berger has appeared in during this spy mania series, and it won’t be the last.
The 3rd is my favourite. Some artists have been rather interpretive in their renderings of George Segal, though Alec Guinness is instantly recognisable - "these aren't the memoranda you're looking for" ....
Adam Hall (aka Elleston Trevor) wrote a series of books about bleakly professional agent Quiller. As well as this film (book entitled "The Berlin Memorandum") there was a TV series in the 70s starring Michael Jayston. Low budget and mostly studio bound, and IIRC it only adapted one book, the rest of the episodes being written for the series. Good theme tune, though.
Speaking of which, John Barry composed a nursery rhyme like theme for the film called "Wednesday's Child" as a deliberate contrast to the cold action onscreen. It's haunting, and there's also a vocal version from our own Matt Monro.
There are some nice shots of mid-60s Berlin, some even on the always crowded Ku'damm.
Alec Guinness and Max von Sydow (Blofeld in NSNA, of course) have no difficulty being cold and unemotional, though accepting George Segal as Quiller is a bit harder. Oh look, there's Senta Berger - this must be a 60s spy movie, then.
60s SPY MANIA #28/50 TORN CURTAIN (1966)
It was Paul Newman’s turn to get into an espionage plot under the direction of Alfred Hitchcock.
Good posters, I'd say they're better than the film.
Paul Newman was keen to work with Hitchcock. Julie Andrews was keen to lose her sugar sweet image. Unfortunately they picked the wrong film, with Hitch being off-form and appearing barely interested if the movie's anything to go by.
It's dull and drab, and there's no chemistry between Andrews and Newman. They're more like two people waiting on a bus than an engaged couple.
The most remembered scene is the protracted killing of a KGB (or whatever, I'm not watching it again) agent in a farmhouse. It drags on without much sense of tension - and this is from Hitchcock? The film does get a little better towards the end, but it's a long slog to get there.
Composer Bernard Herrmann had formed a fruitful and satisfying collaboration with Hitchcock (go on, think of "Psycho". You're hearing those violins shriek, aren't you?) but they quarrelled here and that sadly came to an end. The replacement score was unmemorable.
I'd agree with that summary @Barbel. Torn Curtain was the beginning of a sudden decline for Hitch IMO. There was a Julie Andrews documentary on telly a few weeks back and it completely skipped over the film - which I found remarkable given the status of the director and his famous love for blonde actresses. It would have been nice to get a few posies of info. The replacement score is by the underrated John Addison, although I don't remember being impressed by it. Like you, I have not seen the film for decades. Halliwell's calls it 'patchy Hitchcock with some mechanically effective suspense sequences, a couple of efforts at something new, a few miscalculations, some evidence of carelessness, and a little enjoyable repetition of old situations.' It gets two stars. I must have been watching a different movie.