The great Joe Cole plays the spy in the series ‘The Ipcress File’, a role Michael Caine has already played in up to five films
It is clear that the collapse of the platforms has not gone hand in hand with new and brilliant ideas. Yes, it’s being produced more than ever, and yes, a little digging, you can find gems like that ‘Udone’, of which Prime Video just released the second season, or ‘Kidding’, the fiction about the duel produced by Showtime and starring Jim Carrey, which was broadcast in our country by Movistar Plus+. However, most of the offerings that eventually make it to the platforms smell like something already seen, low risk and, in some cases, a rewording of the stories that triumphed decades ago.
What happens is that in some cases, the care and affection that these proposals convey makes them a tasty delicacy. Here’s what’s happening with “Harry Palmer: The Ippress File,” the new fiction Movistar Plus+ has been broadcasting since last week, at the rate of one chapter per Monday. Structured into six chapters, the series marks the return of one of Britain’s most beloved spies, with the permission of James Bond himself.
The tallest one in town will know his name, as Michael Caine has already put himself in Harry’s shoes in three films ‘Ipcress’ (1965), ‘Funeral in Berlin’ (1966) and ‘A brain of a billion dollar’ (1967) , as well as in two feature films for television, already outside the novels that Len Deighton wrote between the 1960s and 1970s: ‘The Beijing Express’ (1995) and ‘Midnight in Saint Petersburg’ (1996).
Because yes, the portrait of this determined and cynical working class intelligence officer was first drawn in the books written by Deighton, an author now 93 years old whose works, in addition to the spy novels for which he became known, are cookbooks, history and military history. After completing military service with the Royal Air Force, Leighton graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1955 and worked his way through various jobs before becoming an illustrator of books and magazines. Not surprisingly, in 1957 he was responsible for the first British edition of Kerouac’s ‘On the Road’. A few years later, during a long vacation in France, Leighton wrote his first novel, ‘The Ipcrees File’, in which it was published in 1962. It was such a success that it spawned six more novels, all focusing on this unusual spy. .
Interestingly enough, the main character didn’t even have a name. That was a problem when adapting to the big screen, so the film production team managed to set one up. They chose the most mundane and understated possible, to distance it from the sonorous Bond of Ian Fleming, who by then had three hugely successful films. Caine tells in his memoir that producer Saltzman first came up with the last name Palmer and then asked the actor, “What’s the most boring name you can think of?” Without hesitation, Caine answered Harry, not realizing that was also the producer’s name. That idea of the anonymous protagonist also created a curious situation: When “Spy Story” was adapted for the big screen in 1976, the character changed his name to Patrick Armstrong. On that occasion, Michael Petrovitch put himself in the spy’s shoes.
Caine is much Caine, but it must be acknowledged that John Hodge (screenwriter of ‘Trainspotting’ and ‘The Beach’) and James Watkins (creator of ‘McMafia’), writer and director of fiction respectively, were right when it comes to Joe Cole – he gave birth to John Shelby in ‘Peaky Blinders’ and Sean Wallace in ‘Gangs of London’ – in the role of this British sergeant who, at the beginning of the fiction, is arrested for black market trafficking in Berlin in the middle of the Cold War. His salty look, his cold face and that intellectual demeanor are just perfect for a character who uses his intelligence more than his brute strength. After a few days in prison, Harry gets an offer from William Dalby (Tom Holander), a gentleman of the English intelligence service. They kidnapped an English nuclear scientist; if he manages to find him, he will lose his days in a cell.
With intelligent and elegant dialogue, where irony, sarcasm and bad drool are on almost every line, and a great setting, the first chapter of ‘Harry Palmer: The Ipcress File’ captivates. His careful and personal photography, which focuses on often tilting the camera in search of original frames, gives a modern touch to a rather classic content, as seen in the cinema of the sixties and seventies. As in a good spy and intrigue story, romance will not be lacking, as witnessed by the first tug-of-war between Harry Palmer and Jean Courtney, the British spy played by the great Lucy Boynton.
‘Harry Palmer: The Ippress File’ airs on Movistar Plus+.
Source: La Verdad
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