Back in the 1960s, Sean Connery took the world by storm as the big screen incarnation of Ian Fleming’s James Bond. Of course, the Licence to Kill-wielding MI6 agent is just a fantasy and not much like actual British spooks.
In 1962, Len Deighton wrote The Ipcress Files, which was adapted into a spy movie starring Michael Caine as Intelligence Officer Harry Palmer. Despite having the same director, producer, production designer and composer of the Bond movies, the Palmer films were intentionally downbeat versions of 007.
Caine’s more realistic MI6 agent had a cockney accent, wore glasses and did his own cooking. A far cry from Fleming’s public school boy Bond.
Two more of Deighton’s Harry Palmer novels were adapted, with the second being Funeral in Berlin, which is on BBC Two this Saturday morning at 10:25am. The movie will be available to stream on BBC iPlayer for a limited time afterwards.