And considering how terrible its one fight scene is, it's certainly a blessing that it doesn't have any more. Two British agents are murdered by a mysterious Neo-Nazi organization in West Berlin. I havent watched too many movies from the 1960s in my lifetime, but the ones I have watched have been excellent (Von Ryans Express, Tony Rome, To Kill A Mockingbird, The Hustler, The Great Escape, etc, including this one.) [7][8], Learn how and when to remove this template message, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Quiller_Memorandum&oldid=1135714025, "Wednesday's Child" main theme (instrumental), "Wednesday's Child" vocal version (lyrics: Mack David / vocals: Matt Monro), "Have You Heard of a Man Called Jones?" Read 134 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. Unfortunately, the film is weighed down, not only by a ponderous script, but also by a miscast lead; instead of a heavy weight actor in the mold of a William Holden, George Segal was cast as Quiller. Quiller, however, escapes, and with Inges help, he discovers the location of Phoenixs headquarters. Watchlist. The sentences are generally clipped and abrupt, reminiscent of Simon Kernicks style wherenot a word is wasted, but predating him by a generation. Quiller slips out though a side door to the small garage yard where his car is kept. George Sanders and others back in London play the stock roles of arch SIS mandarins who love putting people down, wearing black tie and being the snobs that they are. What Adam Hall did extremely wellwas toget us readers inside the mind of an undercover operative. This reactionary quake in the spy genre was brief but seismic all the same. 1 hr 45 mins. . Book 4 stars, narration by Simon Prebble 4 stars. Another isQuillers refusal to carry a weapon hebelieves it lends the operative an over-confidence and cangive the opposition an opportunity to turn your firearm against you. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. Journeyman director Michael Andersons The Quiller Memorandum, which was as defiantly anti-Bond as you could get in 1966, has just been rescued from DVD mediocrity by the retro connoisseurs at Twilight Time and given a twenty-first-century Blu-ray upgrade. NR. With a screenplay by Harold Pinter and careful direction by Michael Anderson, the movie is more a violent-edged tale of probable, cynical betrayal by everyone we meet, with the main character, Quiller (George Segal), squeezed by those he works for, those he works against and even by the delectable German teacher, Inge Lendt (Senta Berger) he meets. In the West Berlin of the 1960s, two British agents are killed by a Nazi group, prompting British Intelligence to dispatch agent Quiller to investigate. This was a great movie and found Quillers character to be excellent. Movie Info After two British Secret Intelligence Service agents are murdered at the hands of a cryptic neo-Nazi group known as Phoenix, the suave agent Quiller (George Segal) is sent to Berlin to. Quiller, a British agent who works without gun, cover or contacts, takes on a neo-Nazi underground organization and its war criminal leader. An American agent is sent to Berlin to track down the leaders of a neo-Nazi organization, but when they . Thanks in advance. Director Michael Anderson Writers Trevor Dudley Smith (based on the novel by) Harold Pinter (screenplay) Stars George Segal Alec Guinness Max von Sydow See production, box office & company info In conclusion, having recently watched "Quiller's" almost exact contemporary "The Ipcress File", I have to say that I preferred the latter's more pointed narrative, down-home grittiness and star acting to the similar fare offered here. Inge tells him she loves him, and he tells her a phone number to call if he is not back in 20 minutes. See for instance DANDY IN ASPIC too, sooo complex and fascinating in the same time. Hall's truncated writing style contributes to this effect. That way theres no-one to betray him to the other side. Read more Try as he might though, he can't quite carry the lead here, lacking as he does the magnetism of Connery or the cynicism of Caine. Alec Guinness is excellent as a spy chief, and he gives a faint whiff of verisimilitude to this hopeless film. After all, his characters social unease and affectless personality are presumably components of the movies contra-Bond commitment. Get help and learn more about the design. His dry but quick Yiddish humor shines through on many occasions, providing diversions that masquerade his underlying desire to expose the antagonists' machinations. This repackaging includes some worthwhile special features like an isolated score track and commentary by film historians Eddy Friedfeld and Lee Pfeiffer of Cinema Retro magazine to go with the new format. Can someone explain it to me? Another characteristic of Halls style isthe ending of chapters with a cliff hanger. I recall being duly impressed by the menacing atmospherics, if much of it went over my head. How did I miss this film until just recently? This film has special meaning for me as I was living in Berlin during the filming and, subsequent screening in the city. Pol tells Quiller the fascist underground is far more organized and powerful in Germany than people believe. He quickly becomes involved with numerous people of suspicious motives and backgrounds, including Inge (Senta Berger), a teacher at a school where a former Nazi war criminal committed suicide. Pol dispatches a team to Phoenix's HQ, which successfully captures all of Phoenix's members. The film is ludicrous. In the mid-Sixties, the subgenre of the James Bond backlash film was becoming a crowded market. aka: The Quiller Memorandum the first in a series of 19 Quiller books. The whole thing, including these two actors, is as hollow as a shell. It's a more realistic or credible portrayal of how a single character copes with trying to get information in a dangerous environment. Set in 1950s Finland, during the Cold War, the books tell the story of a young police woman and budding detective who cuts against the grain when, John Fullertons powerful 1996 debut The Monkey House was set in war-torn Sarajevo and was right in the moment. Hes that good try the book and youll find out. Finally, paint the result in Barbie pink and baby blue That's more or less what happened to Adam Hall's spy novel for this movie. It's a bit strange to see such exquisitely Pinter-esque dialogue (the laconic, seemingly innocuous sentences; the profound silences; the syntax that isn't quite how real people actually talk) in a spy movie, but it really works. Written by Harold Pinter from the novel by Adam Hall Produced by Ivan Foxwell Directed by Michael Anderson Reviewed by Glenn Erickson The enormous success of James Bond made England the center of yet another worldwide cultural phenomenon. Quiller awakes in a dilapidated mansion, surrounded by many of the previous incidental characters. 1966's The Quiller Memorandum is a low-key gem, a pared-down, existential spy caper that keeps the exoticism to a minimum. This movie belongs to the long list of the spy features of the sixties, and not even James Bond like movies, rather John Le Carr oriented ones, in the line of IPCRESS or ODESSA FILE, very interesting films for movie buffs in search of a kind of nostalgia and also for those who try to understand this period. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. It was time for kitchen-sink alternatives to the Bond films upper-crust Empire nostalgia, channeled as it was through a tuxedoed, priapic Anglo toff committing state-sponsored murder in service of Her Majestys postcolonial grudges. The Quiller Memorandum is a 1966 British neo noir eurospy film filmed in Deluxe Color and Panavision, adapted from the 1965 spy novel The Berlin Memorandum, by Elleston Trevor under the name "Adam Hall", screenplay by Harold Pinter, directed by Michael Anderson, featuring George Segal, Alec Guinness, Max von Sydow and Senta Berger. The story is ludicrous. The book is built around a continual number of reveals. In fact, Segal as Quiller can often feel like a case of simple miscasting, although not as egregious a lapse in judgment as, say, Segals choice to play a Times Square smackhead in 1971s Born to Win. In . For my money, the top three cold war spy novelists were Le Carre, Deighton, and Adam Hall. The Quiller Memorandum is based on Adam Hall's thriller novel about neo-Nazism in contemporary Germany. Be the first to contribute. youtu.be/rQ4PA3H6pAw. The setting is Cold War-divided Berlin where Quiller tackles a threat from a group of neo-Nazis who call themselves Phoenix. The only redeeming features of The Quiller Memorandum are the scenes of Berlin with its old U-Bahn train and wonderful Mercedes automobiles, and the presence of two beautiful German women, Senta Berger and Edith Schneider; those two females epitomize Teutonic womanhood for me. Whats left most open to interpretation is Inges role in all this: was she a Janus-faced Nazi mole who used sex as a weapon to lead Quiller into a trap? His job is to locate their headquarters. The book and movie made a bit of a splash in the spy craze of the mid-sixties, when James Bond and The Man From Uncle were all the rage. The intense first person narration which is the defining characteristic of the Quiller books comes into its own during this interrogation scene, and also during the latter chapters of the books as events begin to come to a head. From the latest Scandinavian serial killer to Golden Age detective stories, we love our crime novels! Quiller drives off, managing to shake Hengel, then notices men in another car following him. Theres a humanity to Quiller that is unique in this type of action spy thriller. They don't know how to play it, it's neither enjoyable make-believe like the James Bond movies, nor is it played for real like "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold." Always under-appreciated by U.S. audiences, it's a relief to know that she's had a major impact on the German film community in later years. before he started doing "genial" and reminds us that his previous part was in the heavyweight "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf". Write by: When they find, Quiller gives the phone number of his base to Inge and investigates the place. The classic tale of espionage that started it all! The Neo-Nazis want to know the location of British operations and similarly, the British want to know the location of the Neo-Nazis' headquarters. The film was shot on location in West Berlin and in Pinewood Studios, England. I was really surprised, because I don't usually like books written during the 50s or 60s. After two British agents are killed while investigating Phoenix, a neo-Nazi group, Quiller is tasked with finding the organizations leader. True, Segal never seems to settle into the role of Quiller. At lunch in an exclusive club in London, close to Buckingham Palace, the directors of an unnamed agency, Gibbs and Rushington, decide to send American agent Quiller to continue the assignment, which has now killed two agents. Although the situations are often deadly serious, Segal seems to take them lightly; perhaps in the decade that spawned James Bond, he was confused and thought he was in a spy spoof. After two British agents are assassinated in Berlin by a group of Neo-Nazis, the British Secret Service assign Quiller to locate and identify the culprits. The Berlin Memorandum, renamed The Quiller Memorandum, was published in 1965 by Elleston Trevor, who used the pseudonym Adam Hall. He is shielded behind the building when the bomb explodes. At a key breakfast meeting, Pol uses two blueberry muffins to outline the particularly precarious cat-and-mouse game Quiller must play while in the gap between his own side and the fascist gang. I liked that the main character was ornery and tired and smart and still made mistakes and tried to see all possible outcomes at once and fought more against jumping to conclusions and staying alert and clear-headed than he did directly against the villains themselves. The film starred George Segal in the lead role, with Alec Guinness supporting andwas nominated for three BAFTAs. He spends as much time and energy attempting to lose the bouncer-like minders sent to cover him in the field as he does the neo-Nazi goon squads that eventually come calling. This one makes no exception. It's hard to believe this book won the Edgar for Best Novel, against books by Mary Stewart, Len Deighton, Ross MacDonald, Dorothy Salisbury Davis, and H.R.F. An almost unrecognizable George Segal stars in "The Quiller Memorandum," set in Berlin and made 40 years ago. From that point of view, the film should be seen by social, architectural, and urban landscape historians. George Segal, plays the edgy American-abroad new CI5 recruit (looking unnervingly at times like a young George W Bush!) It keeps the reader engrossed right up to the last couple of lines. Quiller enters the mansion and is confronted by Phoenix thugs. Quiller wakes up beside Berlin's Spree River. Quiller manages to outwit his opponent yet again, leading to his arrest. In a clever subversion of genre expectations, the plot and storyline ignore contemporary East versus West Cold War themes altogether (East Berlin is, in fact, never mentioned in the film). This was evidently the first of a very long series featuring the spy Quiller. Published chrismass61 Aug 21 2013 The ploy works as one, two or all three of those places were where the Nazis did learn about Quiller, who they kidnap. He first meets with Pol, who explains that each side is trying to discover and annihilate the other's base. A much better example of a spy novel-to-film adaptation would be Our Man in Havana, also starring Alec Guinness. 1966. I wanted to make a list of all the things that are wrong with this film, but I can't - such a list would need much more than a thousand words. Apparently, it was made into a classic movie and there is even a website compiled by Trevor devotees. The goal of /r/Movies is to provide an inclusive place for discussions and news about films with major releases. Alec Guinness gets to play a Smiley prototype but brings too much Noel Coward to the table. George Segal is a fine and always engaging actor, but the way his character is written here, he doesn't really come across as "a spy who gets along by his brains and not by his brawn"; he seems interested almost exclusively in the girl he meets, not in the case he's investigating, and (at least until the end) he seems to survive as a result of a combination of his good luck and the stupidity of the villains. Quiller would have also competed with the deluge of popular spy spoofs and their misfit mock-heroes: namely, Dean Martins drinking-and-driving playboy agent Matt Helm (The Silencers, Wrecking Crew) and James Coburns parody of Bondian suavity, Derek Flint, in the trippy spy fantasias Our Man Flint (1966) and In Like Flint (1967). The third to try is Quiller, an unassuming man, who knows he's being put into a deadly game. Read our extensive list of rules for more information on other types of posts like fan-art and self-promotion, or message the moderators if you have any questions. For example, when the neo-Nazi goons are sticking to Quiller like fly paper, wasn't he suspicious when they did not follow him into his hotel? Its there to tackle the dirty jobs, and Quiller is the Bureaus go-to guy. That makes the story much more believable, and Adam Hall's writing style kept me engaged. Michael Anderson directs a classy slice of '60s spy-dom. This was the first book, and I liked it. If you have seen this movie, and it leaves you very dissatisfied or with a bunch of bright orange question marks, don't worry ! Michael Sandlin is a writer and academic based in Houston, Texas. Hes lone wolf who lives or dies by his own actions a very clean and principled approach to espionage. effective, low key, intelligent, spy film, Attractive, thoughtful spy film with an excellent cast. But admittedly its a tricky business second-guessing his dramatic instincts here. Michael Anderson directs with his usual leaden touch. I'll give this horribly dated film a generous **1/2 rating anyway; hell, you don't see a cast as great as this one every day! Mind you, in 1966-67 the Wall was there, East German border guards and a definite (cold war) cloud hanging over the city. Quiller is released. My take was, he knows she's one of the bad guys, and same with the headmistress who he passes on the way out. But Quiller is an equal to a James Bond, or a George Smiley. The book is more focused on thinking as a spy and I found it to be very realistic. The Wall Street Journal said it was one of the best espionage/spy series of all time. Pol tells Quiller that Kenneth Lindsay Jones, a fellow agent and friend of Quiller's, was killed two days earlier by a neo-Nazi cell operating out of Berlin. Although the situations are often deadly serious, Segal seems to take them lightly; perhaps in the decade that spawned James Bond, he was confused and thought he was in a spy spoof. It relies on a straight narrative storyline, simple but holding, literate dialog and well-drawn characters. After they have sex, she unexpectedly reveals that a friend was formerly involved with neo-Nazis and might know the location of Phoenix's HQ. Quiller also benefits from some geographically eclectic West Berlin location shooting from master cinematographer and Berlin native Erwin Hillier. A handful of engaging spy thrillers followed before the author paused his novels to focus on journalism, although its also worth noting that he has freelanced. He is the true faceless spy. "[4], The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reports that 67% of critics have given the film a positive rating, based on 12 reviews, with an average score of 7.4/10. It was from the quiller memorandum ending of the item, a failed nuclear weapons of Personalized Map Search. And will the world see a return of Nazi power? Michael Anderson directs a classy slice of '60s spy-dom. In 1966, the book was made into a successful film starring George Segal, Max Von Sydow, Senta Berger, and Alec Guinness.
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