Introduction to Harry Palmer

This is the (unofficial) Harry Palmer movie site. The Harry Palmer movies belong to the "serious spy movies". Len Deighton wrote the novels, but Harry Saltzman (who was also one of the the producers of James Bond) and his team created the name and movie character. "Harry Palmer is the thinking man's James Bond", they said... Michael Caine starred as the "clever Cockney", the spy who wasn't as glamorous as 007, but was certainly more realistic. The first three movies, The Ipcress File, Funeral in Berlin and Billion Dollar Brain, were stylishly made by Saltzman and his team in the Sixties. Much later, two more were made in 1995, Bullet to Beijing and Midnight in St. Petersburg. Unfortunately these films missed everything that made their predecessors so successful, except for Michael Caine, who had become older but was still a superpersonality on screen.

These pages are about Harry Palmer and everything around the short phenomenon. Check the movie pages in the menu for posters, stills, lobbycards, radiocommercials, featurettes, trailers, deleted scenes, soundtracks and a lot more. For more general information about the Harry Palmer phenomena, read this article.These pages describe as much as there is available about the movies or give links to other pages. Thanks to Terry Hine, Mark Isaacs, filmcollectief.nl and Pim Bergkamp for their great contributions. In case you have material to add, please mail me.

Karl Malden, the Academy Award-winning actor, died Wednesday 1 July'09. He was 97.He played the part of Leo Newbegin in Billion Dollar Brain. Malden died of natural causes surrounded by his family at his Brentwood home, they told the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. He served as the Academy's president from 1989-92. While filming Billion Dollar Brain (1968) at Pinewood Studies with Michael Caine, Malden's London hotel room was burgled and his cash stolen, but his travellers' cheques were left untouched. The incident persuaded him to become the face of American Express travellers' cheques a few years later for a long-running series of commercials with the punchline "Don't leave home without them".

new ** 1 Jul'09 Trivia added here.18 Jun'09 Ipcress Japanese albumcover added here and B$B review added here.2 Jun'09 Japanese Ipcress poster added here.20 May'09 Three Billion Dollar Brain behind the scenes photos added here.3 May'09 Very rare Funeral in Berlin behind the scenes photos added here plus deleted scenes addition here. Ipcress dvdcover added here.15 Apr'09 MTV link added here plus Bullet and Midnight dvdcovers added here and here. 4 Apr'09 Eight rare Ipcress stills added here.28 Mar'09 Dvd box Bullet to Bejing/Midnight added here. Japanese and UK Ipcress dvd covers added here. ** new

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Made by Kees Stam Start: 1 April 1999 Last update: 1 July 2009