Review: Sidney J. Furie’s The Ipcress File on KL Studio Classics Blu-ray

Kino’s release of Furie’s seminal spy film boasts a strong A/V presentation and an abundance of fascinating extras.

The Ipcress FileFrom the opening staccato notes of John Barry’s lilting score, so redolent of his music for the early Bond films, Sidney J. Furie’s The Ipcress File is very much in conversation with the spy franchise that rose to pop-cultural prominence in the early 1960s. Along with Barry, producer Harry Saltzman and editor Peter Hunt also joined in on this new endeavor after working on the first several 007 films, with the initial directive of making a low-budget knockoff. But Furie and cinematographer Otto Heller had other ideas, making a highly stylized, moody, and deliberately paced spy thriller that strives for an artful deconstruction of the Bond-iverse.

In attempting to bring a gritty realism and distinctly middle-class flavor to the milieu of international spycraft, The Ipcress File directly counters the more fantastical elements of the Bond series and deglamorizes the life and work of an intrepid, continent-hopping secret agent. When the film’s hero, Harry Palmer (Michael Caine), awakens blurry-eyed, putting on his thick pair of glasses before going about his mundane morning tasks, he feels very much like an ordinary bloke. He’s not the kind of guy who will turn heads as he walks by and, aside from a knowingly ridiculous shot where a female agent, Jean (Sue Lloyed), gazes excitedly down at his crotch as he stuffs his gun into his pants, Palmer’s sexual prowess is a non-factor—particularly compared to Sean Connery’s Bond, whose carnal appetites are ever threatening to burst through the surface of his cool demeanor.

At one point in the film, Harry is described by his boss, Major Dalby (Nigel Green), as “insubordinate, insolent, and a trickster, perhaps with criminal tendencies.” But Caine’s performance is so muted, his face rarely changing from a placid expression, that he comes across more as aloof and unflappable than the cad that Dalby describes. The man wouldn’t be out of a place in the minimalist noir world of Jean-Pierre Melville, but the absurd, convoluted story of The Ipcress File, complete with a high-tech MacGuffin, and its high stylization couldn’t be further from Melville’s stripped-down aesthetic approach to the crime film.

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Nary a shot in Furie’s film goes without a canted camera angle or a busy mise-en-scène with objects deliberately obfuscating that action on screen. This is a handsomely shot film, and it’s a clever touch on the part of the filmmakers to make it seem as if the camera is often hidden from view, as if the audience were spying on the action. But the use of such techniques is simply too imprudent, with off-kilter shots being deployed with equal aplomb in lighthearted romantic scenes and the more suspenseful sequences, where they feel more organic.

The Ipcress File’s narrative also feels a bit at odds with the filmmakers’ intentions. When the film is focused on Harry as he goes about the legwork of tracking down a missing British scientist (Aubrey Richards) or sussing out a potential mole in his office, it’s firmly grounded in the workaday life of a secret agent. But as the larger, overarching elements of the plot take center stage, namely the revelation of the meaning behind “IPCRESS,” the film veers into the similarly ludicrous terrain of your average Bond caper. In the end, The Ipcress File abandons its more low-key, nuts-and-bolts depiction of spycraft, and as such morphs from the pure antithesis of a 007 romp into something far closer to a self-serious send-up.

Image/Sound

Kino’s transfer of a 2K restoration boasts a sharp, richly detailed image with color balancing that stays true to the film’s mostly drab color scheme, while still presenting a fairly high dynamic range of colors and strong black levels that help to emphasize cinematographer Otto Heller’s moody lighting. Grain levels are consistently solid and even, helping to retain much of the texture and depth of the original 35mm. The lossless audio is crisp and clear, revealing the depth of the mix in the film’s few fight sequences and in John Barry’s wonderful score.

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Extras

Kino has gone the extra mile with the features on this disc. The first of two commentary tracks consists of a newly recorded and lively discussion between film historians Troy Howarth and Daniel Kremer, who profess their fondness for the film and make a compelling case for the value of director Sidney J. Furie’s lesser known work, like Leather Boys. The conversation also covers the film’s attempts to function as a deglamorized reaction to the early James Bond films and offers insight into the visual style employed by Furie and cinematographer Otto Heller, whose work here influenced the great Vittorio Storraro. On the second commentary track, Furie and editor Peter Hunt cover the film’s production issues, particularly the tensions between Furie and producer Harry Saltzman and the odd circumstances of the film’s editing process, which led Hunt to essentially have final cut before Furie ever saw the final product.

In an entertaining 20-minute archival interview, Michael Caine talks about his outrageous first day on the set when Furie burnt a copy of the script in front of him, deciding to have the film rewritten as they shot. He also recalls how he met Saltzman, who signed the actor to his first big movie contract after seeing him in Cy Endfield’s Zulu. Caine goes on to recount several amusing stories about the cantankerous producer, including how the two of them decided to come up with the most boring name they could think of for the film’s protagonist. The disc also comes with an interview with production designer Ken Adams, who describes the lengthy location scouting process, and a short Trailers from Hell segment focusing on the film’s score.

Overall

Kino Lorber’s release of Sidney J. Furie’s seminal British spy film boasts a strong A/V presentation and an abundance of fascinating extras.

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Score: 
 Cast: Michael Caine, Nigel Green, Guy Doleman, Sue Lloyd, Gordon Jackson, Aubrey Richards, Frank Gatliff, Thomas Baptiste, Freda Bamford, Anthony Blackshaw  Director: Sidney J. Furie  Screenwriter: Bill Canaway, James Doran  Distributor: Kino Lorber  Running Time: 109 min  Rating: NR  Year: 1965  Release Date: October 27, 2020  Buy: Video

Derek Smith

Derek Smith's writing has appeared in Tiny Mix Tapes, Apollo Guide, and Cinematic Reflections.

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