I SPY (II)
HIGH TREASON, THE NET, THE IPCRESS FILE & THE QUILLER MEMORADUM
In 1951, British film‑makers again examined the spy / saboteur with High Treason, though this time (in the period following World War II) it was no longer so easy to distinguish who was the enemy. With Homolka and his gloomy, haunted face, hollow eyes and clipped accent, we at least had definite suspicions. Amongst the mounting paranoia of society in the early 50s, however, even the most straightforward person could be revealed as a dangerous foreign agent. The movie’s opening sequence establishes this concept perfectly, as we follow a timid office clerk going home at the end of the day. Once back in his flat he proceeds to feed the cat and then, quite matter‑of‑factly, takes out hidden apparatus and begins to decode secret memos stolen from the Ministry of Defence: the result of his handiwork is shown in a sequence every bit as jolting as the explosion in Sabotage.
Again it starts innocently: the clerk meets a harmless‑looking young man at a music society recital. He whispers the date that a munitions ship is arriving at London docks, Abruptly we are there on the appointed day - the bomb rips away half of the pier and leaves dead bodies scattered everywhere. The special effects experts simulated the explosion by a complicated combination of animation and live‑action footage, a process which took many weeks to perfect and then edit together. For audiences, the result is striking.
The film was co‑written and directed by Roy Boulting and shot by Gilbert Taylor in a semi‑documentary style, getting maximum use from the extensive location work. Indeed, High Treason’s best scenes come when it leaves the studio. For the final, exciting sequence as the police battle against time and the saboteurs to try and stop another bomb being detonated, producer Paul Soskin managed to get permission to film inside Battersea Power Station. At the time it was still an active source of electricity, so actors and crew had to work around the shifts for more than a week to perfect the fifteen minute shoot out. The authenticity on screen is worth it.
The plot follows Commander Robert Brennan (Liam Redmond) and Superintendent Folland (Andre Morell) in their efforts to uncover a dangerous spy ring in the Defence Department. The widespread reach and appeal of the gang is shown when the investigation reveals a line of agents stretching from a dock foreman through various academics and finally to a respected MP, the leader of the so-called ‘People’s Peace Party’. Britain’s sensitive political position meant that controversy once again cast a shadow: the film was made in utmost secrecy, with guards posted to keep press and visitors from the set, and the release of High Treason was delayed until the end of the year and after the General Election of 1951. It was eight months old by the time the public saw it.
A year later, Anthony Asquith’s The Net (1952) was a deliberately less down-to earth and more melodramatic film featuring an East European spy whose mission is to try and steal a British secret invention, a super-fast aeroplane that in military terms could be of limitless power. Again the dilemma is proposed: who do you trust – all of the personnel on the M-7 project have been double, even triple-checked and cleared by security, and nobody’s honour is in doubt. Yet information is somehow getting out – and therefore a colleague and friend is a military spy. Psychologically, The Net is plausible and convincing, revolving around the question of freedom, for the ‘net’ of the title refers to the prison-like manner in which the project’s scientists are locked away from the outside world. The military and government authorities are mentally and physically suffocating them, one moment putting on the pressure to complete the project, the next saying it’s a waste of time and money and threatening to shut the whole thing down. What the craft’s designer Heathley (James Donald) is offered by the spy, Dr Bon (Noel William), as the two of them crash through various speed barriers in the plane, is the opportunity to work however he pleases – if only he will defect to the East with his creation. There will be no demands to fulfil, no unknowledgeable superiors to be bossed by.
William Fairchild’s script concentrates on a study of characters under stress, and less on action / suspense set‑pieces, but physically there were problems in presenting an aircraft that looked (and sounded) believable as it breaks new scientific barriers not even known in 1952. To overcome this, designers worked for months on a shape and appearance that could be futuristic yet remain on the side of contemporary realism whilst sound effects were borrowed from Farnborough research station. Another, more immediate problem occurred on the set towards the end of the shoot, when Donald’s inflatable space‑age suit developed a puncture. With valuable time being wasted, there was only one solution: before each take a production assistant was told to blow into it until it was reflated - and then block the hole with a cork.
By the 1960s, British spy films were becoming not only uncertain about the hostile, foreign forces around them, but simultaneously disillusioned with the workings of the country’s own secret service. The Bond series were the flip‑side to this cynicism, gadget‑filled adventures for middle‑aged kids. More typical of the developing trend was the downbeat The Ipcress File (1965), which introduced the character of Harry Palmer and made Michael Caine an international star. The story was based on a bestselling Len Deighton novel, though the narrative twisted through so many confusing turns that it quickly became irrelevant. What mattered was the style and the mood. Director Sidney J Fury has a penchant for unusual angles, and the jagged editing and muted colour scheme served to accentuate this further. In an interview on location at Victoria railway station, Furie commented on the wet and dreary weather: ‘Lovely day for filming. It will rain soon. Grey, gritty – that’s the effect we’re seeking. The film is being shot in colour but so monochrome you’d hardly notice. This is meant to be spying for real.’
The narrative strands that did remain intact involve Caine and his investigation into a “brain‑drain” among scientists. His attempt to recover one particular missing professor, Radcliffe (Aubrey Richards), who has been kidnapped from a train after the murder of his bodyguard, leads him on a trail of blackmail, assassination, coded tapes and brainwashing until it turns back on itself and unveils Caine’s boss, Dalby (Nigel Green), as the real villain.
It’s somewhat self‑conscious and dated now, yet what maintains the viewer’s interest is the Caine / Palmer persona. It was deliberately toned down from the original book to make him more ‘ordinary’: he wore glasses, had an overtly London accent, cooked his own food (though the ingredients always seemed ridiculously confused) and spent the day shopping at the nearby supermarket. Deighton’s conception was for the character to travel in a helicopter with work taking him to Lebanon and a US missile base in the Pacific Ocean; in contrast, Caine only journeys as far as the local bus can go. This incarnation of the ‘common’ spy proved so popular that it spawned two equally successful sequels, Funeral in Berlin (1966) and Billion Dollar Brain (1967).
One of the most memorable scenes from the film is the brainwashing Caine has to battle through. It’s played deadpan, with meticulous attention to quite vicious detail ‑ there is tangible pain. The Quiller Memorandum (1966) similarly featured a brutal interrogation, this time with the evil Max Von Sydow persecuting the drugged George Segal. With its pessimistic vision of modern spy methods, however, it represented a complete change from the convoluted, breakneck plotting of The Ipcress File, since in Harold Pinter's sparse and studied adaptation of the Adam Hall pulp novel ‘The Berlin Memorandum’, the story has been virtually dispensed with. Which was probably the point, an examination of a void in which events happen rather more by chance than design, where communication has broken down to the extent that simply nobody can talk without resorting to cryptic meanings. Trust certainly is a forgotten word. In a telling scene, Segal’s superior, Alec Guinness, explains to him with the use of cutlery and food on a table how Segal is a lonely man caught in the middle between two opposing armies, both equally ruthless in disposing of him if he takes a wrong step - even his own side.
Producer Ivan Foxwell managed to get permission to film in Berlin, making it one of the first English‑speaking pictures shot there. Reports at the time said that this was possible because, when presented with the script, the German authorities were unable to understand the story, though this was probably more publicist hype than anything else. What is for certain is that the existence of neo-Nazi factions within Germany was a sensitive subject. Indeed, when the film was released there, large parts were censored: dialogue was cut and dubbed over so as to blur any political bias; even the shirts were re-coloured from brown to red in order to shift the inference away from Nazism to communism.
It is worth noting that, until the time of The Quiller Memorandum, the spy film had faithfully preserved the cinematic conventions of supplying a degree of romantic interest and seeking to conclude the story on an upbeat, reassuring note. Yet, as the 1960s progressed, the prevalent mood of unease and pessimism grew stronger and stronger until it dominated. Thus, whereas the saboteur is killed and the detective gets the girl of his dreams in Sabotage, in The Quiller Memorandum Segal found that the ‘girl’ was in fact his enemy and there was nothing he could do.
DEFENCE OF THE REALM & THE 39 STEPS