Quiller, a British agent who works without gun, cover or contacts, takes on a neo-Nazi underground organization and its war criminal leader. (What with wanting to go to sleep and wanting to scream at the same time, this film does pose certain conflict problems.) Newer. Sort of a mixed effect clouds this novel. Fans of "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" will notice that film's Mr. Slugworth (Meisner) in a small role as the operator of a swim club (which features some memorably husky, "master race" swimmers emerging from the pool.) In the process, he discovers a complex and malevolent plot, more dangerous to the world than any crime committed during the war. [6], The mainly orchestral atmospheric soundtrack composed by John Barry was released by Columbia in 1966. , . And although Harold Pinters screenwriting for Quiller doesnt strike one as being classically Pinteresque, occasionally his distinct style reveals itself in pockets of suggestive menace where silence is often just as important as whats spoken. Special guests Sanders and Helpmann bring their special brand of haughty authority to their roles as members of British Intelligence. The classic tale of espionage that started it all! I can't NOT begin by saying, "This Is A MUST Read For Every Fan Of The Espionage Genre". You are a secret agent working for the British in Berlin. The Quiller Memorandum (1966) is one such film, and though it's one of the more obscure ones, it is also one of the better ones. Segal plays a secret agent assigned to ferret out the headquarters of a Neo-Nazi movement in Berlin. In the 60's, in Berlin, two British agents that are investigating a Neonazi ring are murdered. But soon he finds that she has been kidnapped and Oktober gives a couple of hours to him to give the location of the site; otherwise Inge and him will be killed. A man walks along a deserted Berlin street at night and enters an internally lit phone box. There are long stretches of what may have seemed to Pinter like very lively and amusing dialogue (the torture scenes between October and George Segal), but they drag on interminably, and make one want to go to sleep. [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?" When they find, Quiller gives the phone number of his base to Inge and investigates the place. Soon after his amorous encounter with Inge, Quiller is drugged on the street by a crafty hypodermic-wielding operative and wakes up in a seedy basement full of stern-looking Nazis in business attire. Pol tells Quiller the fascist underground is far more organized and powerful in Germany than people believe. Set largely on location in West Berlin, it has George Segal brought back from vacation to replace a British agent who has come to a sticky end at the hands of a new infiltrating group of Nazis. It's not often that one wishes so much for a main character to get killed, especially by NAZI's. The only really interesting thing is the way we're left spoiler: click to read in the end. Not terribly audience-friendly, but smart and very, very cool. Elleston Trevor wrote 19 novels in the highly successful Quiller series. The first thing to say about this film is that the screenplay is so terrible. Submissions should be for the purpose of informing or initiating a discussion, not just to entertain readers. Quiller asks after Jones at the bowling alley without success and the swimming pool manager Hassler tells him spectating is not allowed. On paper, this film had all the makings of a potential masterpiece: youve got a marquee cast, headed up by George Segal, Max Von Sydow, and Alec Guinness, for starters. The West had sent a couple of agents to find out their headquarters, but both are killed. The film had its world premiere on 10 November 1966 at the Odeon Leicester Square in the West End of London. Mind you, in 1966-67 the Wall was there, East German border guards and a definite (cold war) cloud hanging over the city. He calls Inge and arranges to meet. Published chrismass61 Aug 21 2013 Visually, the film was rather stunning, but the magical soft focus that appears every time Inga is in the frame is silly. The Quiller Memorandum - Wikipedia The photo shows a man in Luftwaffe (airforce) uniform. Don't bother watching it, except to see the many scenes shot on location in West Berlin at that time, with its deserted streets and subdued mood. Have read a half dozen or so other "Quiller" books, so when I saw that Hoopla had this first story, I figured I should give it a listen to see how Quiller got started. So, at this level. Having just read the novel, it's impossible to watch this without its influence and I found the screen version incredibly disappointing. A Twilight Time release. 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 And considering how terrible its one fight scene is, it's certainly a blessing that it doesn't have any more. I loved seeing and feeling the night shots in this film and, as it was shot on location, the sense of reality was heightened for me. The brawny headmistress points Quiller in the direction of Inge (Senta Berger), who happens to be the only English-speaking teacher at the school. When Quiller arrives inthe cityhis handler gives him three items found on a dead agent: tickets to a swimming pool and a bowling alley along with a newspaper cutting. The third to try is Quiller, an unassuming man, who knows he's being put into a deadly game. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. The Quiller Memorandum Ending Explained But his accent was all wrongtaking the viewer out of the moment. As usual for films which are difficult to pin down . 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. The newspaper clipping that Hengel gives to Quiller, in the cafe when they first meet, shows that a schoolteacher called Hans Heinrich Steiner has been arrested for war crimes committed in WW2. This well-drawn tale of espionage is set in West Berlin, 15 years after the end of WW II. 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). Quiller is released. See production, box office & company info, Europa-Center, Charlottenburg, Berlin, Germany. Yes, Scream VI Marketing Is Behind the Creepy Ghostface Sightings Causing Scares Across the U.S. David Oyelowo, Taylor Sheridan's 'Bass Reeves' Series at Paramount+ Casts King Richard Star Demi Singleton (EXCLUSIVE), Star Trek: Discovery to End With Season 5, Paramount+ Pushes Premiere to 2024. Quiller leaves, startling the headmistress on the way out. As for the rest of the movie, the plot, acting, and dialog are absolutely atrocious; even the footsteps are dubbed - click, click, click. He published over 50 novels as Elleston Trevor alone. Oktober reveals they are moving base the next day and that they have captured Inge. The Quiller Memorandum (1966) - IMDb Quiller awakes in a dilapidated mansion, surrounded by many of the previous incidental characters. People tend to like it because "it's not like the Bond movies"; well, it's not - it's like "The Ipcress File", except that "The Ipcress File" was a genuinely smart and atmospheric movie, while "The Quiller Memorandum" is a clumsy, dated spy thriller full of pseudo-hip dialogue and plot holes. There are a number of unique elements in the Quiller series that make it stand out. Adam Hall's 1966 Edgar Winner: The Quiller Memorandum - Criminal Element Phoenix boss Oktober (Max von Sydow) with George Segal, seated. Composer Barry provides an atmospheric score (though one that is somewhat of a departure from the notes and instruments used in his more famous pieces), but silence is put to good use as well. 1 hr 45 mins. He also wroteacrossa number ofgenres. 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. The movie made productive use of the West German locations. With George Segal, Alec Guinness, Max von Sydow, Senta Berger. Quiller: At the end of our conversation, he ordered them to kill me. An American agent is sent to Berlin to track down the leaders of a neo-Nazi organization, but when they . 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. The novel was titled The Berlin Memorandum and at its centre was the protagonist and faceless spy, Quiller. The shooting on location in Berlin makes it that much more thrilling. 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. The nation remained the home of the best spies. As other reviewers have suggested, this Cold War Neo-Nazi intrigue is more concerned with subtle, low-key plot evolution than the James Bond in-your-face-gadgetry genre that was prevalent during the 60's-70's. Max von Sydow as a senior post-War Nazi conspirator over-acts and is way out of control, Anderson being so hopeless and just a bystander who can have done no directing at all. Quiller, a British agent who works without gun, cover or contacts, takes on a neo-Nazi underground organization and its war criminal leader. He contacts the teacher Inge Lindt (Senta Berger) expecting to get some clues to be followed and soon he is abducted the the leader Oktober (Max von Sydow) and his men. Commenting on Quiller in 1966, The New York Timessomewhat unfairlywrote off Segals performance as an unmitigated bust: If youve got any spying to do in Berlin, dont send George Segal to do the job. The reviewer then refers to Quiller as a pudding-headed fellow (a descriptive phrase that sounds more 1866 than 1966). It's a more realistic or credible portrayal of how a single character copes with trying to get information in a dangerous environment. There was also a TV series in 1975. I've not put together a suite before so hopefully it works.Barry's short (35mins) if atmospheric score for the Cold War thriller The Quiller Memorandum, 1966. After a pair of their agents are murdered in West Berlin, the British Secret Service for some unknown reason send in an American to investigate and find the location of a neo-Nazi group's headquarters. Dril several holes in it, the size of a pin, one the size of a small coin. This isn't your standard spy film with lots of gunplay, outrageous villains, and explosions. 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. In West Berlin, George Segal's Quiller struggles through a near- existential battle with Neo-Nazi swine more soulless than his own cold-fish handlers. A satisfyingly cynical spy thriller with George Segal, Alec Guinness and Max Von Sydow; and a script by Harold Pinter, Decent and interesting spy thriller with great cast and impressive musical score by John Barry in his usual style. Without knowing where they have taken him, and even if it is indeed their base of operations, Quiller is playing an even more dangerous game as in the process he met schoolteacher Inge Lindt, who he starts to fall for, and as such may be used as a pawn by the Nazis to get the upper hand on Quiller. 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. Agent Quiller is relaxing in a Berlin theater the night before returning to London and rest after a difficult assignment when he is accosted by Pol, another British agent, with a new, very important assignment. Quiller manages to outwit his opponent yet again, leading to his arrest. Like Harry Palmer, Quiller is a stubborn individualist who has some rather inflated ideas of being his own man and is contemptuous of his controlling stuffed-shirt overlords. The Phoenix group descend and take Quiller, torturing him to find out what he knows. 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. He manages to get over the wall of his garage stall as well as the adjoining one and then outside to the side of the building before detonation. Berger is luminous and exceedingly solid in a complicated role. The Quiller Memorandum (1966) - IMDb The Berlin Memorandum, or The Quiller Memorandum as it is also known, is the first book in the twenty book Quiller series, written by Elleston Trevor under the pen name of Adam Hall. 42 editions. Also the increasing descent into the minutiae of spycraft plays into the reveal, plot-wise as well as psychologically. The story is ludicrous. And will the world see a return of Nazi power? In typically British mordant fashion, George Sanders and a fellow staffer in Britain are lunching in London on pheasant, more concerned with the quality of their repast than with the loss of their man in the field! Just watched it. On the surface, we get at least some satisfying closure to the case of the clandestine neo-Nazi gang. 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. A much better example of a spy novel-to-film adaptation would be Our Man in Havana, also starring Alec Guinness. Watched by Rui Alves de Sousa 04 Jun 2022. It is very rare that I find anyone else who is even aware of the Quiller books and yet they are as your reviewer mentions, absolutely first class. That way theres no-one to betray him to the other side. 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. The Quiller Memorandum came near the peak of the craze for spy movies in the Sixties, but its dry, oddly sardonic tone sets it apart from both the James Bond-type sex-and-gadget thrillers and the more somber, "adult" spy dramas such as Martin Ritt's The Spy Who Came In from the Cold (1965). 1966's The Quiller Memorandum is a low-key gem, a pared-down existential spy caper that keeps the exoticism to a minimum. After their first two operatives leading the field mission are assassinated in subsequent order, the British Secret Service recruit Quiller, an American agent, to continue to lead that field operation, namely to discover the base of operations of a new Nazi organization in West Berlin, they whose general members hide in plain sight in blending in with all walks of West German society. The Quiller Memorandum by Adam Hall | Goodreads (UK title). Your email address will not be published. It keeps the reader engrossed right up to the last couple of lines. He first meets with Pol, who explains that each side is trying to discover and annihilate the other's base. Quiller Series by Adam Hall - Goodreads In the following chapter the events have moved on beyond the crisis, instantly creating a how? question in your mind. In fact, he is derisory about agents who insist on being armed. Apparently, it was made into a classic movie and there is even a website compiled by Trevor devotees. 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. Fans of realistic spy fiction will enjoy David McCloskeys debut thriller Damascus Station, newly available in paperback in the UK. How nice to see you again! and so forth. The movie wants to be more Le Carre than Fleming (the nods to the latter fall flat with a couple of fairly underpowered car-chases and a very unconvincing fight scene when Segal first tries to escape his captors) but fails to make up in suspense what it obviously lacks in thrills. The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels by Janice Hallett, Norwegian crime show Witch Hunt comes to Walter Presents, The Wall: Quebec crime show comes to More4, Irish crime drama North Sea Connection comes to BBC Four, The complete guide to Mick Herrons Slough House series. I am not saying he was bad in the filmor at least that bad. But how could she put up with the love scenes with the atrocious Segal? But George Segal just doesn't cut it as a British secret agent in The Quiller Memorandum. Can someone explain it to me? Michael Anderson directs a classy slice of '60s spy-dom. Writing in The Guardian, playwright David Hare described Pinters strengths as a dramatist perfectly: In the spare, complicated screenwriting of Pinter, yes, no and maybe become words which do a hundred jobs. Unfortunately, when it comes to the use of language in Quiller, less does not always function as more. The film was shot on location in West Berlin and in Pinewood Studios, England. Quilleris a code name. Quiller continues his subtle accusations, and Inge continues her denial of ever meeting Jones. This spy novel about neo-Nazis 1960's Berlin seemed dated and a little stilted to me. He sounded about as British as Leo Carillo or Cher. American agent Quiller (George Segal) arrives in Berlin and meets with his British handler Pol (Alec Guinness). effective, low key, intelligent, spy film, Attractive, thoughtful spy film with an excellent cast. Reviews of The Quiller Memorandum Letterboxd Quiller meets his controller for this mission, Pol, at Berlin's Olympia Stadium, and learns that he must find the headquarters of Phoenix, a neo-Nazi organization. I recently found and purchased all 19 of the series in hardback and read them serially. The scene shot in the gallery of London's Reform Club is particularly odious. Despite an Oscar nomination for "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?," Segal's strength lies in light comedy, and both his demeanor and physical build made him an unlikely pick for an action role, even if the film is short on action. The novel was titledThe Berlin Memorandum and at its centre was the protagonist and faceless spy, Quiller. Michael Sandlin is a writer and academic based in Houston, Texas. George Segal as Agent Quiller with Inge Lindt (Senta Berger). 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. The Quiller Memorandum | Mountain Xpress The goal of /r/Movies is to provide an inclusive place for discussions and news about films with major releases. All Rights Reserved. One of my all time favorites and the film too. 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. 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). Amazon.com: The Quiller Memorandum eBook : Hall, Adam: Books He notices the concierge is seated where he can see anyone leaving. Quiller, an agent working for British Intelligence, is sent to Berlin to meet with Pol, another operative. Quiller, however, escapes, and with Inges help, he discovers the location of Phoenixs headquarters. 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.
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