British author Len Deighton.

In a major coup for his blog and website The Deighton Dossier, Rob Mallows recently had lunch with the author himself! Deighton agreed to do some follow-up interview questions following a technical snafu, and Rob has shared his answers at the site.

This is a fantastic interview as well! Here’s a brief taste of what Rob has in store for you:

DD: Michael Caine’s role as Harry Palmer has become visually synonymous with the ‘unnamed spy’, such that it’s now very difficult to read the books without imagining his visage and especially the horn-rimmed glasses. What do you think Michael brought to the role that added to our understanding of your character from the first four books (his cockney accent for one thing, I imagine)? Did you know Michael before the role, and did he subsequently become a friend?

LD: I knew Michael before he made Ipcress File. Peter Evans, a mutual friend, introduced us and I found Michael an unassuming and entertaining friend. He was of course a tremendous asset; he developed the characterization and was largely responsible for the success of the film.

When Ipcress went into pre-production we conspired to persuade Harry Saltzman, its producer, to let Michael wear spectacles on the screen. Michael and I both wore glasses and so did Harry Palmer in my book. Harry Saltzman was opposed to this. One evening, when Harry and his delightful wife Jaquie entertained me and Michael to dinner in their Mayfair home, we brought it up again. Harry sighed. ‘No, no, no. What film star have you ever seen wearing glasses?’ he asked rhetorically. But wives are apt to answer rhetorical questions and Harry’s wife said: ‘Cary, darling. Cary Grant looks lovely in glasses.’ This was one of the very few times that I saw Harry at loss for words. ‘Very well,’ he said eventually. I looked at Michael. Michael looked down at his plate. We had won.

Horse Under Water poster

THE DETAILS:

Here’s the challenge: Give us a glimpse of what an adaptation of Horse Under Water might look like. Show us a movie poster, a scripted scene, a theme song, an animation, a trailer, a level from a video game, a comic, a selection from a radio play, etc. etc. We’re not too particular. Just get it to us by midnight EST on Dec. 12th by emailing your submission (or a link to your submission) to mister8 (at) mister8.com! Improve your odds with multiple entries!

This contest is open to anyone in the world, except for yours truly. I’ll be doing solo judging on this one, in case any COBRAS or friends of the site want to enter. I promise to be fair and impartial!

GRAND PRIZE:

Len Deighton Autograph

Above is a rarish sort of item, a Trivial Pursuit Baby Boomer Edition card with the question “Whose spy novels included An Expensive Place to Die and Billion Dollar Brain?” The answer, of course, is Len Deighton, whose autograph is scrawled on the back of the card (the tape is on the plastic card holder, not on the card itself). I recently purchased this from an autograph dealer who wrote: “This would have been forwarded through his publishing house back in the ’90′s and was returned from his residence in Ireland. He has since moved and since arriving in the United States has been to my knowledge next to impossible to obtain.”

OTHER PRIZES:

I’m still working on putting these together, but will likely be a mix of new and used copies of Len’s novels!

THE FINE PRINT:

By submitting an entry, you agree to allow us to display, discuss, and make available for download your material. Shipping will be on me.

Housed in what, from the outside looks to be an old barn, the bookstore turned out to be a bit of a TARDIS, a labyrinth of what had to be hundreds of thousands of books on the inside. I’d already accumulated an armful across two stories and an hour’s worth of searching, and was checking out when I mentioned to the elderly owner that I was disappointed that there wasn’t a paperback thriller section. He smiled and asked if I’d been downstairs yet.

Here’s what I picked up from the store, Dog Ears Antiquarian Books in Hoosick, NY:

Donald Hamilton - The Silencers

Donald Hamilton - Murderer's Row

Donald Hamilton - The Ambushers

Donald Hamilton - The Wrecking Crew

I’m not incredibly familiar with Hamilton — I’ve only read The Interlopers, from the middle of the series — so I grabbed the four titles I was familiar with, namely those who share names with Dean Martin films. I am tempted to say, having looked over the list, that the whole lot were there, and I may go back and pick them up a few at a time until I’ve built the whole collection. I might also do the same for the Edward S. Aarons Sam Durrell series. And I’m already thinking about reviewing these, the movies, and perhaps an episode or two of the show (if I can get my hands on it) somewhere round-about Christmas in a multi-part series called “Helm for the Holidays.”

Yes, I know my plate’s already a bit full, but I can’t pass up that pun, can I?

The Avengers: Too Many Targets

I already had a copy of this one, but couldn’t resist picking up a copy from the first printing on the cheap (this cover is much cooler than the other version I have as well).

Billion Dollar Brain

I FINALLY turned up a copy of this one on the cheap without turning to eBay. Yes, I started the Harry Palmer Files without even owning all of the books, but thanks to the fact that this bookstore owned every book ever, I now have a copy for myself! I also picked up a non “Harry” book Bomber, said to be Deighton’s best by many critics (including Kingsley Amis).

The First Saint Omnibus

While I love the show, I’ve never actually read any of the Charteris books. Thought this would be a good place to start, a nice smelly old edition.

The Complete Mission: Impossible Dossier

This looks to be a nice addition to my TV spy reference shelf, and it’s the major 60s-era spy show about which I know the least, for some reason.

The Official James Bond Movie Book

From the era of Living Daylights. Because I can’t turn down cheap James Bond ephemera. (And yes, I’m being lazy and stealing these pictures from other sites).

Allen Dulles - The Craft of Intelligence

And lastly, but certainly not least…ly, a paperback copy of Allen Dulles’ thoughts on the intelligence business in 1963. Chock full of fun and informative bits by the director of the CIA (just after he was ousted actually, following the Bay of Pigs). We’ll be quoting bits of this here in a regular series, as soon as I can think of a witty title. I’m thinking “A Dulles Moment,” or “Mere Dulles Ink.”

All of the above rang up to roughly $15. Not a bad haul, and I’m sure I’ll soon be going back for other books I had to leave behind.

On the way home, I also scored 70 issues of Heavy Metal for mere cents at a garage sale. And then we watched two wonderful films — Toy Story I and II — on the big screen in 3D. What a great day.

Oh, and as I’m typing this, news has come in over the wire that we have a new member of the COBRAS, Rob Mallows of the Deighton Dossier. I’ll give Rob an official welcome tomorrow, but for now…I’m exhausted!

Do you want the good news or the bad news first? The bad news? OK. Here goes.

I’m going to be suspending the Harry Palmer Files series for a while, because life is quite busy, and random posts on whatever I have on hand will be easier and less stress than a planned series.

The good news? The good news is we’ll be resuming the Harry Palmer series in December with A CONTEST!

The book we were due to cover next was Horse Under Water, the least-known of the “Palmer” novels due to the fact that it was never made into a film. We here at Mister 8, inspired by Robert Green and Carl Barber’s imaginary soundtrack for such a film (which we’ll be showcasing here), and Kevin Dart’s trailer for an imaginary Yuki 7 film, want to see what you readers could do with the material.

THE DETAILS:

So here’s the challenge: Give us a glimpse of what an adaptation of Horse Under Water might look like. Show us a movie poster, a scripted scene, a theme song, an animation, a trailer, a level from a video game, a comic, a selection from a radio play, etc. etc. We’re not too particular. Just get it to us by midnight EST on Dec. 12th by emailing your submission (or a link to your submission) to mister8 (at) mister8.com! Improve your odds with multiple entries!

This contest is open to anyone in the world, except for yours truly. I’ll be doing solo judging on this one, in case any COBRAS or friends of the site want to enter. I promise to be fair and impartial!

GRAND PRIZE:

Len Deighton Autograph

Above is a rarish sort of item, a Trivial Pursuit Baby Boomer Edition card with the question “Whose spy novels included An Expensive Place to Die and Billion Dollar Brain?” The answer, of course, is Len Deighton, whose autograph is scrawled on the back of the card (the tape is on the plastic card holder, not on the card itself). I recently purchased this from an autograph dealer who wrote: “This would have been forwarded through his publishing house back in the ’90′s and was returned from his residence in Ireland. He has since moved and since arriving in the United States has been to my knowledge next to impossible to obtain.”

OTHER PRIZES:

I’m still working on putting these together, but will likely be a mix of new and used copies of Len’s novels!

THE FINE PRINT:

By submitting an entry, you agree to allow us to display, discuss, and make available for download your material. Shipping will be on me.

Sorry for my recent absence. As a good secret agent, I’ve got to keep my cover identity going. Over the past few weeks, that’s meant two things — starting another semester in the PhD program, and updating the site of one of my web clients, who had a movie debut on Friday.

Now, let’s get down to….

We’re now entering month three of our Harry Palmer Files, which at the beginning was supposed to end at the close of July. So far we’ve only covered one book in the series, and I hope we haven’t micro-analyzed to the point of driving our readers away! We’ll be moving on from The IPCRESS File after today.

Next up on the list is Horse Under Water, and we’ll be announcing a contest soon. So if you haven’t started reading, you’d better get started!

Today, though, I want to share some cover songs I’ve turned up of The IPCRESS File theme. Originally by John Barry, this one was covered both at the time of the movie release, and more recently by contemporary artists. Here are a few versions for you:

Billy Strange (From Secret Agent File – The Big Sound of Billy Strange and His Guitar, 1965):

Jazz All-Stars (From Thunderball & Other Secret Agent Themes, 1965):

Roland Shaw Orchestra (From Themes For Secret Agents, 1966):

Parris Mitchell Strings With Brass (From Secret Agent Themes, 1967):

The Spotniks (From Something Like Country, 1972):

Burt Blanca (From Rock n’ Roll Revival, Vol. 4, 1992):

Laika and the Cosmonauts (From The Amazing Colossal Band 1995, ):

The Torpedoes (From Good For the Country, 1996):

Pierre Vervloesem (From Plays John Barry, 2002):

Through July, or at least until I run out of things about which to talk, we’ll be looking at the Harry Palmer series of novels (in which the character doesn’t actually have a name), their author — Len Deighton, the films based on them, the star of those films — Michael Caine, and the television movies that followed. I will be re-reading the whole series of novels, re-watching the films, and giving my thoughts on all I encounter. I’ll inevitably be drawing heavily on the collection of Kees Stam, author of The Harry Palmer Movie Site, and Rob Mallows, creator of the Deighton Dossier, and other odds and ends that I’ve turned up over the years.

Here’s a collection of advertisements for the film found in the theater listings of the New York Times in 1965-1966:

Through July, or at least until I run out of things about which to talk, we’ll be looking at the Harry Palmer series of novels (in which the character doesn’t actually have a name), their author — Len Deighton, the films based on them, the star of those films — Michael Caine, and the television movies that followed. I will be re-reading the whole series of novels, re-watching the films, and giving my thoughts on all I encounter. I’ll inevitably be drawing heavily on the collection of Kees Stam, author of The Harry Palmer Movie Site, and Rob Mallows, creator of the Deighton Dossier, and other odds and ends that I’ve turned up over the years.

The Ipcress File Soundtrack

John Barry’s theme for The IPCRESS File has an interesting place in the genealogy of the thriller score, both built on the work of the past, and, as with his scores for the 007 movies, influencing the future.

e|--7--7-7---7--|
B|--8--8-8-8-8--|
G|--9------9----|
D|--9-----------|
A|--7-----------|
E|--0-----------|

[See full tablature]

According to Barry in Kristopher Spencer’s Film and Television Scores, 1950-1979, Barry’s score was influenced by Anton Karas’ zither work in one of the earliest espionage classics, Carol Reed’s The Third Man:

Like Bond, Palmer had the benefit of spying to a John Barry score. Along with The Quiller Memorandum (1966), The IPCRESS File represents Barry’s only significant non-Bond spy scoring. The composer made a distinct effort to differentiate the Palmer sound through mood and, most noticeably, instrumentation. Barry avoids the bombast of a typical Bond score by using smaller scale orchestration featuring vibes, piano, guitar, and most notably, a cimbalom (a melancholy-sounding stringed instrument traditionally played by Hungarian Jews or gypsies).

“The IPCRESS File was like my homage to The Third Man,” Barry recounted. “I knew that was how I wanted to do it from the start, but obviously I wasn’t going to use a zither.” (Pan Macmillan, p. 170)

Some of IPCRESS‘ quieter passages that rely on trombone, French horn and the piano’s lower register would not sound out of place on Thunderball, but the general absence of shock and awe rhapsodies helps differentiate IPCRESS from the Bond scores. In fact, some of the jazzier sections wouldn’t sound out of place on one of the crime jazz scores of the ’50s. And, years later, some of the murkier cues turned up on the exemplary trip-hop compilation Coffee Table Music. Among that album’s contributors was Grantby, a British production duo named for the villain in The IPCRESS File. The score is the most memorable of the three Palmer soundtracks.

After IPCRESS, the cimbalom became a mainstay of the serious thriller, turning up in Michael Small’s score for Klute, Lalo Schifrin’s for The Eagle Has Landed, and Roy Budd’s theme for The Sandbaggers, and was also featured in Barry’s theme for The Persuaders, which, like IPCRESS, featured the work of John Leach (who wrote a history of the cimbalom that can be found, if you have access, on JSTOR). The cimbalom was originally supposed to be featured in Barry’s score for King Rat, but the American cimbalom player couldn’t hack it, so the theme was played on a guitar instead.

Rumor has it that producer Saltzman wanted to separate the composer from his volatile director, Sidney J. Furie, but that the two met in secret and Barry hummed the score he’d so far completed. In Royal S. Brown’s
Overtones and Undertones, Barry says that his music was inspired by the different take on the thriller that Furie was making:

All the Bond scenes were all loud noises and up close. But in The IPCRESS File, Sidney Furie did this lovely fight scene outside of the Albert Hall, where they’re in the distance, on the top of the steps, and I have that arpeggio music going against it, and it was wonderful. Because you saw these two stupid men. It made you realize how stupid physical violence is. It had such a different effect, and I think a very penetrating effect, from what violence in the movies is all about.

Barry’s IPCRESS theme didn’t only have an effect on film score composers, but on contemporary electronic musicians, who often sample the cimbalom riff. For instance, the spytronica band Portishead use Barry’s work as the starting point for their song / short film To Kill a Dead Man:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4C0KHsR8Wg

The original release of The IPCRESS File on Decca Records featured an essay on Barry’s role in creating the spy music genre:

With the growing popularity of the “spy” novel, depicting the world of intrigue and violence of the secret agent, a new sound was born in contemporary music. One of the leading and most successful exponents of this new sound is John Barry, a 31-year-old composer of prolific output, who has soared to the pinnacle of his profession through his brilliant and imaginative writing for television and films.

His most recent achievement was his score for “Goldfinger,” the third in the James Bond 007 series starring Sean Connery still breaking box office records wherever it is played. This exciting and provocative score with its plentitude of inventive ideas was perfectly related to every mood and aspect of the film. The music, like the picture, was an immediate success, and the sound track album attained the number one position in the national best selling LP charts.

John Barry’s score for The Ipcress File will surely achieve the same kind of success.

Unlike the Bond films, The Ipcress File is not set against some exotic background with glamorous women and preposterous villains. This is the story of an anti-hero, played out against everyday settings in London, where a secret agent seems only unusual by the ordinariness of his protagonists.

It is the story of kidnapped scientists, of brain washing, and of the suspect undercover men of great power who will stop at virtually nothing to accomplish their diabolical deeds. The music of John Barry helps to create moods that are as exciting as they are unusual for this film. His effects are striking, urgent, compulsive, sinister–and even haunting–and are achieved through the use of a harp, flutes and the unusual Hungarian instrument called the cymbalum.

One of the reasons for the success of John Barry is that he makes the unusual acceptable. His compositions, particularly those for “Goldfinger” and The Ipcress File, and television shows (like “The Human Jungle,” a highly popular and successful series) introduce us to sounds that seem almost esoteric, yet they are never less than contemporary.

John Barry is a composer who is very much a part of the everyday scene, yet a man who is constantly moving ahead in his work. He is as experimental as he is practical and precise, and his music is as expressive and economical as it is rich in text and mood. Not so many years ago John Barry was playing with a beat group in London’s reknowned Soho, but since then his progression has been almost meteoric. He became widely known with his own group, The John Barry Seven, which did the exciting and colorful backings for the hit records of Adam Faith. From that period in his career he has never looked back, and few composers are more in demand for television and motion picture scoring than he.

“The Ipcress File” is the latest brilliant composition from this inventive and imaginative talent; and shortly John Barry will be in Hollywood to write the music for yet another major production. Here is a young man who has already achieved fantastic success in the world of music and who is destined for even greater success in the future: JOHN BARRY!

And here, in case you’d like to play along at home, is John Barry’s theme from The IPCRESS File:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYHtYuHCso4

I’d planned to have a recording of my own, demonstrating the correctness of my tablature, but unfortunately, my recording computer died shortly into my first draft. Here’s 33 seconds of a loosely edited guitar version of The IPCRESS File, played by yours truly:

Through July, or at least until I run out of things about which to talk, we’ll be looking at the Harry Palmer series of novels (in which the character doesn’t actually have a name), their author — Len Deighton, the films based on them, the star of those films — Michael Caine, and the television movies that followed. I will be re-reading the whole series of novels, re-watching the films, and giving my thoughts on all I encounter. I’ll inevitably be drawing heavily on the collection of Kees Stam, author of The Harry Palmer Movie Site, and Rob Mallows, creator of the Deighton Dossier, and other odds and ends that I’ve turned up over the years.

Ipcress File cover with Michael Caine

“You have to remember I saw my first movie at fifteen; I’ve had to make up for lost time. The first film I saw was on television, The IPCRESS File; I loved the way Michael Caine broke eggs for an omelette.”

“Broke eggs?”

Kadi nodded. “Tenderly. I’d never seen a man cook before.”

– From Mrs. Pollifax and the Lion Killer by Dorothy Gilman

The world first met the “Harry Palmer” character in 1962, when England was then in the midst of a mod revolution led by, as culture studies scholar Dick Hebdige says, “working-class dandies.” Mod men wore their hair longer, held exacting tastes in slim Italian suits, and played with concepts of androgyny in their personal appearance. Hebdige, in his Hiding in the Light: On Images and Things refers to Palmer as, “a fictional extension of mod,” with his preference for food, clothes and cigarettes from France and Italy—the “continental cool” (75).

But the heroes of films at that time were still rugged, handsome, tough, with no time for cooking. Caine, writing in his autobiography, What’s it All About?, says that the filmmakers were overly concerned with playing down any aspect of the character that could be deemed homosexual (175):

Sid Furie the director and Harry [Saltzman] went off to ‘de-gay’ my role in the script. The supermarket cart problem had already been solved by having me use mine as a weapon. The glasses were satisfactorily ‘butched up’ by having Sue Lloyd, who played the romantic lead, ask me if I always wear glasses. I say, ‘I only take them off in bed,’ she looks at me for a moment, then reaches forward and takes them off.

But Caine as Palmer, and shortly after, Caine as Alfie, helped redefine the concept of the masculine Brit. Andrew Spicer writes in his Typical Men: The Representation of Masculinity in Popular British Cinema that:

Critics were reserved about Sidney Furie’s over-ingenious ‘eavesdropping’ style of direction, but admired the film’s freshness and contemporaneity, the ‘current bachelor neatness’ of Palmer’s flat, and a working-class figure whose ‘Cockney vowels’ did not preclude an appreciation of Mozart and champignons. The role established Caine as a major star and a new type whose attraction was defined by Penelope Gilliatt: ‘Intransigence and opportunism are as central now to sex-appeal in English male acting as charm and height used to be. Make a crack, cheat the boss, expect nothing, go for the lot, and never commit murder except on expenses. The girls fall like skittles.’

Followed by the androgyny of the glam period, the Palmer character seems much closer to the John Wayne end of the spectrum of masculinity. Indeed, Caine feels that, ironically, the character once seen by Saltzman and Furie as too homosexual now serves as the icon for British manliness. As he told the LA Times in 1999:

“If you think of ‘The Italian Job,’ ‘Get Carter’ and ‘Alfie,’ then to young English guys now I represent English heterosexual masculinity without any doubts. You don’t look at me and say, I wonder if he’s gay? You look at me and think, he’s a geezer [regular guy], he’s one of us.

Through July, or at least until I run out of things about which to talk, we’ll be looking at the Harry Palmer series of novels (in which the character doesn’t actually have a name), their author — Len Deighton, the films based on them, the star of those films — Michael Caine, and the television movies that followed. I will be re-reading the whole series of novels, re-watching the films, and giving my thoughts on all I encounter. I’ll inevitably be drawing heavily on the collection of Kees Stam, author of The Harry Palmer Movie Site, and Rob Mallows, creator of the Deighton Dossier, and other odds and ends that I’ve turned up over the years.

In our round-up of IPCRESS File posters, I posted two that, until today, I thought were the same with elements rearranged and glasses drawn afterward:

As you can see, I was mistaken. They’re clearly not the same — the faces hold different expressions, the hand pulling the jacket is present in one, but not the other, and the color pallette is different. The two posters, drawn by different unknown (does anyone have credit information for these posters?) artists used the following publicity photo as reference:

I asked Kees Stam of the Harry Palmer Movie Site if he knew the origin of the pic, but his best guess is that it was a promotional still made before the film was shot (he even has a promotional postcard featuring the image, which I think can be seen on this page of rare IPCRESS File stills).

So the thought that this still was shot early in the planning of the film might solve the mystery of why Harry isn’t wearing his specs in this pic. In any case, he’s not going to hit anything with that gun. I’ve seen how bad his vision is.

Through July, or at least until I run out of things about which to talk, we’ll be looking at the Harry Palmer series of novels (in which the character doesn’t actually have a name), their author — Len Deighton, the films based on them, the star of those films — Michael Caine, and the television movies that followed. I will be re-reading the whole series of novels, re-watching the films, and giving my thoughts on all I encounter. I’ll inevitably be drawing heavily on the collection of Kees Stam, author of The Harry Palmer Movie Site, and Rob Mallows, creator of the Deighton Dossier, and other odds and ends that I’ve turned up over the years.

First, a pair of quick notes. First, I hope you all are reading Horse Under Water, as I am, to prepare for our next round of conversation. Second, Mark Simonson was kind enough to provide a few more typeface suggestions for yesterday’s post. If you want to make your own Dalby Domestic Employment Bureau sign, give the post a look-see.

As noted in our recent review of The IPCRESS File, scenes involving the foreign locations in the novel were rewritten to take place in London. Today, I’ve spliced together a selection from the audiobook (read by Robert Whitfield) and the film that demonstrate how the screenwriters approached the relocation. In the book, this scene is an action-packed bust out set on a night road in Lebanon. This scene also demonstrates the differences between the Dalby of the novel, who gets right into the thick of things with sticky bombs in hand, and the Dalby of the film, who for the most part stays in the car.

The novel presents the take-back of Raven as a violent surgical strike in the midst of the desert, whereas the film shows careful, choreographed procedure in a London carpark. Which do you prefer? Take a look:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LoXOknJ2Cg