THE IPCRESS FILE (1965) - Kino Lorber Blu-Ray Review

[AndyDursin]

THE IPCRESS FILE
7/10

Making its long-overdue U.S. Blu-Ray debut October 27th is THE IPCRESS FILE (109 mins., 1965), the first of three theatrical adaptations of Len Deighton's bestsellers featuring hard-working “blue collar” spy Harry Palmer. As essayed by Michael Caine, Palmer here finds himself in a tough spot – with his new bosses threatening to send him back to prison, the former thief is tasked with having to retrieve a kidnapped scientist – part of a group that have disappeared, only to reappear as brainwashed and incapacitated.

Harry Saltzman teamed with Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli to bring James Bond to the screen and solo produced “The Ipcress File,” which goes to great lengths – occasionally too great – to show audiences the less glamorous side of espionage. There are ample scenes of Palmer making coffee, reading the paper, meeting one of his bosses in a supermarket – this is '60s espionage in the form of a 9-to-5 job, and the grittiness of its settings, and “everydayness” of how Deigton's plot is carried out, makes for a fascinating comparison with the Bond films. This is especially true because of the amount of Bond series personnel Saltzman brought over to work on it, including production designer Ken Adam, art director Peter Murton, editor Peter Hunt and composer John Barry, whose memorable score is one of the film's chief assets.

Caine is terrific and there are some choice lines in the script by Bill Canaway and James Doran, though the screenplay – reportedly rewritten on a daily basis during shooting – tends to unravel in the film's second hour. Certain characters have no pay off (Sue Lloyd's female lead for one) and the last half-hour is dominated by a series of torture sequences; meanwhile, Sidney J. Furie's direction stresses odd camera angles and chooses to stage one of the movie's few fights at a distance, which isn't a problem – more an issue is how the movie's climax just comes off as odd instead of suspenseful. The end result kind of fizzles out instead of proving fully captivating, but clearly there are enough worthwhile elements – Caine, Barry's score, the overall atmosphere – in play in “The Ipcress File” that have made it an enduring favorite amongst genre aficionados.

Kino Lorber's Blu-Ray is sourced from the same ITV source as a myriad of overseas releases – it's a serviceable transfer (2.35) with a high bit-rate that could still, certainly, use a thorough remastering. Colors are a little bland and there's a little bit of noise here and there in the transfer, but it's still watchable. The mono sound is fine though there's a 5.1 track, also carried over from those releases, that seems like it's doing nothing other than housing the mono source in a 5.1 container.

Extras include an archival commentary with Furie and Hunt that's thoroughly enlightening in terms of the movie's somewhat tumultuous shooting; a new commentary with frequent Kino historians Troy Howarth and Daniel Kremer; fairly recent-ish interviews with Caine and Ken Adam; two trailers, four radio spots and a “Trailers From Hell” vignette with Howard Rodman.

[Paul MacLean]

I wouldn't call it the best film ever, but I like The Ipcress File quite a bit (of course I have a fascination -- if not obsession -- with 1960s England!).

Glad to see a new release. I only have a region 2 DVD which contains a very grainy transfer.

[AndyDursin]

I liked it -- I just didn't "love" it, and there are a few people who claim it's a classic. I wouldn't go there myself but I was still entertained by it.

Glad to see a new release. I only have a region 2 DVD which contains a very grainy transfer.

This transfer is the same one that's been used on all the Blu-Ray releases around the world. Although KL licensed this from Universal in the U.S., it's the exact same transfer as the recent Koch German release (which I imported a few months ago) and has the ITV logo before it.

It is definitely a "dated source" that really could've used remastering -- the colors are "meh," there's some noise in the transfer at times. It's OK and KL did the best they could in terms of encoding (the bit-rate is extremely high) but it's not a fresh or new looking scan by current BD stnadards.

That said, I'm sure it's better than the DVD -- even if it's probably struck from the same source print, I'd imagine.

The old commentary between Sidney J. Furie and Peter Hunt is entertaining, Furie in particular mentions he wasn't supposed to ever meet with John Barry (the producers were handling the score) and that Hunt was the only thing that stood between him and Saltzman firing him because he hated his camera angles!