Movie Type: Political Thriller, Unglamorized Spy Film
Themes: Behind the Iron Curtain, Traitorous Spies/Double Agents, Conspiracies
Main Cast: Michael Caine, Paul Hubschmid, Oscar Homolka, Eva Renzi, Guy Doleman
Release Year: 1966
Country: UK
Run Time: 102 minutes
Plot
Funeral in Berlin was the second of three films based on the Harry Palmer novels by Len Deighton. As he did in The Ipcress File, Michael Caine stars as Palmer, Deighton's bespectacled, somewhat disreputable British secret agent. In the manner of Graham Greene's The Third Man, Palmer is dispatched to Berlin to look into the highly suspicious defection of Soviet colonel Stok (Oscar Homolka). It is giving nothing away to reveal that Stok's death is a sham, and that Palmer is expected to engineer the "corpse"'s defection. To reveal any more, however, would be giving the game away. Michael Caine would portray Harry Palmer a third time in Billion Dollar Brain. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Guy Hamilton's Funeral in Berlin (1966) was a groundbreaking thriller in its time. From World War II until the mid-'60s, the nature of politics and paranoia in the West had rendered just about every depiction of the Cold War into a relentlessly grim exercise in entertainment. The James Bond movies got past this by totally ignoring the Cold War in most of its scripts (with the notable exception of From Russia With Love), preferring to deal with villains other than the Soviets. The mere fact that Paramount had made Funeral in Berlin indicated a new feeling in the land. In contrast to the Bond movies, the story here was steeped in the minutiae of the Cold War, and it wasted no time in having fun at the expense of the official seriousness with which it was pursued and prosecuted. Hamilton, photographer Otto Heller, and editor John Bloom all went to town on this production, with quick editing, unusual camera angles, and a subtly wry, sardonic tone throughout the script, making this movie a lot more complex and demanding (and ultimately rewarding) than a film such as Goldfinger. This movie proved to be one of the more underrated thrillers of its period, and though most viewers shied away from its use of such plot devices as unrepentant Nazis and money stolen from Holocaust victims, those same attributes make it a movie not only worth discovering but also seeing again. The extraordinary cinematography with its images of Berlin and London during the '60s also makes this film worth watching (and owning) on that basis alone. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
Peter Murton - Art Director, Guy Hamilton - Director, John Bloom - Editor, Konrad Elfers - Composer (Music Score), Harry Rabinowitz - Musical Direction/Supervision, Ken Adam - Production Designer, Otto Heller - Cinematographer, Harry Saltzman - Producer, Charles Kasher - Producer, Vernon Dixon - Set Designer, Michael White - Set Designer, Evan Jones - Screenwriter, Len Deighton - Book Author
Funeral in Berlin is a 1966 film based on the spy novel by Len Deighton. It is the second of three films following the characters from the initial film, The IPCRESS File.
British secret agent Harry Palmer (Michael Caine) is sent to Berlin to arrange the defection of Colonel Stok (Oskar Homolka). Betrayed by everybody he comes in contact with, Palmer manages to figure out what is going on and escape with his life.
Funeral In Berlin was released as a Region 1DVD on August 14, 2001. It was presented in Anamorphic Widescreen with English and French soundtracks in Dolby Digital Mono. A Region 2 version was released in 2004, in four languages and with subtitles for 24 languages.
