Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

What struck me from the start when I first saw this film 50 years ago was its dominating stylishness. It has a very particular style of its own all the way, evident in the environment, the fascinating camera angles, the very laconic dialogue, the austere almost militarily disciplined stringency and the total lack of any make up lustre to the characters - as far from Hollywood as possible, especially Michael Caine as Harry Palmer himself, the very opposite of any James Bond or hero agent with his stolid glasses.The stylishness also dominates the composition of the film, which is almost architectural: no action at all to begin with, very careful hints at what is going on, large desolate offices with stiff strictness, and only gradually the intrigue is introduced with the visit to the abandoned factory and Gordon Jackson's first discovery of the secret - and then the shocks start building up, to culminate in the great brainwash scene as an awesome finale.But that on the other hand is the weakness of the film. It's not credible. The stylishness is overdone in artifice and far-fetched methods bordering on absurdity, but it's the book that here goes off into incredibility. The enemy nation for which the spies are working is never mentioned, but Albania is, and Albania was at the time a satellite of Communist China, and it's more credible that China could have contrived an espionage intrigue like this and with those means than Russia.On the whole, it's almost a masterpiece, and it was a great joy to see it again after 50 years and get even more impressed than the first time above all by its artistic qualities.

***SPOILERS*** Known as the thinking man's "James Bond" movie has the just released from the brig for stealing booze out of the local army PX former UK Army Sgt. Harry Palmer, Michael Caine, who's recruited by his boss Colonel Ross, Guy Doleman,to find out what's been happening to a number of NATO scientists. It's these brilliant men who suddenly lost their memories as well as minds taking what ever information that they had in scientific as well as military research down the memory hole together with them.Palmer a master cook, he learned that wile doing KP in the British Army, and food & wine expert is told by his bosses in British intelligence to go undercover and find out what happened to the scientists in there suddenly losing their minds. That's in order to keep Plamer's handlers' hands from getting dirty or being , like Palmer, exposed and possibly assented. Palmer does crack the case he's on by deciphering this so-called "Ipcress File" that involves brainwashing the top western scientists and making them useless in their ability to think straight. Palmer himself is later kidnapped and tortured by the master mind of this weird operation communist Albanian Eric Ashly Grantby-Code name "Bluejay"-who uses torture to make Palmer forget who he is and who he's working for. "Bluejay" is planning to turn him into a helpless zombie as well as mind controlled assassin for, I suppose, the Soviet Union's KGB.***SPOILERS***Dark and stark looking film with a minimum of light-even in total daylight-"The Ipcress File" was soon to become the standard intelligent spy film that all others following it are to be compared to. It shows just how dangerous the spy game really is unlike the many "James Bond" real or imitated movies where in it our hero Harry Plamer is just a regular guy or just plain Joe not a superman without all kinds of gadgets to get him out of danger as well as beautiful women in every scene that he's in. It also has the villains in the film being not as powerful as in the "Bond" movies and not running an entire shadowy and secret organization that Palmer is confronted with that makes the movie a lot more believable.

THE IPCRESS FILE covers familiar territory of a Cold War spy thriller; it contains an incomprehensible plot, a fair share of untrustworthy characters, and a subject (The Ipcress File) which is never satisfactorily explained. Suffice to say that Harry Palmer (Michael Caine) discovers the cause of all the trouble, but only after a considerable degree of suffering at the hands of a torturer (Frank Gatliff).What makes Sidney J. Furie's film so memorable is its shooting-style (photography by Otto Heller). It makes use of the basic shot- reverse shot sequence, but every frame is partially obscured by an object, or person placed close to the camera; we seldom see the characters' faces in full profile. This strategy helps to create an atmosphere of menace, where nothing is quite as it seems, and every mission suggested to Harry by his two bosses Dalby (Nigel Green) and Ross (Guy Doleman) appears to have ulterior motives behind it that Palmer remains blissfully unaware of. Palmer himself retains his integrity throughout, even if he perceives himself as something of a rebel within the Secret Service.THE IPCRESS FILE is a direct antithesis of the Bond canon of films, also popular at the time of release. It is set in a grimy, rain- sodden London full of gray buildings and dark interior; no exotic locations for this spy. The most colorful aspect of the mise-en- scene are the big old-fashioned Routemaster buses that drive up and down familiar streets - Piccadilly, Whitehall, Oxford Street. Palmer himself lives in a shabby apartment; his one concession to the so-called 'Swinging Sixties' spirit is an ability to cook, but no one, not least his colleague Jean (Sue Lloyd) seems especially interested. The film inevitably incorporates some of the sexist attitudes of the time - for Palmer all women are "birds," and they do not become actively involved in any espionage activity. The film is a very masculinist piece, with legions of actors dressed in long coats, trilby hats and dark suits. Palmer himself has a good sartorial sense, but even he adopts the same uniform, especially when in pursuit of the enemy.Michael Caine, in a pre-ALFIE role, shows all the cockiness characteristic of his youthful period, when he really believed he could challenge the status quo. Whether he succeeds or not is very much open to debate.

This is a well-made gritty spy film set during the cold war years of the 60's.Michael Caine is Harry Palmer, an undercover British agent who we see initially to perform routine surveillance on suspected enemy agents from an apartment in London. This everyday routine is interrupted when his boss gives him a different assignment: to follow the whereabouts of enemy agents involved in the kidnapping of British scientists and theft of sensitive documents related to nuclear arms. The case is more difficult than usual since the British agents have reasons to believe that one of their own works for the enemy.What makes this film different from the films of the Jame-Bond 007 series is that it portrays a different and more realistic life of intelligence agents that is not glamorized or romanticized. Instead their lives can be more boring but also more deadly at the same time whereby little details can make the difference between life or death especially if the enemy may anticipate your moves.Eventually Palmer manages to resolve the case he works on (and also stay alive) not because he has the best weaponry or the best information but simply because he follows his instincts.I recommend this film if you are looking for a good mystery and intense thriller. It may have a bit outdated feel now since the cold war is over but do not let this deter you from seeing the good film that it is. An 8/10 from me. Note: This is the first film where Michael Caine portrays the 'Harry Palmer' fictional character.