[Filmin] A claustrophobic spy movie, despite some humorous moments. Sidney J. Furie frames through objects (a car, a window, eyeglasses...) breaking the panoramic screen-size to show a fragmented reality, anticipating the psychological torture and the use of the unusual cimbalom in the music of John Barry. Harry Palmer is an anti-James Bond who lives between cloudy days and sinister places of the human mind.

Atmospheric, and featuring a coolly enigmatic Michael Caine, but it's tonally confused, jumping oddly between James Bond-esque action sequences and Le Carre-esque moody intrigue. Perhaps most interesting for the connoisseur because it's clear the classic Prisoner TV series rips off some key plot points two years later. Oddly, I only realized after watching I had actually seen it only five years earlier and had forgotten it completely. Sinister Soviet brainwashing, perhaps?

Part of the James Bond team makes a movie about a more serious secret agent. Michael Caine and the rest of the actors stand out