Review of The Quiller Memorandum (1966) by Stuart K — 23 Apr 2012

Based upon The Berlin Memorandum by Elleston Trevor, adapted by Harold Pinter with Michael Anderson (The Dam Busters (1955), Around the World in Eighty Days (1956) and Logan's Run (1976))as director, this is a gripping and yet slightly offbeat Cold War spy thriller, similar to what the Harry Palmer films were, but this has good intrigue and a good cast to it's name.

In West Berlin, British spy Kenneth Lindsay Jones (Herbert Stass) is murdered in a phone box, the British send Quiller (George Segal) as his replacement, Quiller reports to Pol (Alec Guinness), who tells him that there's a plot to bring about a new generation of Nazi's, but this group don't wear uniforms like the Third Reich did, this is something new, orchestrated by a mysterious group known as Phoenix.

Quiller starts his investigations, which take him to school teacher Inge Lindt (Senta Berger), whose colleague was arrested as a Nazi war criminal, but it's not long before Quiller finds the leader of Phoenix, the aristocratic Oktober (Max von Sydow), who means brutal harm to Quiller.

It's a good spy thriller held together by Segal's likeable performance, with good support from the great Guinness and von Sydow, with cameos from George Sanders and Robert Helpmann. This is a very good Cold War spy thriller, and the icing on the cake is an eerie, tingling score by John Barry.