Starring: Dirk Bogarde, John Mills, Vanessa Redgrave, Michael Redgrave, Maggie Smith, Laurence Olivier, Paul Shelley
There's decent support too (most notably from Gordon Jackson), but the adventures are worth watching for Michael Caine's (arguably) most iconic role, where his unique brand of cockney cool really started to shine. Despite coming from the Bondian creative team (supremo Harry Saltzman, designer Ken Adams, editor Peter Hunt, scorer John Barry), this labyrinthine thriller provides a credible everyman alternative to Bond while embracing British everydayness. While investigating kidnapped scientists, undisciplined surveillance man Harry Palmer doesn't globe-trot, bed-hop or trade verbage with cat-stroking megalomaniac villains he spends his time on mundane form-filling tasks in drab offices. Furie's first adaptation of cook-turned author Len Deighton's Cold War novels goes the other way. Since it simply wasn't possible to compete with Connery's 007 in the super-spy stakes during the '60s, Sidney J.
