The Quiller Memorandum

George Segal as Quiller.

When two of its agents are murdered in Berlin, the British intelligence agency MI-6 employs an American spy to locate the headquarters of a 1960s Nazi organization. Known only as Quiller (George Segal), the American follows his own rules--much to the dismay of his British handlers. Instead of pursuing an undercover investigation, Quiller makes his presence known to anyone who might be affiliated with the Nazis. 

He is quickly captured, injected with truth serum, and grilled about the location of the British headquarters. He divulges nothing of interest, but is mysteriously discarded rather than murdered. This is the first indication that Quiller is engaged in a cat-and-mouse game with his query.

Made in 1966, The Quiller Memorandum is one of several serious spy dramas made in the wake of the decade's hugely successful James Bond films. However, despite an impressive pedigree, including an all-star cast and an award-winning screenwriter, The Quiller Memorandum comes across as lightweight compared to The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965), The Ipcress File (1965), and The Deadly Affair (1967).

Senta Berger...as a spy?

Part of the problem lies with the simplistic plot, which serves only as a frame for an overdose of dialogue-driven scenes. Nothing much happens in The Quiller Memorandum. Its protagonist walks the streets of Berlin, chats with people, and gets interrogated under the influence of drugs. There's a short feeble car chase and an explosion at the climax, but there's nothing that drives the story nor injects it with any sense of urgency.

Screenwriter Harold Pinter, who adapted the novel The Berlin Memorandum, presents characters with less depth than cardboard cut-outs. Perhaps, his point is that spies lie so much to everyone that their "real" lives cease to exist. However, the end results of his efforts are characters without any character. Quiller is an cartoonish smart aleck who tosses off quips as he sits strapped in a chair facing torture or death. His attitude might work in a Bond knock-off, but obviously The Quiller Memorandum was intended as an anti-Bond spy film.

On the plus side, director Michael Anderson paints a haunting, noirish portrait of Berlin in the mid-1960s--from the crumbling buildings to the late night streets filled with lonely people. The gloom-ridden atmosphere is augmented by John Barry's dour score, which features Matt Monro singing "Wednesday's Child" (Mack David's lyrics include lines like "I am Wednesday's child, born to be alone").

Fans of Alec Guinness, Max Von Sydow, and Senta Berger may be interested in seeking out The Quiller Memorandum. However, if you're in the mood for a good 1960 spy drama, stick with The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, The Ipcress File, or Funeral in Berlin.

The Bridge on the the River Kwai Comes to Blu-ray

It’s not often that a jaunty military tune is whistled loudly by British prisoners of war on their way to their new camp in the jungles, which were the killing fields of the war in the Pacific. The Bridge on the River Kwai, however, essentially launched a military barroom ditty to new heights of popularity, whistled and hummed by children and adults around the world: Colonel Bogie’s March. The unlikely entrance of these potential Japanese slave laborers is an amazing introduction to a film that’s not really about bridge building. Oh yes, the bridge gets built and destroyed, but the clash of wills between different ideologies and the very complex nature of the characters themselves is at the core of this stunning Academy award-winning film.

The legendary producer Sam Spiegel was determined to film this story since he first read about it in a French newspaper review of the novel by Pierre Boulle.  He read it like an Evelyn Wood graduate and immediately bought the rights to the film from the author and the publisher. Over the next three years, in order to achieve perfection of detail and authenticity of locale and  events, Spiegel traveled the world looking for locations, finding the right actors, writers, director, cinematographer and the vast company of craftsmen who were essential to the look and feel of the film. 

By 1956, director David Lean had helmed several of the better British movies of the late 1940s, including Brief Encounter, Oliver Twist, and Great Expectations.  He had guided Katharine Hepburn, for her role in Summertime, filmed on location in Venice, in 1955.  Sam Spiegel was about to give him the job that would make him a world-famous and even more respected filmmaker.

To adapt Boulle’s book, Spiegel chose Michael Wilson and Carl Foreman; unfortunately, both had been hounded by the House Un-American Activities Committee in its witch hunt for Communists in Hollywood.  At its initial release, the writing credits were attributed to Pierre Boulle. Eventually, Wilson and Foreman were reinstated in the opening credits as the actual writers. 

The lead roles in the film were a British Colonel, a British commando, and an American who had escaped from the prisoner of war camp. Spiegel had no problems signing on Jack Hawkins and William Holden, but Alec Guinness was adamant about not wishing to appear in the film.  Spiegel made one last attempt to convince Guinness and invited him out to dinner, and by dessert Guinness was on board.  To round out the major casting, he chose Japanese silent film star Sessue Hayakawa for the pivotal role of the camp commandant given the task of getting the bridge completed. 

Hating the British, Hayakawa's Colonel Saito relishes the idea of breaking their spirit and humiliating their officers by requiring them to construct the bridge. Initially, Guinness's Colonel Nicholson refuses to cooperate and is punished severely. He changes course, though, with the horrible irony of the story being that he finds salvation for his troop’s morale by building a bridge that will last "600 years."  Nicholson doesn’t know that a group of commandos is on their way to destroy the bridge to cripple the Japanese supply line from Singapore to India.  A war film by genre, The Bridge on the River Kwai offers the audience more than it expects, a thought-provoking examination of bravery and heroism and the lessons to be learned.  

Columbia pictures is to be congratulated for putting this film in the collector’s edition which includes the original DVD and an new amazing Blu-ray disc. The DVD set is in the shape of a book, which contains the old DVD at the beginning and the Blu-ray at the end.  In between, there are photographs of posters, reproduced actual lobby cards, an excerpt from the original so

uvenir book in 1957, candid and publicity photographs from the set and very brief mini-profiles of the actors and director.  The older disc has interesting extras, including a short film on the making of the movie with comments from some of the associates who worked with David Lean.  There is also a chronological depiction of the actual building of the bridge; a student film about the real bridge narrated by William Holden, and comments by filmmaker John Milius.

This review was written by Cafe film critic Sazball.
Columbia Classics provided a review copy of this DVD to the Classic Film & TV Cafe.