The Quiller Memorandum (1966) ****

Stylish cat-and-mouse thriller that fits into the relatively small sub-genre of intelligent spy pictures. George Segal was a difficult actor to cast. He had a kind of shiftiness that lent credibility to a movie like King Rat (1965), a cockiness that found a good home in The Southern Star (1969) and an earnestness ideal for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966).

But Quiller fit his screen persona like a glove. The part called for charm to the point of smarminess and courage to the point of callousness. A lone wolf for whom relationships were a means to an end, he adopted identities – journalist, swimming coach etc– as the occasion suited. His undercover mission is to expose a neo-Nazi organisation. But just as he seeks to discover the location of this secret enterprise, so his quarry attempts to find out where his operation is based. 

Michael Anderson (The Dam Busters, 1955) had just finished his first spy effort, Operation Crossbow (1966) and that film’s documentary-style approach was carried on here but with a great deal more style. There is consistent use of the tracking shot, often from the point-of-view of one of the protagonists, that gives the film added tension, since you never know where a tracking shot will end. Although the film boasts one of John Barry’s best themes, Wednesday’s Child, there was a remarkable lack of music throughout. Many chase scenes begin in silence, with just natural sounds as a background, then spill out into music, and then back into silence.

But much of the heavy lifting is done by playwright Harold Pinter (The Servant, 1963) in adapting Adam Hall’s prize-winning novel. Hall was one of the pseudonyms used by Trevor Dudley-Smith who wrote The Flight of the Phoenix (1965) under the name Elleston Trevor. The Quiller Memorandum involved wholesale change, from the title (the book was called The Berlin Memorandum) onwards. Quiller is now an American, not British, drafted in from the Middle East.

The book is set against the background of war crime trials; Quiller a British wartime rescuer of Jews now tracking down war criminals; the main female character (played in the film by Senta Berger) had, as a child, been in Hitler’s bunker; and there is a subplot concerning  a bubonic plague; there was a preponderance of obscure (though interesting for a reader) tradecraft; plus the Nazi organisation was named “Phoenix.”

While retaining the harsh realities of the spy business, Pinter junks most of this in favour of a more contemporary approach. Instead of meeting his superior Pol (Alec Guinness) in a theater, this takes place in the Olympiad stadium. Guinness’s upper crust bosses, Gibbs (George Sanders) and Rushington (Robert Flemyng), are more interested in one-upmanship. Berlin still showed the after-effects of the war and Pinter exploits these locales.

One lead takes him to Inge (Senta Berger), an apparently innocent teacher in a school where a known war criminal had worked.

But the core remains the same, Quiller prodding for weaknesses in the Nazi organisation. his opposite number Oktober (Max von Sydow) allows him to come close in the hope of reeling him in and forcing him to reveal the whereabouts of his operation. Quiller plays along in order to infiltrate the Nazis.

There is a lot of tradecraft: “do you smoke this brand” (of cigarettes) is the way spies identify themselves; Quiller followed on foot turns the tables on his quarry; the American is poisoned after being prodded by a suitcase; Quiller employs word associations to avoid giving away real information.

Having flushed out his adversaries, Quiller is now dangerously exposed. But that’s his job. He’s just a pawn to both sides. He’s virtually never on top unlike the fantasy espionage worlds inhabited by James Bond, Matt Helm and Derek Flint.

The structure is brilliant. Quiller spends most of the picture in dogged bafflement. The  supercilious Pol flits in and out, as if such work is beneath him.Quiller is stalked and stalks in return. There are exciting car chases but the foot chases (if they can be called that) are far more tense.

But the core is a bold thirteen-minute interrogation scene where Quiller s confronted by Oktober. As an antidote to the thuggery and danger to which he is exposed, Quiller becomes involved with Inge.

Segal is a revelation, grown vastly more mature as an actor after Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966) for which he was Oscar-nominated, confident enough to abandon the showy carapace of previous pictures. This is a picture where he sheds layers, from the opening brashness to the sense of defeat in surviving the interrogation ordeal, knowing the only reason he is still alive is to lead the enemy to his own headquarters, buoyed only by inner grit. He hangs on to his identity by his fingertips.

And it’s a revelation, too, or perhaps a backward step for Max von Sydow, who presented a less clichéd character in The Reward (1965). While dangerous enough, it looks like he is already slipping into the category of foreign villain.

Senta Berger (The Secret Ways, 1961) is hugely under-rated as an actress. She was in the second tier of the European sex bombs who came to prominence in the 1950s and 1960s, the top league dominated by Brigitte Bardot, Sophia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida. On screen she is not as lively as those three, but the quiet intensity of her luminous beauty draws the camera in.

Here, she is utterly believable as the innocent women who, in falling for Segal, is dragged into his dangerous world.  She was criminally under-used by Hollywood, often in over-glamourous roles such as The Ambushers (1967) or as the kind of leading lady whose role is often superfluous.

Discussion of Alec Guinness as a spy inevitably turns to his role as George Smiley in the BBC series Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (19790 and its sequel three years later, but this is a less dour portrayal, almost whimsical in a way.  

A must-see for collectors of the spy genre.