Harry Palmer
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Harry Palmer is the fictional secret agent protagonist of three films based on spy novels written by Len Deighton. Michael Caine was Harry Palmer in films based on three of the first four of the published novels featuring that protagonist.
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[edit] Novels
Len Deighton introduced "Harry Palmer" in The IPCRESS File (1962), his first published novel, however, in that first-person novel, the secret agent is anonymous, and never named by others. Further novels featuring this character are:
- Horse Under Water (1963)
- Funeral in Berlin (1964)
- Billion Dollar Brain (1966)
- Spy Story (1974)
- Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Spy (1976) [Catch A Falling Spy in U.S.A.]
As the protagonist is anonymous in these novels, it is disputed whether or not Harry Palmer narrates the last two novels. Deighton said the Spy Story narrator is not the man in The IPCRESS File[citation needed]; for most of Spy Story, the narrator is named and addressed as 'Patrick Armstrong' — although, as another character says, "We have so many different names". Despite this, all these novels have been unofficially titled the Harry Palmer novels, based on the protagonist's name in the film adaptations of The IPCRESS File, Funeral in Berlin, and Billion Dollar Brain.
Encouraging the unitary concept — that each novel features Harry Palmer — is the 1974 dust jacket to the Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovich American edition of Spy Story, the blurb is: "He is back, after five long-years' absence, the insubordinate, decent, bespectacled English spy who fought, fumbled, and survived his outrageous way through the best-selling Horse Under Water, Funeral in Berlin, and the rest of those marvellous, celebrated Len Deighton spy thrillers". Likewise, on the 1976 edition dust jacket to Catch a Falling Spy, the novel features "Deighton's familiar hero, our bespectacled Englishman". Moreover, some characters from Yesterday's Spy (1975) earlier appeared in Spy Story (1974), although "Harry Palmer" is not amongst them.
It is theorised that the protagonist in another of Deighton's spy novels, An Expensive Place to Die (1967), also in the first-person-anonymous narrative, is "Harry Palmer", however, differences in characterisation and plotting indicate someone else, another spy not Palmer.
[edit] Origin of the Name
![On-set during filming of The IPCRESS File, Len Deighton teaches Michael Caine how to break an egg.[1]](../../../../images/local/thumb/2/22/Len_Deighton_and_Michael_Caine_Ipcress_File.jpg/180px-Len_Deighton_and_Michael_Caine_Ipcress_File.jpg)
The IPCRESS File was published in November of 1962, soon after the release of Dr. No (the first James Bond film). Unlike Ian Fleming's spy, Len Deighton's spy is hindered by bureaucracy, wears eye glasses, shops in supermarkets, lives in a back street flat, and seedy hotels, and needs a pay rise. In the film version, Harry Palmer is a lowly army sergeant forcibly drafted to secret work, first for Army Intelligence, then Foreign Office, to work away a prison sentence for black marketing. Harry Palmer has much in common with Len Deighton, including passions for cooking and classical music.
When The IPCRESS File sold well, EON producers Harry Saltzman and Albert Broccoli approached Deighton to write the script for the next 007 film, From Russia With Love (1963), however, despite Deighton's efforts, little of his screenplay was filmed. Saltzman, instead, decided to use The IPCRESS File, and its sequels, as the beginning of a new, secret agent movie series. The IPCRESS File was designed to have a style different from the James Bond movies, although Saltzman employed many Bond movie staff, including production designer Ken Adam, editor Peter Hunt, and composer John Barry; eventually, Michael Caine was chosen to protagonise Harry Palmer.
Needing to name the previously-anonymous secret agent, the production team chose "Harry Palmer", because they wanted a dull, unglamorous name to distance him from James Bond — the prevalent stereotype: a flamboyant, swashbuckling secret agent. In his memoirs, Michael Caine says producer Harry Saltzman thought up the surname "Palmer", and Caine innocently remarked that "Harry" was a dull name, realising his gaffe on seeing Saltzman's stare. Another origin story is that in a Len Feldman interview, Caine recalled "I made a rather bad social blunder, because, he said, 'What's the dullest name you can think of ?', and I said, 'Harry', and he said, 'Thanks very much.' And then he said, 'What's a dull surname ?', and the most boring boy in our school was called: 'Palmer', 'Tommy Palmer'. So, he said, 'All right, we'll call him Harry Palmer.' "
In chapter five of the the first novel, The IPCRESS File, the anonymous narrator says: "My name isn't Harry, but in this business it's hard to remember whether it ever had been."
[edit] Films
After the release of The IPCRESS File in 1965, Saltzman's production company made Funeral in Berlin (1966), and Billion Dollar Brain (1967), both protagonised by Michael Caine. The second Harry Palmer novel, Horse Under Water, was not used, rumour is, had the film series continued, then, it would have been the next novel adapted to film. In 1976, the Harry Palmer novel, Spy Story, was filmed, with Michael Petrovitch as 'Patrick Armstrong', yet is unrelated to Saltzman's Harry Palmer films. In the mid-1990s, there appeared two, original screenplay Harry Palmer films, featuring Michael Caine:
- Bullet to Beijing (1995)
- Midnight in St Petersburg (1996)
Despite sometimes being titled Len Deighton's Bullet to Beijing and Len Deighton's Midnight in St Petersburg, author Len Deighton did not participate in these films. Evidence of Michael Caine's popular identification as Harry Palmer is in Blue Ice (1992), wherein the hero is an ex-spy named 'Harry', who is much like Harry Palmer. In Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002), Caine's portrayal of Nigel Powers, father of secret agent Austin Powers, spoofs Harry Palmer.
[edit] External links
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