Funeral in Berlin

"It was going to be a lovely funeral. Harry ‘Ipcress File’ Palmer just hoped it wouldn’t be his …"

1966 1h 42m EN

😐

6.4

MID

★6.4TMDB · 171

Thriller

Synopsis

Spoiler shield

Colonel Stok, a Soviet intelligence officer responsible for security at the Berlin Wall, appears to want to defect but the evidence is contradictory. Stok wants the British to handle his defection and asks for one of their agents, Harry Palmer, to smuggle him out of East Germany.

“It was going to be a lovely funeral. Harry ‘Ipcress File’ Palmer just hoped it wouldn’t be his …”

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Cast

Michael Caine
Harry Palmer
Paul Hubschmid
Johnnie Vulkan
Oskar Homolka
Colonel Stok
Eva Renzi
Samantha Steel
Guy Doleman
Ross
Hugh Burden
Hallam
Heinz Schubert
Aaron Levine
Wolfgang Völz
Werner

Credits

Behind the camera

Director: Guy Hamilton
Writers: Evan Jones
Languages: German, English
Countries: United Kingdom

Want more? Switch to Cinephile mode in the header for DP, composer, budget, box office, production companies, keywords, and release history.

Did you know?

Fun facts 🍿

1 / 8

ERA

Did you know

60 years old — a genuine piece of film history.

MoodPlayr · trivia#01

2 / 8

WORLD

Did you know

Dialogue crosses 2 languages: German, English.

MoodPlayr · trivia#02

3 / 8

CINEMA

Did you know

Part of the "Harry Palmer Collection" — so the characters or world continue elsewhere.

MoodPlayr · trivia#03

4 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Directed by Guy Hamilton, shot by Otto Heller. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.

MoodPlayr · trivia#04

5 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Original score by Konrad Elfers. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.

MoodPlayr · trivia#05

6 / 8

DIRECTOR

Did you know

Editor John Bloom shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.

MoodPlayr · trivia#06

7 / 8

CAST

Did you know

Michael Caine and Paul Hubschmid and Oskar Homolka carry the top of the cast.

MoodPlayr · trivia#07

8 / 8

ERA

Did you know

Marketing tagline: "It was going to be a lovely funeral. Harry ‘Ipcress File’ Palmer just hoped it wouldn’t be his …".

MoodPlayr · trivia#08

Cinephile deep dive

The take

Guy Hamilton directs. Otto Heller behind the camera. Konrad Elfers scores. John Bloom cuts. Produced in United Kingdom. Dialogue in German, English.

Trivia

Things worth knowing

160 years old — a genuine piece of film history.
2Dialogue crosses 2 languages: German, English.
3Part of the "Harry Palmer Collection" — so the characters or world continue elsewhere.
4Directed by Guy Hamilton, shot by Otto Heller. Note their partnership — DPs and directors often return to each other across a career.
5Original score by Konrad Elfers. Worth a dedicated listen after — most great films lose half their impact without the score.
6Editor John Bloom shaped the rhythm. On an edit-heavy film, the editor does more to control your pulse than the director.
7Michael Caine and Paul Hubschmid and Oskar Homolka carry the top of the cast.
8Marketing tagline: "It was going to be a lovely funeral. Harry ‘Ipcress File’ Palmer just hoped it wouldn’t be his …".
9IMDB entry: tt0060437 — still the authoritative cross-reference for credits and trivia.
10Classified under 10 themes, including "berlin, germany", "england", "berlin wall", "spy".

The technical file

Cinematography: Otto Heller
Original score: Konrad Elfers
Editing: John Bloom
Production design: Ken Adam
Makeup / hair: Freddie Williamson
Runtime: 102 min · 1h 42m
Aspect ratio (typical): 1.37:1 (Academy)
Status: Released
Original language: EN
IMDB: Funeral in Berlin (1966)

Part of

Harry Palmer Collection

Harry Palmer is the name of the protagonist of a number of films based on the main character from the spy novels written by Len Deighton.

Also by

Guy Hamilton

Stills · wallpapers

Selected frames

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Wallpaper

Trailers & featurettes

Watch the pieces

Community reviews

What people are saying

CinemaSerf2022-06-29
★ 6/10
Michael Caine reprises his role as the rather curmudgeonly, stoic, "Harry Palmer" in this rather lacklustre tale of Cold War espionage. He is given the task of travelling to East Berlin to help facilitate the defection of "Col. Stok" (the scene-stealing Oskar Homolka), who has for years been in charge of stopping folks escaping from the East heading West - but with increasingly limited success! Pretty quickly, "Palmer" smells a rat. Well, actually, he smells a whole sewer of them and has no idea whom to trust as this really rather pedestrian story plods along. Caine is fine, but we see too little of Homolka and the rest of the cast add very little to this really un-menacing thriller. The infamous Berlin Wall seems to offer very little by way of impediment to anyone's movements around the city, and the longer the film went on the less I really bothered about the fairly obvious outcome. It's really only a film for fans of the star, this - and is simply not a patch on the "Ipcress File" (1965).
SmarterLabels2023-07-09
This almost shocked me. I have watched this film a number of times over the years, and really considered it a somewhat poorer sequel to the exploits of Harry Palmer as first seen in The Ipcress File. Well, I watched it again one day after when I was well rested (and a little bit bored). The thing is that I was concentrating on every little event or nuance that I was picking up. And lo and behold a whole new level of intrigue emerged. I had only ever previously glossed over the surface, picking up the salient features of the plot. But the deeper layer is sooo much more interesting. You need to take your time and look for it though. Start considering the motivations behind the things people say and do, and whether you are quite sure who was behind them, and who was working for who at the time. There are a lot of unstated goings on under the surface that explain seemingly small details that actually give the game away if you stop to think about them. Of course, if you are super bright and really on the ball, you may pick up this deeper level of intrigue at first viewing. Sadly I did not; - or is that happily, since when I did eventually pick it up it was like watching a whole new (and far more satisfying) movie.

Production companies