Horror movies about ex-spies are coming out because of the cold

The fact that a black CIA agent also featured prominently in both Len Deighton’s 1962 novel and the 1965 movie version starring Michael Caine seems to have passed them by.

The first episode drew 3.4 million viewers overnight, which means it’s tied to BBC One Peaky Blinders in the same slot 9pm. Many UK viewers watched the entire series on the ITV Hub (geo-blocked in Ireland), meaning the actual audience was significantly larger.

Don’t be surprised if Ippress . File ending goes far beyond the gangster story set up by Birmingham, which seems to have lost some of its old luster.

Honestly, I thought a new adaptation of Ippress . File may struggle to impress viewers, as working-class spy Harry Palmer is indelibly identified with Caine, who starred in three films in the 1960s and two neglected television productions. most forgettable, not based on a Deighton novel, in the 1990s.

In retrospect, I may have placed too much importance in my review of the first episode on the power of nostalgia traction. For my generation, who first saw the movie on TV in the 1970s and before that, who will see it in the cinema when it comes out, Ippress . File is an iconic film (its sequel, Funeral in Berlin and billion dollar brain, quite a few).

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But for younger audiences, who may not have seen and aren’t familiar with Deighton’s novels, it’s just a 56-year-old film that they don’t feel particularly attached to. For them, Joe Cole – who they know from Peaky Blinders and Gangs in London – was Harry Palmer, and there was absolutely no reason for them to have problems accepting him as the character.

To be fair to Cole, he’s fine in the role and the series, which aims to stick more faithfully to the book’s convoluted plot than the movie did, so far so excellent.

British television has always excelled in spy thrillers. BBC adaptations of John le Carré’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979), Smiley’s people (1982) – both starring Alec Guinnness as George Smiley – and Le Carré’s best autobiographical novel, A perfect spy (1987), is considered the high mark of the genre.

In 1988, ITV implemented Games, Set and Match, an ambitious and costly 13-part series based on Len Deighton’s trilogy of novels Berlin Game, Ministry of Mexico and London match, starring Ian Holm as spy Bernard Sampson. Surprisingly, it was a ranking disaster and Deighton didn’t like the casting of Holm.

Spies seemed to fall out of favor for a few years, only to come back strong in 2016 with the BBC’s phenomenal popularity. night manager, based on another novel by Le Carré.

Beeb followed it up in 2018 with Le Carré’s The Little Drummer Girl. While it doesn’t attract as large of an audience as its predecessor, for my money it’s the more innovative and adventurous of the two.

Two years ago, the BBC announced a new six-part adaptation of Le Carre .’s classic The Spy Who Came In From the Cold – The previous film was shot on the big screen in 1965, starring Richard Burton as disillusioned spy Alec Leamas.

It was supposed to appear last year, but the project is currently in limbo. The only information on its IMDB page is that Aidan Gillen will play Leamas.

The BBC will launch itself if, it seems, the success of Ippress . File evoked a series of Cold War horror films. However, they will appear in a very different world.

At least we know where we stand with the Cold War. Old certainties about the spy game fell with the Berlin Wall.

The Soviet Union has been replaced by something even more monstrous: a modern Russia in the grip of a ruthless autocrat and a lunatic.

The hazy stories of gray men in gray suits creeping through the Iron Curtain from both sides that once had a contemporary feel suddenly became comfort food on TV.