Funeral in Berlin. 1966. UK. Directed by Guy Hamilton. Screenplay by Evan Jones, based on the novel by Len Deighton. With Michael Caine, Paul Hubschmid, Oscar Homolka. 35mm. 102 min.
Michael Caine writes, “After the success of The Ipcress File, the studio were keen to keep going with Harry Palmer and decided to film Funeral in Berlin, Len Deighton’s third Harry Palmer novel. The last time I had occupied the city was during my national service days in 1951 and it had been a very different place. Now, the Wall dividing east and west was an ever-present reminder of the Cold War. The East German soldiers watched us through binoculars the whole time we were filming there. At one point they were obviously not happy with the way things were going and shone a mirror at our camera lenses until we had to give up and find another spot. The director, Guy Hamilton, had recently directed Sean Connery in Goldfinger and had himself been in British Intelligence during the war. I’m not sure in retrospect he was quite the right man to give Harry Palmer the gritty edge he needed to differentiate him from James Bond, but it was a great film to work on—and Berlin was a bit of a revelation, to say the least.”