The Ipcress File - General Discussion

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This 6 episode TV Series has a fertile field to plow and lots of material to draw from. Len Deighton wrote the first Harry Palmer spy novel "The Ipcress File" in 1962. The Harry Palmer character appears in 7 books and Michael Caine plays Harry Palmer in five movies from 1965 up until 1995. This latest TV incarnation of The  Ipcress File was first released weekly in England on ITV starting March 6, 2022 and ending April 10, 2022. The Ipcress File TV Series will stream weekly in the U.S. on AMC+ starting on May 19, 2022. Production took place in Liverpool and Croatia.

It’s 1963. Cold war rages between West and East. Nuclear bombers are permanently airborne. In this highly charged atmosphere, we join Harry Palmer, a British army sergeant on the make in Berlin. In this newly partitioned city, a sharp working-class young man with sophisticated tastes can make a lot of money. Wholesaler, retailer, fixer, smuggler, Harry’s varied interests bring him into contact with everything and everyone – until the law catches up and it all comes crashing to a halt. Harry Palmer goes on a dangerous undercover mission that takes him from the Beatles’ London to the Berlin Wall, from the back alleys of Beirut to the white hot sand of a Nuclear Atoll in the Pacific.

Screen writer John Hodge said: “This is a wonderful opportunity to inhabit a time when the post-war world was morphing into the way we live now, when social mobility, civil rights, and modern feminism were forcing their way into public consciousness, and all of it happening with the world divided in two and both halves threatening to blow the whole thing sky high.”

Joe Cole plays Harry Palmer, a working-class British sergeant serving in Berlin as the Cold War rages in the 1960s. Palmer is a sharp and savvy operator, with various side-hustles, like smuggling contraband goods across East and West Berlin's border, that ultimately gets him in trouble with the law for crimes that could land him an eight-year stretch in a grim English military prison. But an intelligence officer who notices Palmer’s potential and his various shady network connections that span both sides of Berlin, offers him a way to avoid prison by becoming a spy. Harry Palmer's first case is The Ipcress File — a dangerous undercover mission on which he must use his connection to a man who is suspected of kidnapping a British nuclear scientist, who has gone missing.

 

Lucy Boynton plays Jean Courtney, an intelligent officer 

Tom Hollander plays Major Dalby,  director of a unit of British Intelligence

Joshua James plays Philip "Chico" Chillcott-Oakes, an intelligence officer 

David Dencik plays Colonel Gregor Stok, a senior Soviet intelligence officer

Tom Vaughan-Lawlor plays General Cathcart, an US military Commander

Paul Higgins plays Douglas Campbell MP, the Minister of Defence

Anastasia Hille plays Alice, an intelligence officer 

Ashley Thomas plays Paul Maddox, a CIA intelligence officer

Tamla Kari plays Deborah, Palmer's ex-wife

Matthew Steer plays Professor Dawson, a British nuclear physicist

Anna Geiserová plays Dr. Polina Lavotchkin, a Russian physicist

Corey Johnson plays Captain Skip Henderson of US military

Nora-Jane Noone plays Dr. Karen Newton, an American psychiatrist

Paul Bazely plays Morris

Gaby French plays Natalie Lewis

Therese Bradley plays Mrs. Tomlinson

Ben Llyod-Hughes plays James

Nigel Hastings plays Mr. Courtney

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Video teaser:

https://bleedingcool.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/The-Ipcress-File-101-PR3-H264.mp4?_=1

 

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S01.E01: Episode 1

Berlin, 1962. Enterprising British corporal Harry Palmer (Joe Cole) gets rich smuggling stolen goods to the east until the handcuffs snap shut. Back in London, unorthodox spymaster Dalby (Tom Hollander) is ordered to retrieve a missing nuclear physicist. Sharp observation by his cool, ambitious agent Jean (Lucy Boynton) reveals a link to the incarcerated Palmer who is swiftly enlisted to bring back the boffin.

Airdate: May 19, 2022 on AMC+

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S01.E02: Episode 2

Under the diligent eyes of agent Jean (Lucy Boynton, Bohemian Rhapsody), Palmer's (Joe Cole, Gangs of London, Peaky Blinders) intuition edges them closer to the professor while gun-for-hire former MI6 man Randall (Brian Ferguson, Elizabeth Is Missing) is always one step ahead. A tip-off from a key witness draws Jean and Palmer closer to the truth but their discovery only opens the door to a more chilling mystery.

Airdate: May 26, 2022 on AMC+

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S01.E03: Episode 3

Harry and Jean arrive in Beirut in hot pursuit of Randall, who is holding Professor Dawson. Meanwhile, Dalby holds a secret rendezvous with Stok, a Russian colonel.

Airdate: June 2, 2022 on AMC+

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S01.E04: Episode 4

Dalby challenges General Cathcart, suspecting American involvement in Dawson's abduction. Harry and Jean head to the Pacific atoll where the neutron bomb is to be tested.

Airdate: June 9, 2022 on AMC+

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S01.E05: Episode 5

Harry is handed over to the Chinese military where he is subjected to a bewildering regime of mental torture. Dalby's love for Dr Lavotchkin takes its toll on his judgement.

Airdate: June 16, 2022 on AMC+

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S01.E06: Episode 6

Season Finale

Harry is tormented by what has been planted in his mind as his mission reaches its bloody climax and the stability of the free world is at stake.

Airdate: June 23, 2022 on AMC+