The Quiller Memorandum

Plot synopsis:
In the dead of the night a man walks down a deserted Berlin street. He enters a phone booth, but as he dials a number, he is shot dead.
Jones was the second British operative to be murdered in Berlin by a secret neo-Nazi organisation, Phoenix. The British send Quiller (George Segal) to Berlin where, at the Nazis' 1936 Olympia Stadium, his controller Pol (Alec Guinness) quietly explains that "a new generation of Nazis has grown up, difficult to recognise because they don't wear uniforms anymore", and orders him to find the Phoenix HQ. Pol's superiors in London, Gibbs (George Sanders) and Rushington (Robert Flemyng), are occasionally seen directing the operation from their gentlemen's club.
Back in Berlin, Quiller shakes off someone following him, then confronts the tail in a pub, only to discover that the man is his minder, Hengel (Peter Carsten). Hengel gives him a bowling alley ticket, a swimming-pool ticket and a news cutting, all found on Jones's body. Quiller asks after Jones at the bowling alley without success; the swimming pool manager Hassler (Günter Meisner) also sends him packing. Pretending to be a reporter, Quiller visits the school featured in the cutting, where a teacher has recently been unmasked as a Nazi war criminal. The headmistress introduces him to teacher Inge Lindt (Senta Berger), who is fluent in English and whom he interviews about her colleagues, before then driving her back to her home and briefly stopping at her flat for a drink.
On leaving, Quiller confronts a man who seems to be following him. Having earlier told Hengel that he understands no German, Quiller is revealed to be able to speak it fluently. The man strenuously denies following him and other men intervene in the discussion, before Quiller returns to his hotel. Outside the hotel, a porter bumps into his leg with a heavy suitcase. Quiller drives off, managing to shake his minder Hengel, but other cars appear to still be following him. Soon he becomes drowsy, and then semi-conscious while stopped at some traffic lights; a car stops alongside him and a man pushes Quiller from the driving seat and drives on.
Quiller wakes in a chair in a palatial room, surrounded by many of the previous incidental characters, who are all Phoenix members led by a German aristocrat, Oktober (Max von Sydow). Quiller refuses to answer Oktober's questions about the SIS operation and how much they know about Phoenix, and makes a dash to escape from the room but is easily overpowered. A doctor injects him with a truth serum but, although in his delirium he utters a few clues, Quiller is just able to deflect Oktober's questions. Oktober orders him to be killed.
Quiller comes round lying somewhere in the city beside the river. He hails a cab and steals it, evading a pursuing Mercedes before booking himself into a dingy hotel. He telephones Inge from the hall and they arrange to meet the following evening. Pol also arranges another meeting with Quiller, where his handler explains that each side is trying to discover and annihilate the other's base; Quiller alone is in a position to know both.
After sleeping with Quiller, Inge admits that she has a friend who might know the location of Phoenix's HQ. Inge takes Quiller to the swimming pool manager, Hassler, who is now much more friendly. He drives Quiller, Inge and Inge's headmistress to a dilapidated old building. Quiller wants to investigate the house on his own; Inge says she will wait for him, and the pool manager and headteacher leave the car for Quiller to drive Inge home. When they are finally alone together in the car Inge tells him she loves him.
The street is the same one on which Quiller's predecessor was murdered at the start of the film. Quiller enters the house, which appears deserted, until he notices Oktober's henchmen standing all around him. They take Quiller into the same room where he was held captive and later take him down to the cellar via elevator, where removal men are organising the move to the organisation's new HQ. Quiller is horrified to see that Inge has been brought there too. Oktober offers Quiller an ultimatum: either he reveals where the SIS base is by dawn, or both of them will be killed. Quiller is released back onto the dark streets to walk and ponder, surrounded by Oktober's armed men, who – while they keep their silent distance – make it impossible for him to evade them, or use any public telephone to call his controller.
As dawn breaks, he returns to his hotel, while Oktober's men stand guard outside in the street. The hall phone has already been destroyed to prevent him using it, but he escapes into a courtyard of lock-up garages. Noticing a piece of wire on the ground, he finds that the car has been booby-trapped in case he attempts this method of escape. He leaves the engine running to explode the bomb, and Oktober's men assume that he has been killed in the explosion. Quiller reports to the SIS office with the location of Phoenix's centre of operations. Pol appears calmly indifferent as he arranges to round up the gang; they are all arrested, yet Inge turns out not to be among them. Pol asks Quiller to make a full report (submit a memorandum) for the record.
Later, Quiller walks into Inge's classroom. Inge explains that she "was lucky they let me go", but Quiller appears to have concluded that she is not who she seems, saying 'we got them all... well, maybe not quite all', the implication being that Inge is one of them. He says that if ever he comes to Berlin again he will call her. He then walks away from the school building, as Inge watches him depart before returning to her schoolchildren.

Tags: murder

Review:
It's a bit strange to see such exquisitely Pinter-esque dialogue (the laconic, seemingly innocuous sentences; the profound silences; the syntax that isn't quite how real people actually talk) in a spy movie, but it really works.Quiller isn't your average spy.
He's played by George Segal with a cool superficiality that works very nicely; he doesn't go charging in with guns blazing -- he doesn't even carry a gun -- and the one time he does try to fight his way out of a sticky spot, he gets pounded.
The other standouts in the cast are Alec Guinness as Quiller's controller, and Max von Sydow as the leader of the neo-Nazi cell that Quiller is attempting to crack.At first glance, the movie is deeply frustrating, and the script appears full of holes, but in fact, it's so smart that it assumes the audience is bright enough to pick up on the breadcrumb trail of clues that it's actually leaving.
THE QUILLER MEMORANDUM (3 outta 5 stars)The 1960s saw a plethora of two kinds of spy movies: the outrageous semi-serious James Bond ripoffs (like the Flint and Matt Helm movies) and the very dry, methodical ones that were more talk than action (mostly John Le Carre and Alistair MacLean adaptations).
George Segal plays the hero, an undercover spy who goes to West Berlin to find out who killed his predecessor...
The cast is full of familiar faces: Alec Guinness, who doesn't have much of a role, George Sanders, who has even less of one, Max von Sydow in what was to become a very familiar part for him, Robert Helpmann, Robert Flemyng, and the beautiful, enigmatic Senta Berger.This is a very good spy movie.
What a difference to the ludicrous James Helm/Matt Bond (or is it the other way round?) movies.The Cold War atmosphere in Germany at the time was perfectly captured.
And, the final scene (with her and Segal) is done extremely well (won't spoil it for those who still wish to see it...it fully sums up the film, the tension filled times and cold war-era Germany).
Segal is an unusual actor to be cast as a spy, but his quirky approach and his talent for repartee do assist him in retaining interest (even if its at the expense of the character as originally conceived in the source novels.) Guinness appears as Segal's superior and offers a great deal of presence and class.
The Chief of the Secret Service Pol (Alec Guinness) summons the efficient agent Quiller (George Segal) to investigate the location of organization's headquarter.
Oktober also wants to know the location of the British base in Germany and uses drugs in Quiller to get the information but the skilled agent resists.
The cast is exceptional, with George Segal, Alec Guinness, Max von Sydow, George Sanders and one of the most beautiful and talented actresses ever, Senta Berger.
A much better example of a spy novel-to-film adaptation would be Our Man in Havana, also starring Alec Guinness..
The only redeeming features of The Quiller Memorandum are the scenes of Berlin with its old U-Bahn train and wonderful Mercedes automobiles, and the presence of two beautiful German women, Senta Berger and Edith Schneider; those two females epitomize Teutonic womanhood for me.
(What with wanting to go to sleep and wanting to scream at the same time, this film does pose certain conflict problems.) On the other hand, the female lead is played by the charming Senta Berger, then aged 25, who does very well, and manages to be enigmatic, and gets just the right tone for the story.
People tend to like it because "it's not like the Bond movies"; well, it's not - it's like "The Ipcress File", except that "The Ipcress File" was a genuinely smart and atmospheric movie, while "The Quiller Memorandum" is a clumsy, dated spy thriller full of pseudo-hip dialogue and plot holes.
George Segal is a fine and always engaging actor, but the way his character is written here, he doesn't really come across as "a spy who gets along by his brains and not by his brawn"; he seems interested almost exclusively in the girl he meets, not in the case he's investigating, and (at least until the end) he seems to survive as a result of a combination of his good luck and the stupidity of the villains.
These include another superior soundtrack by John Barry, if perhaps a little too much son-of "The Ipcress File", some fine real-life (West) Berlin exteriors, particularly of the Olympic Stadium with its evocation of 1936 and all that and Harold Pinter's typically rhythmic, if at times inscrutable screenplay.
Max Van Sydow is better as the neo-Nazi leader, veiled by the veneer of respectability as he cracks his knuckles and swings a golf club all the time he's injecting Segal with massive doses of truth serum, while Senta Berger is pleasant, but slight, as the pretty young teacher who apparently leads our man initially to the "other side", but whose escape at the end from capture and certain death at the hands of the "baddies" might lead one to suspect her true proclivities.
This exciting movie belongs to spy sub-genre being developed during the cold war , it turns out to be a stirring thriller plenty of mystery , tension , high level of suspense , and a little bit of violence .
An American secret agent called Quiller (George Segal) working for MI6 (whose chief is George Sanders) travels to Berlin to uncover a deadly Neo-Nazi band .
Defiant undercover spy Quiller carries out a nervy , stealthy , prowling around Berlin in which he becomes involved into a risked cat and mouse game , being chased and hunted , by a strange and sinister leader , known only as Oktober (Max Von Sidow) .
This nail-biting movie is a thought -provoking thriller filled with razor sharp writings from the novel by Adam Hall -who is a pseudonym for author Trevor Dudley Smith- titled The Berlin Memorándum¨ , resulting to be refreshingly different from others spy stories of its era .
The sixties took place a lot of two kinds of spy-thrillers : the adventurous and filled-gadgets James Bond's imitations such as ¨Oss 117 Agent¨ , ¨Flint¨ , ¨Matt Helm¨ , ¨Hugh Drummond¨ series and the methodical , cerebral ones in which to show the squalid , dirty side of spying as opposed to the luxury world of 007 , outstanding more talk than action , whose maxim representations are John Le Carre's novels adapted to cinema in various films such as : ¨The spy who came in from the cold¨ (1965, by Martin Ritt with Richard Burton), ¨Deadly Affair¨(Sidney Lumet with Maximilian Schell) and subsequently : TV series "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" by John Irvin , in which George Smiley was played by Alec Guinnes and ¨Russia House¨ (Fred Schepisi with Sean Connery) , this ¨Quiller Memorándum¨ belongs to this second class .
Exceptional main cast gives good acting , as George Segal as the dogged as well as humorous special agent and Senta Berger had one of his best parts as his sweetheart .
I quite enjoyed the love story, it was very cold, I suppose it doesn't quite constitute a typical romance.The direction and photography are very nicely done.The screenplay was the problem, the film lost it in the middle but still, a good picture, worth watching.As always, view in wide-screen..
George Segal is Quiller an American/British spy who is recruited to track down some Neo-Nazis in Berlin.
But the central performance by GEORGE SEGAL is played with the sort of humor and charm that would have worked better in a different kind of story--not an espionage film.Segal's job is to find the identity of a Nazi group in post-war Berlin.
ALEC GUINESS manages to be intriguing in a small role but GEORGE SANDERS is completely wasted.SENTA BERGER is lovely as the German schoolteacher who gets involved with Segal, largely due to physical attraction.
Nor, as I mentioned previously, is John Barry's score more than ordinary--surprisingly so, since he was capable of wonderful music for the James Bond films.All told, a fairly routine spy story given nothing special in the way of treatment with the overall effect being one of quiet disappointment..
Neither Alec Guinness, Max von Sydow, Robert Helpmann, George Sanders or even the stupidity of George Segal or the expressionless indifference of Senta Berger can save this long and dull film from being anything than a very poor and cold turkey.
And though she plays a basically one-dimensional role contrasted to the fast-paced Segal, she brings a balance and mystique to the film which renders it even more viewable.Max von Sydow is, as always, totally captivating in his performance, and holds his character in great, compelling form.There is enough espionage-spy-thriller factor to render the film suspenseful, though it does not move as fast as some such films of this genre.
At least that is no mystery: Daimler Benz paid for the film and in exchange got all the publicity plus some.I found Segal unexpectedly good, Senta Bergen a beauty; and Guinness and von Sydow top drawer, as ever.
Slow-moving Cold War era thriller in the mode of "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold," "The Quiller Memorandum" lacks thrills and fails to match the quality of that Richard Burton classic.
After a pair of their agents are murdered in West Berlin, the British Secret Service for some unknown reason send in an American to investigate and find the location of a neo-Nazi group's headquarters.
Unfortunately, the film is weighed down, not only by a ponderous script, but also by a miscast lead; instead of a heavy weight actor in the mold of a William Holden, George Segal was cast as Quiller.
Although the situations are often deadly serious, Segal seems to take them lightly; perhaps in the decade that spawned James Bond, he was confused and thought he was in a spy spoof.Harold Pinter's screenplay, adapted from a novel by Trevor Dudley Smith, is "oh so serious" and perhaps too cerebral to be entertaining, at least without a charismatic star to carry the film.
However, Sanders, Helpmann, and Alec Guinness as Pol, Quiller's contact in Berlin, appear too briefly to save the film.
Quiller's lead in finding the neo-Nazi headquarters, Berger is the film's intended love interest, but her cool blank expressions fail to ignite any sparks between her and Segal, and the romance only exists as empty words in the script.Michael Anderson's direction is pedestrian, and the few car chases are perfunctory at best.
"The Quiller Memorandum" is a film with a HUGE strike against it at the outset....they inexplicably cast George Segal as a British spy!
This is actually awfully surprising considering the film is about an agent, Quiller, infiltrating a gang of neo-Nazis in post-war Berlin.
It helps that the film has Alec Guinness and Max Von Sydow in supporting roles.
West spy film, but instead has the spy (Quiller) investigating a neo-Nazi movement operating out of West Berlin.
If you want to see good films about neo-Nazis, try "The O.D.E.S.S.A File" or "Berlin Express".
"Cliché ridden story" from Alec Guinness's diary after watching his own performance in "The Quiller Memorandum" on TV in 1980.This is the film that trashed the possibility of turning the Quiller series of books into a film franchise.It ended Ivan Foxwell's career as a film producer.On Harold Pinter's script: "The worst type of hack writing" Joanne Klein (who is a Pinter expert)."Did nothing to further Alec's career" Piers Paul Read in the authorised biography for Alec Guinness."George Segal portrays an unattractive, stupid, sarcastic lout with aplomb." Movie OrphanBrian.
The plan works well initially as Quiller finds himself captured by the leader, Oktober, and tortured, the first step in a deadly game for both groups seeking an advantage on the other.Although it moves with the fluidity of porridge at times, this spy film is still rather interesting and enjoyable.
Guinness is a nice presence but his performance is a bit obvious and he only has one really good scene (the aforementioned plot summary).Overall this is an OK spy film.
But George Segal just doesn't cut it as a British secret agent in The Quiller Memorandum.The film is not a bad one for a spy yarn and I do like the fact that Segal relies on his own wits as opposed to a bunch of James Bond like gadgets to do his job and extricate himself from tight spots.
What I did enjoy so much about this film is almost everything else: the shots of Berlin in the 60's, the deliberate pacing, the haunting musical score, all of the other performances, especially Alec Guinness, Max Von Sydow, and a stunning Senta Berger.
This "Quiller Memorandum" features many actors who are very dear to me and also very good actors: the beautiful Senta Berger, Max von Sydow, Alec Guinness, George Sanders and George Segal.
It stars George Segal, Alec Guinness, Max von Sydow and Senta Berger.
Music is by John Barry and cinematography by Erwin Hillier.There's no frills and graces about The Quiller Memorandum, it follows a straight spy drama narrative that pitches Segal (excellently cool) into Berlin to unearth the location of some Neo-Nazis.
So we had titles such as THE IPCRESS FILE and FUNERAL IN BERLIN based on novels by Len Deighton; THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD and THE DEADLY AFFAIR based on works by John le Carre; and THE QUILLER MEMORANDUM, based on a book by Trevor Dudley-Smith (under the pseudonym Adam Hall).
George Segal,(Quiller),"Heights",'04 plays a secret agent who is placed in a very serious position in Germany after many of his fellow agents have been killed trying to find out locations of a Nazi party.
But my interest in what happened to her did keep me watching what I found to be an otherwise dreary movie that threatened to put me to sleep on a number of occasions with a mind-numbing script and generally dull story.Quiller (who, as far as I could see, neither wrote nor was the subject of any memorandum - making me wonder what the title was about) was an American (an agent I guess?) who for some inexplicable reason was recruited by the British (represented mostly by Alec Guinness) to discover the location of the headquarters of a group of neo-Nazis in 1960's Berlin.
Were they really so much of a threat that the cost of lives was justified?The story meanders along with very little drama - Quiller gets followed a lot and there's a mildly interesting scene of Quiller being kidnapped and interrogated by Oktober and his men - and then the sort of romance between Quiller and Inge leads to her being vulnerable, and so you keep watching - even while you keep looking at the clock, counting down the time to when this will mercifully end - because she's beautiful and you want her to be OK.
His most famous works that were made into movies were "The Flight of the Phoenix" and "Dunkirk."George Segal has the starring role as Quiller, but his performance is downright pathetic.
A leisurely spy thriller both in terms of plot, dialogue and character development, this movie still adds up to greater than the sum of its parts.Chief among the parts are the two opposing chiefs of Max von Sydow as Oktober (charming neo-Nazi bad guy) and Alec Guiness as Pol (cold-hearted English good guy).
(I highly recommend Bye Bye Braverman, a black comedy, to see his subtle work.) I think he does a fine job here as Quiller, The Spy Who Seems Too Obvious, and the script, perhaps slightly underwritten, at least gives Segal room to play with this character.
A satisfyingly cynical spy thriller with George Segal, Alec Guinness and Max Von Sydow; and a script by Harold Pinter.
With a screenplay by Harold Pinter and careful direction by Michael Anderson, the movie is more a violent-edged tale of probable, cynical betrayal by everyone we meet, with the main character, Quiller (George Segal), squeezed by those he works for, those he works against and even by the delectable German teacher, Inge Lendt (Senta Berger) he meets.
Also, why would Segal go to check the Nazi nest by himself: if this is a serious spy film then why is he playing James Bond?
I don't know what it is exactly but I have a sweet spot for late 1960's cold war films and The Quiller Memorandum is a particularly good tale of this type.
Quiller is an American spy seconded to the British secret service in order to find out information about a burgeoning neo nazi group in East Berlin.
When the Berlin wall came down in 1989, one of my favourite movie genres came down with it – the Cold War spy thriller.
Quiller, a secret service agent played by George Segal is sent to replace an agent who has been killed hunting a post World War 2 group of Nazis in West Berlin.
The casting was perfect from Quiller's British controllers played by Alec Guiness, George Sanders and Robert Flemyng to Senta Berger as the enigmatic Inge.
In fact, the movie connects with "The Third Man" on a number of levels especially in the dramatic use of real locations and the ambiguous relationship between Quiller and Inge.The idea of a powerful neo-Nazis organisation 20 years after the war may have seemed far-fetched in 1966.
Not all Cold War thrillers were as good as "The Quiller Memorandum".
****SPOILERS**** George Segal is Quiller an American working for the British super secret spy agency "Phoenix" who's given the job to crack a Neo-Nazi ring working in West Berlin who are planning-when the time comes-to take over the entire-East & West- German nation.
There are going to be some spoilers, so readers beware...Quite a decent spy movie, with a unique atmosphere, a superb John Barry score and riveting performances by Alec Guinness and Max von Sydow, both of whom run circles around the other cast members.