Funeral in Berlin (1966)

Funeral in Berlin (1966) (DVD) (*)

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Language Selections:
English ( Dolby Digital 2.0 )
Italian ( Dolby Digital 2.0 )
Italian ( Subtitles )

Product Origin/Format:
Italy ( PAL/Region 0 )

Running Time:
102 min

Aspect Ratio:
Widescreen (2.35:1)

Special Features:
Interactive Menu
Photo Gallery
Scene Access
Trailer(s)

Movie filmed in 1966 and produced in:
United Kingdom ( Great Britain, Ireland )

Directed By:
Guy Hamilton

Written By:
Len Deighton
Evan Jones

Actors:
Michael Caine ..... Harry Palmer
Paul Hubschmid ..... Johnny Vulkan
Oskar Homolka ..... Colonel Stok
Eva Renzi ..... Samantha Steel
Guy Doleman ..... Ross
Hugh Burden ..... Hallam
Heinz Schubert ..... Aaron Levine
Wolfgang Völz ..... Werner
Thomas Holtzmann ..... Reinhardt
Günter Meisner ..... Kreutzman
Herbert Fux ..... Artur
Rainer Brandt ..... Benjamin
Rachel Gurney ..... Mrs. Ross
John Abineri ..... Rukel
David Glover ..... Chico

Synopsis:

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.

Guy Hamilton's Funeral in Berlin (1966) was a groundbreaking thriller in its time. From World War II until the mid-'60s, the nature of politics and paranoia in the West had rendered just about every depiction of the Cold War into a relentlessly grim exercise in entertainment. The James Bond movies got past this by totally ignoring the Cold War in most of its scripts (with the notable exception of From Russia With Love), preferring to deal with villains other than the Soviets. The mere fact that Paramount had made Funeral in Berlin indicated a new feeling in the land. In contrast to the Bond movies, the story here was steeped in the minutiae of the Cold War, and it wasted no time in having fun at the expense of the official seriousness with which it was pursued and prosecuted. Hamilton, photographer Otto Heller, and editor John Bloom all went to town on this production, with quick editing, unusual camera angles, and a subtly wry, sardonic tone throughout the script, making this movie a lot more complex and demanding (and ultimately rewarding) than a film such as Goldfinger. This movie proved to be one of the more underrated thrillers of its period, and though most viewers shied away from its use of such plot devices as unrepentant Nazis and money stolen from Holocaust victims, those same attributes make it a movie not only worth discovering but also seeing again. The extraordinary cinematography with its images of Berlin and London during the '60s also makes this film worth watching (and owning) on that basis alone.

A British agent is sent to Berlin to receive a Communist defector, but the true situation turns out to be rather more complicated.

This product was added to our catalog on Wednesday 19 June, 2019.