Funeral in Berlin
Russian soldiers on the east side of the Berlin wall purposely disrupted filming by using mirrors to reflect sunlight into the cameras. The scene where Harry Palmer (Sir Michael Caine) walks to Checkpoint Charlie for the first time had to be filmed from a long distance for that reason.,During the funeral there is a cut to the taxi-driver who now appears to be driving from the right hand seat of a car previously established as left hand drive. This shows the film was reversed during processing so as to match the direction of flow of surrounding shots.,Samantha Steel: My name is Samantha Steel. Some people call me Sam.
Harry Palmer: Edmund Dorf. Some people call me Edna.,Present DVD version starts with a short montage of people having a good time at Kurfürstendamm, enyoing the sun, having a coffee or beer, window shopping etc. The film then segues into the main credits set against the devastated Berlin Wall area. This short - some 15 seconds - sequence was not on previous Swedish VHS versions.,Edited into MacGyver: Deathlock (1986),As some other reviewers have opined, this is the best of the three Harry Palmer movies set in the '60s. Michael Caine's cavalier attitude coupled with his witty, sarcastic banter is most refreshing. All the stodgy bureaucratic types get bum-rushed by Harry Palmer's rapier tongue. His self deprecating humor, especially in some of the scenes with Samantha Steele (Eva Renzi), is refreshing, since she has the pertness and sense of humor to complement those scenes deftly. Similarly, the scenes with Col. Stock show great flashes of sarcastic wit, juxtaposed with attending to the serious Cold War business at hand.

But the more serious fun is the wonderfully executed plot development, interweaving the various characters such as Johnny Vulcan, Col. Stock, Hallam, Ross (the boss), Kreutsmann, Steele, etc. into a menagerie of complicated intrigue. I'll let others offer a plot synopsis: I'll just say the film keeps you guessing and wondering throughout its hour and forty-five minutes. The overall style of mixing mordant anti-establishment humor and complicated intrigue reminds me of a later film, "The Russia House", with Sean Connery, an equally satisfying Cold War drama.

The only knock I have on this film is the sometimes obtrusive sound track, where the trumpets blare much too loudly to proclaim a given dramatic occurrence. Could have been done a little more tastefully.

All in all, a "must see" for Cold War movie fans!,