I was interested to learn that Putin would watch the Harry Palmer movies in the 1960s.:
http://www.express.c...er-Harry-Palmer
KGB used to watch Harry Palmer movies
Started by
DLibrasnow
, Jun 26 2011 10:58 PM
2 replies to this topic
#1
DLibrasnow
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Posted 26 June 2011 - 10:58 PM
#2
Guy Haines
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Posted 26 June 2011 - 11:46 PM
In two out of three of those 60s Harry Palmer films MI6 was, inadvertently, doing the KGB's job for it. Consider:-
Funeral In Berlin - an East/West defection foiled - the KGB was on to it from the start, and Harry Palmer was more concerned to discover that the man organising the defection was an ex-Nazi rather than a Jewish concentration camp victim.
Billion Dollar Brain - I really like this one, confusing as it is. Again, compromised from the outset - Harry's contact Leo Newbegin seduced by a KGB "swallow" (At least I assume that's what she was). Besides, in this one the Russians were not really the "enemy" - rather, General Midwinter's "Crusade For Freedom" outfit, which had obtained some dodgy viruses from a UK laboratory. Palmer's job, when he realised it, to stop Midwinter triggering WW III (This is where it gets like Bond, right down to the private army invading Latvia in converted tanker trucks - loved that scene where they are setting off for war to the soundtrack of Shostakovich's 7th symphony, "Leningrad"!)
Putin may have had a chuckle at these, and thought "Wish he was on our side." Except that, in these two films, without realising until well into the final reel, he was!
Funeral In Berlin - an East/West defection foiled - the KGB was on to it from the start, and Harry Palmer was more concerned to discover that the man organising the defection was an ex-Nazi rather than a Jewish concentration camp victim.
Billion Dollar Brain - I really like this one, confusing as it is. Again, compromised from the outset - Harry's contact Leo Newbegin seduced by a KGB "swallow" (At least I assume that's what she was). Besides, in this one the Russians were not really the "enemy" - rather, General Midwinter's "Crusade For Freedom" outfit, which had obtained some dodgy viruses from a UK laboratory. Palmer's job, when he realised it, to stop Midwinter triggering WW III (This is where it gets like Bond, right down to the private army invading Latvia in converted tanker trucks - loved that scene where they are setting off for war to the soundtrack of Shostakovich's 7th symphony, "Leningrad"!)
Putin may have had a chuckle at these, and thought "Wish he was on our side." Except that, in these two films, without realising until well into the final reel, he was!
Edited by Guy Haines, 26 June 2011 - 11:48 PM.
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DLibrasnow
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Posted 28 June 2011 - 09:36 PM
In two out of three of those 60s Harry Palmer films MI6 was, inadvertently, doing the KGB's job for it. Consider:-
Funeral In Berlin - an East/West defection foiled - the KGB was on to it from the start, and Harry Palmer was more concerned to discover that the man organising the defection was an ex-Nazi rather than a Jewish concentration camp victim.
Billion Dollar Brain - I really like this one, confusing as it is. Again, compromised from the outset - Harry's contact Leo Newbegin seduced by a KGB "swallow" (At least I assume that's what she was). Besides, in this one the Russians were not really the "enemy" - rather, General Midwinter's "Crusade For Freedom" outfit, which had obtained some dodgy viruses from a UK laboratory. Palmer's job, when he realised it, to stop Midwinter triggering WW III (This is where it gets like Bond, right down to the private army invading Latvia in converted tanker trucks - loved that scene where they are setting off for war to the soundtrack of Shostakovich's 7th symphony, "Leningrad"!)
Putin may have had a chuckle at these, and thought "Wish he was on our side." Except that, in these two films, without realising until well into the final reel, he was!
Good point