The Quiller Memorandum – 1966 | 105 mins | Thriller | Colour

Plot Synopsis

Harold Pinter adapted Adam Hall’s best-selling novel The Berlin Memorandum for this compelling 1960s Cold War espionage thriller. The Quiller Memorandum is stylish, well acted, and boasts a hauntingly melancholic John Barry score, but it doesn’t exactly leap off the screen with gripping excitment. Pinter’s dour screenplay places Michael Anderson’s taut film in the same downbeat territory as other sombre spy thrillers of the time including The Ipcress File (1965) and The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (1965).

Set in 1960s Berlin, after the brutal murder of two British agents, laconic secret agent Quiller (George Segal) is ordered by his handler Pol (Alec Guinness) to infiltrate and unearth the operations of a mysterious neo-Nazi organisation believed responsible for the deaths. His enquiries lead him to investigate a school where a World War II Nazi leader accused of being a war criminal had hanged himself. Posing as an American journalist, he encounters the late teachers beautiful replacement, Inge (Senta Berger), and willingly follows her home in the hope of securing a dinner date. After leaving Inge’s flat, Quiller is bumped into by a stranger and unbeknown to him injected with a tranquilliser. He is abducted by neo-Nazi henchmen and taken to the headquarters of cell leader Oktober (Max Von Sydow), who injects Qullier with a truth drug and tries to obtain the secrets of British operations in Berlin. Quiller doesn’t crack, and is allowed to escape in the hope he will lead them to Pol. Quiller is captured again and given until morning to reveal the information Oktober requires or Inge will be killed.