Funeral in Berlin

Director: Guy Hamilton Guy Hamilton

Overview

The second film in the "Harry Palmer" trilogy, this movie follows English spy Harry Palmer (Michael Caine) as he is sent to Germany to help Russian officer Colonel Stok (Oscar Homolka) escape his post at the Berlin Wall and defect. Of course, everything does not go exactly according to plan.

Product Details

Release Date:	12/03/2019
UPC:	0032429333988
Original Release:	1966
Rating:	NR
Source:	PARAMOUNT
Region Code:	1
Presentation:	[Wide Screen]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Mono]
Language:	English
Time:	1:42:00

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Michael Caine	Oscar Homolka
Eva Renzi	Samantha Steel
Oscar Homolka	Colonel Stok,le colonel Stok
Paul Hubschmid	Johnny Vulkan
Guy Doleman	Ross
Rachel Gurney	Mrs. Ross
Hugh Burden	Hallam
Thomas Holtzmann	Reinhart
Heinz Schubert	Aaron Levine
Wolfgang Volz	Wemer
Klaus Jepsen	Otto Rukel
Herbert Fux	Artur
Rainer Brandt	Benjamin
Ira Hagen	Monika
Marthe Keller	Brigit
Uschi Heyer	Bar Girl
Günter Meisner	Kreutzman
John Abineri	Rukel
Sarah Brackett	Babcock
Edward Meeks	East-German Guard
Freda Bamford	Alice
Patrick Halpin	Commuter
Konrad Elfers	Composer

Technical Credits

Len Deighton

Evan Jones

Guy Hamilton	Director
Charles Kasher	Producer
Harry Saltzman	Producer,Executive Producer
Len Deighton	Screenwriter
Gordon K. McCallum	Sound Effects
Ben Rayner	Sound Effects
Evan Jones	Screenwriter

Editorial Reviews

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.