The day Ipcress File star Michael Caine got a visit from MI5 over his talk with a real Russian spy
star has ever fired someone. Saltzman wanted Palmer to be the “antithesis of James Bond” and a very ordinary bloke with a boring name.
He portrayed him as a working-class rogue, living in a bedsit in Notting Hill, but there were fears Palmer would seem too soft to take on communist spooks. The script had him buying his own groceries and seducing Sue Lloyd’s character Jean Courtney by inviting her back to his place for a meal – an astonishing gender role reversal at the time.
Caine said: “In that scene, I had to make her an omelette using the macho trick of breaking two eggs simultaneously and with one hand – very spectacular. I couldn’t do it though as it’s very tricky. So we had to use the hands of Len Deighton, who could.” On release the film was hailed as showing another side to the swinging 60s. It won a BAFTA.
The following year Caine’s career went into overdrive when he was cast as a womanising cockney in movie
Alfie, a romantic comedy drama that made him an international star.
The married father of two, who turns 89 this month, went on to appear in over 150 films that have grossed around €6billion.
But he’ll never forget the aftermath of Ipcress as the money rolled in – and he could stop cleaning his teeth with salt. “With my new-found wealth I went completely mad, buying masses of shirts, sheets, towels, socks, tubes of toothpaste, bottles of shampoo and a complete collection of aftershave lotions until it was almost impossible to move in my bathroom.
“I had been earning £10,000 for fifteen weeks – a situation for me with my background was beyond belief.”
Now doubtless he’ll be taking a keen interest in TV’S remake of his breakthrough hit.
Actor Joe Cole of Peaky Blinders fame plays Palmer, while actress Lucy Boynton is Jean and Tom Hollander has the role of Palmer’s strict boss Major Dalby.
The drama should provide a timely reminder of how worrying 1960s’ Cold War nuclear tension was... just as the West is facing terrifying renewed Russian aggression.