Another golden anniversary airing, this time with a group invitation. Someone asked why we'd all come. Apart from the two above reasons, I thought of young Michael Caine and the Cold War spy subgenre, which I hadn't seen in a while. (Alphaville doesn't really count.) This entry even has producer Harry Saltzman of James Bond fame, tho the group leader had told us that it felt more like The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.
It actually brought several movies to mind, including Papillon and especially The Manchurian Candidate. Caine plays Harry Palmer (a name you couldn't use in seriousness today), a rather insubordinate secret agent assigned to investigate a curious "brain drain" of prize scientists that involves abduction -- and, as it turns out, nasty conditioning. As in many relatively heady spy stories, it's hard to know whom to trust even within the agency, including a female tail who seems interested in another kind of "tail." Things don't get easier with the CIA's ill-communicated involvement....
A pretty subtle humor permeates the piece. If not for the audience chuckles, I'd have overlooked about half of it. Mainly it's in the smart-alecky dialog, especially on Palmer's part. For example, when he walks out on an orchestra, he says, "Tell me who wins." (BTW, get used to hearing a lot of bureaucratic code terms like "B107" between agents and their superiors.)
The cinematography gets unusual at times. I'd never have thought to shoot a fight scene many yards away thru the windows of a phone booth. Maybe that helps cover for how unconvincing Caine is as a decent fighter. Still, members of my group approved the style, if only as something different.
My personal favorite aspect is the scoring. I don't know how best to describe it -- somewhat evocative of a dramatic mystery, but more haunting, bordering on psychedelic. IMDb tells me that it includes a cimbalom, which I'd never heard of.
The most unfortunate aspect is in the restoration. Not only is it a bit low on lighting and fuzzy (not just on purpose when Palmer has his glasses off), but a theater employee warned us that somewhere in the middle, discolored vertical lines would run down the screen. No wonder it's not on DVD yet. The theater offered refunds up front, but come on; it doesn't make anything hard to understand. Which is not to say that the movie is never hard to understand, perhaps especially in the beginning.
By the end, TIF has accumulated enough minor distinctions to stand out from other features. Group discussion wasn't the only thing to make it worth the price.
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