Wednesday, July 1, 2015

TVXOHOF JULY 2015 - SECRET AGENT MAN


By the time July rolls around, the movie season is in high gear.  This year we kicked it off with "The Avengers: Age Of Ultron" and then into "Tomorrowland" and now "Jurassic World" has pretty much shut it down with its juggernaut of a box office take.

So thought we might honor a movie franchise character who made the transition from the Cineverse to Toobworld and played by the same actor.  Especially since this year marks the 50th anniversary of his first foray into film and 20 years since he traveled to Toobworld.  I spy with my little eye....

HARRY PALMER

For three years running, British secret agent Harry Palmer appeared in movies based on the Len Deighton novels and starring actor Michael Caine, who looked amazingly like the "real" Harry Palmer.  
  • The Ipcress File (1965) 
  • Funeral in Berlin (1966) 
  • Billion Dollar Brain (1967) 
  • But then, almost thirty years later, two more adventures of Harry Palmer were produced, but this time for television:
  • Bullet to Beijing (1995) 
  • Midnight in Saint Petersburg (1996) 
And because they once again starred Michael Caine, I had no problem in absconding with the first three movies out of the Cineverse and making them part of Earth Prime-Time.  But within the reality of Toobworld, the movies still existed as movies, especially thanks to a reference to Harry's stylish eyeglass frames back in the 1960s by a suspected rapist (as seen in an episode of 'Endeavour'.)

So as our summer movie character inductee into the Hall during the year-long British theme, Harry Palmer is the perfect choice.


Welcome to the Television Crossover Hall Of Fame!

BCnU!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Bit of a scandal here, as I recall. "Bullet to Beijing" and "Midnight in St Petersburg" were made for the cinema, but the producers were horrified when the distributor announced it would be sold to TV instead.