The Deighton Dossier

Inspired by the Berliner Luft ....

2012-05-17T13:19:00.002-07:00

In this new National Post article, author Philip Kerr discusses his return to the stories of Bernie Gunther, the Berlin detective who came to prominence in Berlin Noir. The article themes in part the recurring attraction of Berlin as a source of fictional inspiration for British writers:

“So you have Christopher Isherwood, W.H. Auden, John Le Carre and Len Deighton,” he says. “There’s a great tradition among the English of writing about Berlin. It’s kind of a state of mind, almost. That even translates in terms of music. A lot of people go to Berlin with the idea that it’s a state of mind.”

Berlin has always been for me a main character of the Game, Set & Match series of novels, important for understanding the dynamics of the Great Game played out on its streets and essential to understanding Bernard Samson's character. There's definitely something about the city that inspires a certain type of fiction - the Berliner Luft must definitely do something a writer.

Unfaithful to the story? The cover of Faith ...

2012-05-12T05:25:00.002-07:00

Does the design fit the story?

Is there a fundamental error on the design of the new Harper reissue of Len Deighton's Faith?

One correspondent and blog reader - Sandipan Deb, an Indian journalist and Deighton fan - thinks so. He has pointed out to me an apparent mistake committed on the cover of Faith in the new edition published by Harper in 2011. The cover design is by Arnold Schwartzman, Deighton's friend and fellow designer.

Sandipan writes:

"On the Faith cover, Schwartzman has used the photograph of a window in Poland with a lace curtain (and merged it with a picture of Bernard peering from behind it). In the cover designer's note, Schwartzman explains: 'As Bernard Samson is now on an assignment in Poland I searched through my collection of photographs for a suitable image that would evoke that part of the world...' The point is: Bernard goes to Poland in Hope, and not in Faith, which is set in Berlin and London!"

On first examination, something does seem to be amiss. The majority of the plot action in Faith takes place in East Germany, where Bernard Samson makes contact with the agent VERDI, who promises information that will explain the death of his wife's sister Tessa during Fiona's escape from the East when serving as a double agent in the KGB. It is in Hope that the story essentially shifts further west to Poland, as Bernard is forced to go there to extract Tessa's husband George - who is secretly working for Polish intelligence - who is in the country in the hope of being reunited with his wife, whom the Stasi have told George is still alive.

It does seem to be a discrepancy. Perhaps Schwartzman, in trying to find individual design elements for each of the nine stories while retaining a thematic integrity, overlooked this. Does it matter? Not really. What is as important about the source of the image is the idea it portrays - for net curtains, read Iron Curtain. Schwartzman's aim is to depict Samson behind the Wall, isolated, "an unwilling outsider ostracised from domestic comfort."

Whatever the motivations of the designer and the source of the image, the Harper reissues by Arnold Schwartzman are still iconic covers. The complexity and depth of the nine volume story is one of its attractions as fiction, as it requires the reader to become fully absorbed in the main stories which flow between each of the books.

Still, an interesting observation.

Len's lasagne lesson

2012-05-06T05:15:00.000-07:00

Len talks pasta

When I last chatted with Len, he indicated that he was still writing everyday. While the hope remains that he'll re-discover the spark and turn that writing energy into a new thriller - perhaps Bernard and Fiona's life post-Wall - when any new writing by Len does appear it is often in small, self-contained projects that pique his interest.

One such project is a new limited edition book by Baseline Magazine, a company and website devoted to design, and in particular type design. In What's cooking? Famous designers on food, the publishers have invited over 40 of the world's leading designers and type creators to talk about how food influences their approach to design. As it says in the introduction by the magazine's Veronika Reichart, in the case of Len Deighton: "he taught spectacle-wearing Michael Caine to cook in the Ipcress File movie. Is there more to be learned about food than meets the eye? Len will give us a cooking lesson."

That lesson is about the perfect lasagne. Going back to his roots in the fifties and sixties as one of the UK's top young graphic designers, Len illustrates his missive on pasta with new illustrations which follow the classic designs from his famous Action Cook Book, which also featured in Ipcress File.

According to Len, for the best lasagne:

"Steam is the most important desirable constituent. In the case of lasagne I was made aware of this in the winter of 1977 when despite the cold weather I tried to avoid having a pasta course in my dinner at Sabatini, a Michelin two-star restaurant in Florence. Sabatini's head waiter claimed that the lasagne on the menu was a light dish. Since avoiding a pasta course in Italy is a capital offence I yielded. He was correct and it transformed my life; or at least it improved my cooking. The head waiter explained how cooked lasagne sheets arranged in wavy layers traps air, makes steam and thus makes a heavy dish into a light one."

Details from Len's cook strip design showing
how to make the perfect lasagne

Len goes on to provide a recipe that ensures your next lasagne will be light as a feather. It's an interesting chapter, a mixture of writing and design, and harks back to his earlier books on food and cooking.

Also included in the book is an entry from Len's friend - and designer of the recently re-released books from Harper Collin - Arnold Schwartzman. He talk about the memories linking ice cream and the cinema, and provides a recipe for the perfect ice cream.

The book retails at £15, and is available from the Baseline website.

Another Ersatz-Bond announced ...

2012-04-14T01:53:00.000-07:00

Not freshly ground

Is a Mini Cooper built by BMW, still an authentic mini? What about one of Damien Hirst's spin pictures, created by an artistic assistant - should we still regard that as 'by' the artist, even though he had no involvement in its creation? Or - conversely - can an idea, a character, an image exist independently - flourish, even - away from the source of its original inception?

This question of authenticity in art occurred to me on reading the news that William Boyd has been announced as the next author to follow in the footsteps of Kingsley Amis and John Gardner (see the previous post) and write a new James Bond novel. Boyd has, according to this excellent retrospective on Bond authors in the Daily Telegraph by Allan Massie, promised to take 007 back to his "classic" roots. It is curious to note that the James Bond character has now outlived his original creator, Ian Fleming, and that there are more ersatz-Bond books than were ever written by the first author. Some, indeed, might argue that many of the books written after Fleming's death have been of better quality - literary speaking - than much of Fleming's output.

However, is Bond - as imagined by Jeffrey Deaver, Amis, Gardner or Boyd the same Bond which Fleming imagined, or the same Bond which thousands of film fans believe in, many of whom will not have read any of the original novels? To what extent now does Bond exist as a character outside of his origins? Does he remain authentic when different authors have chosen to place him in different time periods, change key characteristics of his life, give him new enemies to fight, even - and this caused much media hubbub over the last week with news that Heineken has secured the licensing rights - a new favourite tipple?

It would seem to be the case. Bond has become a recognisable cultural prism through which the anxieties, preoccupations and obsessions of different cultural periods in western society are shot - he is a cinematic and literary mirror of what makes popular culture tick. In terms of enemies, he has taken on at various times the Soviets, global megalomaniacs, international criminals, the mujahadeen, and media moguls all intent on global domination, and all proxies for global sources of tension and fear which have shaped our society at different times. His car has changed as our tastes and auto technologies have shifted; the era of storytelling has moved back and forward in decades; his patterns of speech, the styles of the narrative, has waxed and waned; his love life has all proved mutable.

And yet, Bond is still Bond. He retains the classic evidence of a permanent fixture in the cultural firmament: the one-word moniker. The style, the insouciance is there. The gadgets remain, and are brought up to date. The fantasy, irrespective of the author, still appeals.

Clearly, this is what has kept Bond in the national consciousness while Harry Palmer or Bernard Samson, to some degree, have faded over time - the power of renewal and re-birth to add new life to a character, to give lustre and newness. Readers do not seem to mind that the character is now steered and guided by a different pilot every so often: the style of the journey remains consistently satisfying in most cases. And there is still a recognisable red line back to Fleming's original story.

Here's the question: could Harry Palmer be so easily re-imagined by another author? We can see already evidence that might suggest, 'no': the lacklustre films Bullet to Beijing and Midnight in St.Petersburg were not a great tribute to the original character - even with the same character - as part of an attempt to re-tool Harry for a post Cold-War age.

Is the management of Bond's character by other author's successful precisely because Fleming's writing, in parts, was lacklustre? That his character was more than the sum of the written parts, that he has a life outside of his original creator? Whatever the reason, there's something about Bond that has created a cultural phenomenon which, conceivably, could keep being re-imagined into perpetuity.

New reissues of James Bond novels by John Gardner ....

2012-04-01T04:09:00.002-07:00

Readers of this blog and Len Deighton's work are often also readers of other spy fiction - in particular the James Bond series. The name of John Gardner should be familiar to them.

Following Ian Fleming's death, his estate permitted the writing of books using the James Bond character by other writers. Famous amongst these was Gardner, and I've been alerted to an internet presence for this author online. Gardner, a successful author of over fifty books, is highly regarded by Bond readers as one of the authentic inheritors of the Fleming mantle, with such stories as Nobody Likes Forever and Win, Lose or Die. He was also a good friend of Len Deighton.

To quote from the biography on the website:

"In the early ’60s he wrote a series of highly acclaimed comic novels featuring a cowardly secret agent called Boysie Oakes, before moving on to more serious books: particularly those featuring Big Herbie Kruger - an outstanding fictional character of the Cold War. In the early eighties however he was invited by Ian Fleming’s literary copyright holders to write a series of continuation James Bond novels which proved to be so successful, world wide, that instead of the contracted three books he went on to publish some fourteen titles, plus two from screenplays.

In all, Gardner had fifty-three novels to his credit – many of them best-sellers and Maestro was notably a New York Times Book of the Year. Day of Absolution published in 2001 was his first book for six years, following a serious battle with cancer. He followed this with a new character that appeared with the publication of Bottled Spider in the Spring of 2001 – Suzie Mountford a Woman Detective Sergeant working in London during World War II. A further four Mountford books were to follow and a sixth was planned. Just before his death in 2007, Gardner finally completed the long awaited third novel in his Moriarty trilogy."

His son has got in touch with The Deighton Dossier to point out that new editions of his father's works have recently been published by Orion, with new cover jackets. Find out more on the John Gardner website. I've added the website to the list of useful links and would encourage Deighton Dossier reader to click on the link and check out this excellent, well-designed site.

Keep your eyes 'peeled' ... new Ipcress File found!

2012-03-31T08:48:00.002-07:00

It seems that the fiftieth anniversary of The Ipcress File is stimulating creativity among readers and film fans alike. Turning up on YouTube recently is this effort, re-imagining The Ipcress File using ... vegetables!

The budget looks to be about £4.56, but nevertheless the film-makers make a good effort at capturing the feel of the original film. File under 'Internet curios', I think.

"Harry Palmer is a winner, who comes on like a loser" - The Ipcress File interview with Len Deighton - a Deighton Dossier exclusive!

2012-03-27T15:49:00.001-07:00

This interview is © Pluriform 2012 and The Deighton Dossier. It must not be reproduced in any form without express permission of the author and the website owner.

Len Deighton, London, March 2012
(c) Rob Mallows

This quote is actually from Michael Caine, the actor who’s brilliant portrayal of Harry Palmer helped sealed into the public consciousness the character of Len Deighton’s ‘unnamed spy’ who first appears in The Ipcress File, published 50 years ago this year and in print ever since. This book marked a definite literary turning point when it came out at the height of the Cold War.

It is arguably one of the twentieth century’s top spy thrillers, marking as it did a new step forward in the fictional portrayal of the spy game. Palmer was a phenomenon, a working class spy hero who ushered in one of the golden ages of British spy fiction.

Published only nine years after Ian Fleming’s first James Bond novel Casino Royale, and only one year after John Le Carré’s debut Call for the Dead, The Ipcress File provided a counterpoint. The main character was from Burnley, a bit of a crook by all accounts, rough around the edges, a gourmet, plagued by his toff bosses and always needing his chit signed - a contrast to the debonair style and high living James Bond and the middle-aged, middle class bureaucrat that was George Smiley. Here was the spy as careerist, for whom petty paperwork is as much a part of everyday working life as holstering a pistol.

Over lunch in March 2012 and subsequently via an email conversation, Len Deighton kindly answered a range of questions about his book suggested by readers of the Deighton Dossier and me, the editor. He talks about the writing process for the book, his reasons for choosing the main plot device, his thoughts on the movie version and the influence of his Soho life as a young artist on key aspects of the film

Deighton Dossier: Len, The Ipcress File has stood the test of time as a novel: it remains popular and is regularly referred to as one of the top spy novels of the last century. To what do you put down its longevity and success?

Len Deighton: The short and simple answer is, my ignorance! Had I started writing after a creative writing course or a university degree in English Literature, Ipcress File would have been a more conventional book. As it happened, it started as an account of a man wandering through Soho, London as I did every day.

I wrote a long section of it while on holiday in France and then put it on a shelf. Again in France the following year – this time trying to earn enough as an illustrator to live there – I took my ‘book’ and slowly brought it to a conclusion. That ‘art student’ flavor was evident; perhaps that was a part of its appeal. It would probably still be sitting on the shelf except I met Jonathan Clowes, a literary agent, at a party. I remember him saying that he liked the ‘fragmentary’ style. He and his wife Ann, of course, still represent me!

DD: You started the book of as a film treatment. What was the prompt that led you to start to a novel format?
LD: What began as an episodic scribble (perhaps ideas for an amateur movie) became a short story and then rambled on – written, revised and rewritten many times - to become a book.

Screenplays deprive you of a chance to write personal descriptions and describe the environment. You can’t say what your characters are thinking and you can’t refer to memory, in-born prejudice or silent intention. In a screen play you must leave some room for the actors to contribute their skills and that also goes for the art director, set dresser and costume designer.

So a writer embarking a screenplay enjoys wonderful, but severely limited, opportunities. I therefore changed my play to a book. For anyone who flourishes in solitary confinement, writing books is a more suitable undertaking. Writing a fiction book demands a strict self-discipline and a planned structure but you are on your own – and when it’s not torment, it’s fun.

I have written screenplays such as Oh! What a Lovely War, From Russia With Love and Never Say Never Again. Of these only the first came to the screen as written, and that was because I produced the film of it and protected every word. The two Bond scripts were buried under re-writes.

DD: The narrative seems to twist 'social' norms: the hero is working class, rough around the edges, yet is more cultured, eats better food and better read than his bosses. Did the character's approach reflect perhaps your own worldview at the time in London, when attitudes were changing?
LD: Well, there were already plenty of class warriors around at the time I started writing. John Osborne, Alan Sillitoe and Arnold Wesker, who wrote Chips With Everything, were ‘angry young men’. I was of about the same age, but I wasn’t angry.

What did I have to be angry about? I had had spent six wonderful years studying art. My RAF time had included a long course in professional photography. My service experience included medical work using a Leica in an RAF hospital operating theatre and after that an assignment to the Fighter School where I spent many happy hours flying in Mosquito fighters operating cine cameras during mock combat. Now I was earning a modest living as an illustrator. London was warming up for the Swinging Sixties and I relished every minute of every day. I still do.

When I graduated from the Royal College of Art my diploma came from the hand of the Duke of Edinburgh. In the speech he made to us wide-eyed little van Goghs he said that artists were lucky. Artists, he said, could wend their way through all sections of society and all classes too. I took him at his word and despite being born in the Marylebone Workhouse I have found that a clean shirt and sober tie – plus a sense of humour – overcomes many social limitations.

I am not a class warrior. I respect and admire skills and education. Britain’s public schools have a long tradition of teaching the Victorian virtues; a belief in God, loyalty, modesty, justice, prudence, patriotism and sacrifice: I value those characteristics. When I poke fun at authority it’s not a matter of class, it is because authority is too often given to lazy and incompetent cronies. Prejudice of any sort is evil; it is illogical and destructive. ‘Give every boy an equal opportunity,’ I say. Never mind whether he comes from Eton or some workhouse in Marylebone. Girls too, of course!

DD: When you read through the book subsequently, were there any parts or themes which you’d love to re-write in full? If so, which?
LD: The dissatisfaction that comes with the completion of each book is the propellant that makes one start writing another one; vowing to make it better. So I try not to have second thoughts: I move on. My wife teases me about the way I try to find new routes back from anywhere we go. Finding new routes to familiar places is in every way my aim. In other words: no regrets, no second thoughts, no rewrites.

DD: Sidney Furie’s film of your book differs from the text in a number of ways (e.g. the downgrading of the atoll scenes and the confrontation with Dalby and Ross at the end). What did you think about these changes?
LD: I believe the film was ‘turned around’, which meant that new finance people replaced the original backers. According to what I was told at the time, the new budget was smaller and this meant deleting the proposed atoll locations. Hence, they were dropped from the film.

I try not to be a nuisance to the people who make films; they have enough troubles already! There have been films that have kept close to the original source. Eric Ambler’s screenplay for The Cruel Sea was a superb interpretation of the magnificent book. But for reasons of screen time, the average film has to sacrifice about three quarters of the average book. It is always going to be a painful cut for the author. And that was the case with The Ipcress File film.

DD: Do you think Sidney Furie captured what you were aiming for with your main characters (in contrast to what you’ve said about the casting and presentation of Game, Set and Match by Ken Grieve, which you felt didn’t)?
LD: I think Sydney Furie recognized the strength of Michael Caine and the ease with which Michael fitted into the Harry Palmer role. He always helped Michael by his skilful direction but he was clever enough to see what a loose rein could bring. It was a shame that he didn’t direct the other Harry Palmer movies.

DD: With Spy Sinker, you reveal how the main character and narrator Bernard Samson was not a totally neutral and reliable observer. If you were to have re-written The Ipcress File from the third person, what might the reader have learned about the 'unnamed spy' character?
LD: Harry Palmer is a loner in the tradition of heroes of fiction. Michael once summed up the character he was playing ‘Harry Palmer is a winner who comes on like a loser’. As with many of Michael’s verdicts on the world I can’t fault it. Harry Palmer is single-minded while remaining reflective enough to interpret what is going on.

Bernard Samson is a more complex personality formed by the people around him. His wife and his mistress, his children depend upon him. His superiors, such as the avuncular Frank and the abrasive Dickie, contribute to Bernard’s uncertainties. And while his patriotism is never in doubt, Bernard is more tentative than Harry Palmer. Although they both show a hard exterior to the world in which they live and work, Bernard sometimes finds his work distressing.

The well-known Horace Walpole quote: ‘This world is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel’ applies to them both. Harry is the former while Bernard is the latter.

DD: Your 'Jay' character is a peddler and dealer in information, offering it to the highest bidder. Was this character inspired – even in part – by anyone you met or knew about at the time in London?
LD: Yes, by several police informers. While an art student I lived in Soho, while it was a cesspit of crime, vice and general depravity. The police have a long tradition of paying for information and this is a recipe for corruption and distortion. It is not a good way to promote law and order.

DD: The Ipcress File is heavy on ambiguity. Do you think that’s what is at the heart of its success – that nothing ever seems certain, right up to the last page?
LD: It is exactly what I tred to do. My experience of life suggests that there is far more stupidity than there is evil (although much evil does exist) and stupidity is just as dangerous and harmful. In every person there is a measure of expertise and a measure of stupidity. I know brainy college professors who can’t work their dishwasher or their DVD player. I have seen incoherent cleaning ladies who total their cash accounts with consummate ease. I know indigent people who can interpret the literature of social welfare at one reading.

So I create characters made up of many conflicting abilities and inclinations, some of them illogical, some futile. I do this because that’s the way people are. Stories without the moral ambivalence of real life seem artificial to me.

DD: The brainwashing technique is central to The Ipcress File. What prompted you to use that as a device?
LD: When I wrote The Ipcress File there was a great muddle of ideas, theories and experience whirling around in my head. Battle For The Mind, a book by William Sargant – a very controversial psychologist – influenced The Ipcress File and its title*. I read it several times. But I have always suffered chronic skepticism in respect of Sigmund Freud and his theories although some of his books, such as The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, are entertaining.

But I have never discounted the benefit that counseling can bring and some psychiatrists have illuminating ideas. My friend David Stafford-Clark was perhaps the most famous psychiatrist of his time (he had also been a para-medic and a medical officer for both the RAF and the USAAF). But I have always believed that anyone who can count upon intelligent friends for advice is fortunate indeed.

* Readers’ note: William Sargent was a controversial British psychiatrist who promoted such treatments as psychosurgery, deep sleep treatment and electro-convulsive therapy. In Battle for the Mind, he discusses the process by which our minds are subject to influence by others. Although remembered as a major force in British psychiatry, his enthusiasm for discredited treatments such as insulin shock therapy and deep sleep treatment, his hatred for psychotherapy and his dogmatic approach mean much of his work is now discredited.

Having generously answered a number of questions about The Ipcress File, Len was kind enough to answer a few further questions submitted by readers of the Deighton Dossier blog about a range of topics.

DD: A number of blog readers has asked if you ever considered doing a second volume of Blood, Tears & Folly, from ’43 to ’45? If so, what do you think would have been your broad thesis about the military strategies of both sides during that period?
LD: Yes, I have drafted out a structure and made notes from meetings with individuals and with historians. My hard disk is loaded and I have a thick bundle of printed out material facing me.

The reason I think Blood, Tears & Folly is my most important book is because it revealed and proved that a significant amount of modern history is bunk, just as Henry Ford proclaimed it to be. Myths prevail because they provide the history that most people prefer to believe. And each nation embroiders and cossets its fables.

The second half of World War Two does not provide the unreported struggles and myths that are so evident in the first half of the war. Recent writings about the Russian and German fighting have been driven by Moscow archivists. The fingerprints of the Russian propaganda service are well in evidence but there are no great surprises. The Desert War, Italy and Northern Europe have been re-fought vigorously on land, sea and air with few dramatic revelations. The Pacific War is largely ignored by European historians and is not adequately covered by American ones.

The eye-witnesses who turned to fiction – such as James Jones and Norman Mailer – still provide the most convincing accounts of war in the Pacific. Perhaps there are still new facts hidden within the Army accounts and those of the US Navy.

DD: You’ve written a lot about military history and spent time in the RAF. What is the most salient lesson you’ve learned from both experiences about military strategy?
LD: The most salient lesson is that grave incompetence should result in immediate dismissal. Incompetence is a grave charge, which is why I spent so much time researching before writing Blood¸ Tears & Folly. But those given the power of life and death over hundreds of thousands of men women and children must expect to have their reputations scrutinised.

DD: Your production company produced the film for Only When I Larf as well as Oh! What a Lovely War. How did that come about?
LD: Paramount took a chance on me. They provided the big money for Oh! What A Lovely War on the basis of the screen rights - which I personally bought from Joan Littlewood - my film script and the efforts of my agent. But by the time the deal was settled winter was approaching. OWALW, using Brighton Piers and other outdoor locations, could not be started until there were longer hours of daylight.

As I had just finished writing Only When I Larf I suggested that Paramount also financed this because I could start immediately and film it during that winter. In fact I took the production to Manhattan and to Beirut, Lebanon where it was sunny, as well as building a plush apartment in a warehouse in the London docks where we shot the interiors. Thus no production days were lost to bad weather. Pre-production and post-production periods fitted nicely into my overall schedule and the overheads for my Piccadilly offices were covered.

I was moved by Joan Littlewood’s stage version of Oh! What a Lovely War. It was my ambition to make just that one film and then go back to writing. As things turned out I found it very interesting to make those two films. Was it Orson Welles who said making movies was like playing with a train set? Well, he was right, but there were too many people squabbling over who had the guards van when they should have been working and as the producer I was always in the middle of the childish squabbles for credits!

DD: Finally, any news on your aero engine and fountain pen histories?
LD: The text is complete for each of those books, but they both require many illustrations. I need to work with the photographer of the pens and the illustrator for the aero engines history. There remains a lot to do and publishers face the fact that they cater to minority interests. But, like The Ipcress File, and all my other books, I wrote them primarily for my own amusement, so I have no cause to complain.

This interview is © Pluriform 2012 and The Deighton Dossier. It must not be reproduced in any form without express permission of the author and the website owner

Bond back in business ....

2012-03-17T15:58:00.004-07:00

Interesting snippet of news from the world of publishing. Two years on from Harper Collins' decision to re-publish all of Len Deighton's fiction works, Ian Fleming's back catalogue of James Bond stories is to be relaunched.

The estate for Ian Fleming has signed a10-year deal with Random House to publish the books in print and e-book format. I imagine these will become collectables in their own time.

Next year will be the sixtieth anniversary of Ian Fleming's first Bond novel, Casino Royale, and one would image that there will be additional edition and a whole shed-load of Bond paraphernalia.

Check out the story on the BBC news website.

Greys and browns ...

2012-03-10T14:48:00.002-08:00

Sir Ken Adam at The Museum of London

That was the colour palette which Ken Adam, production director, chose for Harry Saltzman's The Ipcress File to reflect the dreariness and earthy nature of 'sixties London and provide a counterpoint to the glamour of Bond.

This was just one of the anecdotes shared by Sir Ken Adam OBE in his talk before a special showing of the film as part of the Museum of London in Docklands' regular monthly film screenings.

Now a sprightly 91 years old, Ken shared his remembrances with over 70 people assembled in one of the former dockside warehouses now surrounded by the modernity of 'Docklands'. Already having worked to great esteem on Cubby Broccolli's sets for Dr. No and Goldfinger, Ken was brought onto The Ipcress File by Harry Saltzman to create "a poor man's Bond". But Ken and director Sidney Furie had a different creative approach, and fought the notoriously short-tempered Saltzman to film the movie for what it was, rather than what it wasn't.

One of the secrets of the film, Sir Ken said, was that 95% of it was filmed entirely on location, much of it in one of the grand buildings on Hobart Square, near to Victoria Station. This was a new experience for him, but what it allowed him to do was to emphasise the "greys and browns" of everyday London office life. The building on Hobart Square was used not just for Dalby's offices (the cleaning agency front) but to create Michael Caine's flat, and Colonel Ross's office. This move away from the traditional studio apparently caused friction, not least with the producer.

Harry Saltzman was insistent that Major Dalby's offices should be full of the latest computers and monitoring equipment. In contract, Ken Adam and Sidney Furie felt that the offices should have an authentic military feel - desk, camp bend, desk lamp, gas fire, and a bust of Churchill. This bare look was more barrack room than nerve centre, deliberately so. Yet later in the day Saltzman arrived on set with a truck full of computers, determined to have his way. Cue his breaking into an almighty temper, accusing Adam of trying to destroy the relationship with his director. The film unit, Ken said with a wry smile on his face, "loved these rows". Two hours later, it was all forgotten by the producer.

Sid Furie's lead cameraman on the set was Otto Heller, a Czech photographer and camera man who was old enough to have filmed the funeral of the last Habsburg Emperor, Franz Josef, Ken revealed. He never used a light meter and was the person responsible for many of the classic shots through keyholes and over Harry Palmer's shoulder. Apparently, while a perfectionist Heller never bothered to look at the final cut of the film. Ken called him "one of the greats".

Sitting in a converted warehouse in Docklands, Ken recalled how he used a warehouse nearby to film the sequences in 'Albania'. Furie, a Canadian, was not that experienced but outside on location, he had bags of energy and enthused the whole team to think creatively and embrace the cliched shots for which everyone remembers the film. In fact, they gave the film Adam believed the unique atmosphere that has made it a classic.

I asked him about the role of Len Deighton on the film. He revealed that Deighton was around on set and did share his views on the relationship to the story in the book. More practically, he was - famously - on the set of Harry Palmer's kitchen and taught Michael Caine how to crack eggs with one hand (though Caine eventually left it to Deighton to do this and it is his hands which appear in the final film!).

Having worked on both Bond and the "anti-Bond", Adam shared some interesting perspectives on the two. During a break in filming, Adam and Michael Caine went to the Bahamas, where Bond was filming, but Cubby Broccoli apparently would not allow Caine on the set alongside Sean Connery [perhaps, like when matter and anti-matter are combined, the space-time continuum would split!]. When filming had finished, that year Ken was invited to both Saltzman's and Broccoli's tables at the Bafta awards - both had booked the biggest tables in the venue. Cubby was sure that Adam would win him a Bafta for his work on Goldfinger - instead, he got it for Ipcress File. Cue stormy looks from Broccoli, who didn't talk to Ken for the next two months.

Having been warmed up with a view from one of the key creative forces behind The Ipcress File, I saw the film in a new light. And it is still a London classic!

What am I bid? .......

2012-03-10T10:37:00.005-08:00

Tempted?

Part of the fun of collecting a particular author's book is hunting down the hard-to-find editions. Many of Len Deighton's early works are now in that category; as posted on this blog, even Len himself has revealed that he doesn't have a copy of the first edition of his first book, The IPCRESS File!

Well, there's an opportunity for collectors to get hold of some of the most collectable of Len's works. A blog reader and collector - who has one of the best collections of Len Deighton books I know of - is now selling the collection to raise funds. On 20th March, Chiswick Auctions is holding an auction of books and manuscripts. Lots 23-31 will be of interest to blog readers, including first editions in immaculate condition of The IPCRESS File, Horse Under Water, Funeral in Berlin and Billion-Dollar Brain, as well as copies of other sought-after books.

Do check out the auction. Such great copies don't come around very often, so it's worth perhaps taking a punt!

Lunch with Len ...

2012-03-06T11:35:00.002-08:00

Len Deighton, Koffman's London
March 2012
(c) Rob Mallows

Last Saturday I was fortunate to catch up with Len Deighton over lunch at Koffman's in London's Knightsbridge.

We covered a lot of bases in a conversation over lunch lasting four hours at which we were joined by Len's wife Ysabele and his friend and fellow author Mike Ripley, contributor to Shot's magazine.

Len's in semi-retirement and gave little indication of working on any new fiction; no news either sadly on his histories of the aero engine and the fountain pen, which were with his editor.

Our conversation covered a range of bases. We discussed The Ipcress File, and Len shared a couple of anecdotes: When it came out in 1962, due to his publisher's lack of foresight, the 4,000 first editions sold out so quickly that when Len himself went into a WH Smith to pick up a copy it was sold out! And, surprisingly I thought, he told me he doesn't currently own a first edition of the book himself!

The most interesting story came when Ysabele, Len's wife, confirmed that Erik van Hazelhof, was the famous Dutch agent, whose story was filmed as the film The Soldier of Orange (Len had written the foreword to his second biography). Ysabele says that he took part in the raid which was the inspiration for one of the most famous Bond scenes, in Goldfinger.

I made some notes during our discussion but rather than 'grill' Len over lunch with questions, he's agreed to respond via email to a series of questions I'll put, which I'll then publish on the blog in the same way I did last year (see menu options above). Given it's the 50th anniversary of it's publication, I'm going to ask him a number of Ipcress File questions. If you have any Ipcress File-related questions, do drop an email soon to me through the blog!

Ipcress File arrives in London's Docklands ...

2012-03-06T02:18:00.001-08:00

Sir Ken Adam OBE

... thanks to the Museum of London. Rachel Crossley, the Museum's events manager, has got in touch with the Deighton Dossier about a special presentation of the film of The Ipcress File, startrng - of course - Michael Caine as Harry Palmer, the 'unnamed spy' in Len's book, who is on the trail of disappearing nuclear scientists who are apparently under the control of the mysterious 'Jay'.

As blog readers will know, the film is a classic, and one of the best features of the film is the way that it authentically presents a grimy but vibrant London in the 1960s. The style of the film is immediately recognisable, and one of the elements contributing to that is the set design. As part of Friday's screening in London's Docklands, Sir Ken Adam - the set designer on the original film - will be there to give an introductory talk. Anyone with even a passing interest in the film is encouraged to pop along to the Museum's Docklands branch and check out this special event.

Here are the details:
The Ipcress File, Friday 9 March, 7-9.15pm

Tickets £7 (concs £5) Book tickets online or via the Box Office on 020 7001 9844

For more information about the Museum's programme, go to their website.

Induction of psycho-neuroses by conditioned reflex under stress ...

2012-02-25T07:16:00.000-08:00

.... or as it's better known, IPCRESS. This year is the fiftieth anniversary of The IPCRESS File, Len Deighton's first book, and this blog will be posting some articles through the year under the theme "Ipcress at 50".

But meanwhile, an eagle-eyed blog reader Craig Arthur spotted an interesting online interview in the blog Money into Light with Norman Wanstall, the sound editor on The Ipcress File film who was also extensively involved in sound production on the early Bond films.

Wanstall clearly had a good time creating those eerie spaced out sounds to which 'Harry Palmer' is subjected to when apparently captured by enemy agent Jay in Hungary (Albania in the film):

"Of all the films I’d worked on, IPCRESS FILE, was my favourite. It was a highly stylised spy drama, brilliantly directed by Sid Furie, and a film I would love to have watched as a normal filmgoer."

Join us on Facebook ...

2012-02-24T16:26:00.000-08:00

A new page has been created on Facebook for any readers of this blog and the main website, who want to connect together on that platform to talk about Deighton, spy fiction more generally, the Cold War or anything else relevant.

Do check it out.

Another candle on the cake...

2012-02-18T05:54:00.002-08:00

Today is Len Deighton's 83rd birthday! On behalf of all the fans of his novels and readers of this blog, we extend a warm "congratulations" to him!

2012 is also the 50th anniversary of the publication of The IPCRESS File, Len's first novel and the story which arguably gave a brand new twist to the spy novel as Fleming's Bond books had done in the previous decade.

This blog will publish a series of posts on 'Ipcress at 50' during the year.

Internet flotsam and jetsam ...

2012-02-10T12:25:00.000-08:00

So far in February there have been a number of Deighton-related items of interest which I'm gathering together for readers in this post.

First up, one of Len's contemporaries and close friends Ted Dicks died recently, and Len wrote a moving tribute to his friend in The Guardian on 3 February, describing Dicks (see Len's illustration, right) as having lived 'a life crammed with many separate talents.' The Guardian also carried a full obituary for Dicks, who among many accomplishments composed the classic Bernard Cribbins song, 'Right, said Fred'.

It's also sad to report that British character actor Frederick Treves has also passed on, as reported in The Guardian obituary column. The picture with the obituary (below) reports his role as Head of the Berlin Station Frank Harrington, who plays both political ally and father figure to lead character Bernard Samson. I think that of all the main characters in the TV adaptation - criticised and subsequently pulled by Deighton after one showing - Treves's Frank is closest to what I imagined having read the books first.

On a different media - the radio - former BBC Radio 4 controller Mark Damazer wrote an excellent review of 70 years of Desert Island Discs in the Financial Times in late January; there is a reference there to the scheduling surprise in 1995 when Bomber was broadcast over a whole day.

With 2012 representing the fiftieth anniversary of The IPCRESS File's publication (more on that in subsequent blogs), I stumbled across an interesting article in the Kensington & Chelsea Today newspaper website about a local author who's written a novel based around the lives of a group of architects. The front covers is, apparently, an homage to the Ray Hawkey book covers for Len Deighton's first novels from the 'sixties. What do you think?

A new cold front in spy fiction: a review of The Coldest City

2012-02-04T04:35:00.000-08:00

Is the Berlin Wall still relevant to modern spy fiction?

When die Berliner Mauer was still wrapped around West Berlin like a ligature and operating as the main stage for the murderous theatre of the Cold War, it was a physical, dangerous, moody presence. This was perfect for framing taut, action-packed fiction.

Now, 22 years after its collapse, little remains of the Wall in a united Berlin. A new paradigm in global power politics exists which has few of the certainties of the Cold War. So does the Berlin Wall remain relevant to writers and readers of spy fiction any more?

One way to recapture the reality of what the Wall represented is in pictures, not words. The new black & white graphic novel The Coldest City, by New York Times-bestselling author Antony Johnston and artist Sam Hart does just that, rebuilding the Wall and the representing the doubts and absurdities of operating in a divided Berlin in frame after frame of moody, sparse images.

I've been lucky enough to receive a preview copy of this 176-page graphic novel. The black & white illustrations by veteran artist Hart are beautiful and his frequent use of shadow and blocks of black, with little intermediate shading, helps recreate the monochrome pallor of a divided Berlin split by the Wall, running through the city like a skewer.

Johnston sets his story just at the time when the East German regime is being challenged by its people and the Wall starts to crumble - a fascinating time in the Wall's history which has only recently started to be addressed in fiction. As the world turns toward a new, open future, the old rules of the spy game must be honored one last time if all the players are to get out alive.

Johnston's lead character is British secret agent Lorraine Broughton, and it's great to see a spy story with such a strong, multi-layered female character carrying the story. Her presence reflects the changing world, when old certainties and social conventions in the workplace were disappearing; spying, too, is no longer the elite, male world of Bond and Palmer.

New to Berlin, Broughton is asked to infiltrate the city amidst the chaos right before the fall of the Iron Curtain. A fellow officer has been killed in West Berlin while carrying a list containing the names of every covert officer, from every intelligence agency, operating within the city. This sensitive data is now missing, and MI6 doesn’t know who to trust. Broughton is challenged to find it before the killer can put it to use.

Agents on both sides are coming to terms with the fact their worlds are falling apart. The fall of the Wall means they must do a certain amount of 'housekeeping' in order to keep safe their secrets - the currency of international espionage - and protect their hidden sources. Against this backdrop, Broughton's efforts to hunt down the list bring her into contact with numerous dangers, as agents from all sides stop at nothing to get hold of the information she's after. One such is Lasalle, from the French security agency; they get close, end up in bed, but this is no ordinary Berlin fling - the first time they're in bed together, Broughton senses he's not who he says he is and pulls a gun on him. Operating alone in a strange city, Broughton has to live by her wits and use the chaos caused by the collapse of the East German regime to her advantage.

Told from the perspective of a post-operation debrief by her superiors, the tale Broughton recounts has all the classic elements you want from a spy novel: fake passports, assassins ("Icemen"), risky crossing of the Wall, clandestine meetings, mis-direction and more twists than a bag of pretzels. Crucially, it has a fantastic denouement that I certainly didn't see coming and which provides a really satisfying finish to a great story.

The use of the graphic novel format really adds something to the story and is a great way to refresh the genre and keep it relevant for contemporary readers. Sam Hart's drawings - uncomplicated, with sparse sketching, frequent close-ups, multiple panels with no dialogue have a cinematic quality - they read like a story board - and give the reader space in which to construct their own visual narrative. The reader is drawn into this city in tumult, and the numerous small visual clues provide unwritten signposts that move the plot along.

Johnston reminds modern readers that the physical reality of a divided Europe was matched by divisions in the mind of those charged with protecting their countries' interests.

Nothing in a divided Berlin was ever quite what is seemed. The Coldest City uses that fact to perfection and can take its place alongside Funeral in Berlin, Absolute Friends and Zoo Station in the file marked 'classic Berlin espionage fiction.' A cracking thriller that you want to read in one sitting, such is the mix of tension and uncertainty in every frame.

The Coldest City is the first in a planned line of spy thrillers from Johnston, but the latest in a long line of prestigious graphic novels from Oni Press. It's out in May 2012 in hard cover. Deighton Dossier readers can find more at The Coldest City website, which has sample scenes from the book.

Straight out of the Ark ....

2012-01-30T13:43:00.000-08:00

Deighton's cover for Ark 10

The last post on Deighton's cover art elicited not only some helpful emails but also a note from blog reader Caspar referencing the fantastic early illustrations Len produced for Ark magazine and expressing a desire to see someone dig them out and post them up. Well, never let it be said the Deighton Dossier doesn't listen to its readers!

Ark was - is - the in-house magazine for the Royal College of Art, produced by students as both a proving ground and showcase for the burgeoning British talents emerging in illustration, graphic design and production. Not only Deighton but contemporaries like friend and future cover designer Ray Hawkey, photographer Gordon Moore and designer Alan Fletcher were among the many students whose talents first became evident in Ark.

This explosion of British design talent - in contrast to the rather dull, everyday life of the fifties, a decade very much waiting for the sixties to arrive - is captured brilliantly in a book called Burning the Box of Beautiful Things by Alex Seago, which charts the "heady times" of the fifties and sixties in the UK's design scene as the postmodern moved from fringe to mainstream and conventional ideas about art and illustration were challenged the neo-Romantic, neo-Victorian sensibilities of the art establishment which students like David Hockney, Patrick Caulfield and Allen Jones railed against.

Ark was a very public manifestation of this new movement, in which the latest techniques were used and existing conventions challenged. Ark was also a siphon, drawing across the Atlantic the latest design and graphical trends from America like 'jazz modernism' and 'streamlining'. Len Deighton was an enthusiastic contributor and editor. Seago describes Deighton's article on Soho - titled 'Down Past Compton on Frith, Food Makes Wonderful Music' - as "the most skilfully written article every to appear in Ark". Here's an extract from the feature 'Abroad in London' in Ark No 10 from 1954, which is a fantastic evocation of the Soho of the mid-fifties, then becoming the centre of everything hip and trendy in the capital, with jazz clubs and the ever present seediness of the demimonde not far away. Here's an excerpt:

"Gashed across the face of London's West End, Old Compton Street, the High Street of London's largest foreign section, is constantly busy with the hustle of day, evening and night. Dribbling across newly swept pavements, ice blocks rest outside restaurant and shops by 8.30am. A rambling monster lumbers slowly along clanging its sanitary progress - the Westminster Council dustcart is one of the few English intrusions. A thousand empty bottles - dusty and vintage laden the previous evening - join garbage and broken furniture in a jostling to the incinerator .... Chairs are swept under as lunch menus are written."

You could almost be there, sitting outside Bar Italia in Frith Street enjoying an exotic new 'cappuccino' coffee as you watched the world go by! The prose is accompanied by some wonderfully evocative illustrations by Deighton which capture the vibrancy and early growing pains of 'swinging' Soho - a London which Deighton drew on for his early steps writing fiction. (click on each photo to see in more detail).

The second set of illustrations is also from Ark, edition 13 from 1955, and follow a similar format, only this time Deighton is stretching his journalistic and artistic muscles by penning a portrait New York's metropolis, where Deighton worked for a while in advertising and in restaurants. 'A bowler hat on Broadway' is Deighton's own taken on an Englishman in New York, and captures an America of jazz bars, ice cream floats, donuts and neon.

A cover story - tracking down Deighton's designs: can you help?

2012-01-19T13:52:00.000-08:00

'The cover should bring a subtle and intimate promise of what the writer has contrived:
not a display of incoherent pyrotechnics' - Len Deighton

Len's cover for Free Love and Heavenly Sinners, 1956

As readers of this blog will know, before he became an internationally-renowned thriller writer and historian Len Deighton was a designer and illustrator during one of the purple patches of 20th Century British design during the fifties and early sixties.

Many of his designs are well known, but even Len himself isn't sure exactly how many book cover designs he produced. I've been in communication with Edward Milward-Oliver - author of The Len Deighton Companion - on the subject of Len's cover designs, which he's currently researching. While we think we have the definitive list of cover illustrations, there just might be more out there that neither of us is aware of. Indeed, I've received emails from blog readers on this very subject, so the definitive answer is, perhaps, still to be had.

Therefore, I thought I'd use the Deighton Dossier to both share a great collection of the known covers Len has produced, and crowd source the question:

Do you know of any 'missing' Len Deighton covers out there?

Find out more below...

Much of the work Len undertook at the time after leaving St Martin's School of Art and the Royal Academy was in book cover design. As a freelance designer working for publishing houses and magazines, Len must have produced hundreds of design commissions, from the large to the small. But most will have had the distinctive trademark of Len's design work during this period - the black outlining, the minimal use of conventional shading, strong matte colouring and lettering that made use of all sorts of new and modern fonts, all of which made Len's covers stand out as exciting and eye-catching. He certainly took advantage - as other illustrators did during this period - of the possibilities from new printing and production techniques, and the freer expression being developed in London's art schools, that allowed book covers to tell stories in themselves.

Len's most famous commission is the cover for the UK first edition of Jack Kerouac's beat generation novel On the road, which as well as being one of the most sought-after of Len's cover designs (good copies go for £800+) is now available in poster, t-shirt, greeting card, postcard and tea towel, such is the popularity of the design and its compelling pen portrait of the story of Sal Paradise and his travel's across 'fifties American heartlands.

Equally as important at this time are the numerous penguin covers Len produced, recognisable by the iconic orange and white covers and the strong black line designs. In the book Penguin by Illustrators from 2009, Len gave some insight to the life of a freelancer in the fifties, working to deadlines and always needing to be creative:

Long, long ago I lived in Central London. I was easy to reach. I delivered on time, and have never been known to turn away a paid job. I became an artist of last resort and often faced ferocious deadlines: 'I know it's Friday afternoon, Len, but we need it Monday morning, so I'll get the proof round to you tonight ... or maybe first thing in the morning.' At Penguin, my drawings were seldom modified by orders from above - maybe they should have been. Not enough time I suppose.

The result was a mixed bunch of covers; from them I recall John Wain's Hurry on Down, my Budd Schulberg cover for The Disenchanted and Iris Murdoch's Under the Net as being reasonably successful. The colour bands went from horizontal to vertical to make more room for cover drawings, many of which were hurriedly produced and not good enough. While money and time were lavished upon typographic perfection the artist was the last in line when it came to fees.

Len believes he did around 22 book covers during his time as an illustrator, but he - and we - think there may be other examples of his cover or endpaper illustrations out there in the world of books which might have been overlooked with the passage of time. My personal favourite - as a baseball fan - is the cover for George Plimpton's Out of My League, the story of a journalist who convinces himself he's got what it takes to step up to the plate of his local baseball team and face an innings from the star pitcher. Len's illustration perfectly captures the fear and anticipation of the baseball hitter as he waits in the dugout to face the curve ball and the sinker.

Below are the details for the covers which are known about by collectors and which are illustrated in the image below. If any readers, design and illustration historians or collectors know of any other Deighton covers that should be added to this list, do please get in touch!

Deighton's cover illustrations

1955
Fred Bason’s Third Diary

Fred Bason - Andre Deutsch - London 1955 - Jacket

1956
Sales on a Shoe String

Sydney Hyde - Andre Deutsch - London 1956 - Jacket

My Husband Cartwright

Olivia Manning - Heinemann - London 1956 - Jacket and illustrations

House of Secrets

Sterling Noel - Andre Deutsch - London 1956 - Jacket

Free Love and Heavenly Sinners

Robert Shaplen - Andre Deutsch - London 1956 - Jacket

1957

The Revelations of Dr Modesto

Alan Harrington - Andre Deutsch - London 1957 - Jacket

The Other Paris

Mavis Gallant - Andre Deutsch - London 1957 - Jacket

1958

On the Road

Jack Kerouac - Andrew Deutsch - London 1958 - Jacket

Advocate for the Dead

Alex Weissberg - Andre Deutsch - London1958 - Jacket

Onionhead

Weldon Hill - Andre Deutsch - London 1958 - Jacket

The Idle Demon: a Collection of Verses

R. P. Lister - Andre Deutsch - London 1958 - Jacket

The Key Above the Door

Maurice Walsh - Penguin (1282) - London 1958 - Cover illustration

The Small Dark Man

Maurice Walsh - Penguin (1283) - London 1958 - Cover illustration

The Southerner

Douglas Kiker - Andre Deutsch - London 1958 - Jacket

Tender is the Night

Scott Fitzgerald - Penguin reprint (906) - London 1958 - Cover illustration

1960

Under the Net

Iris Murdoch - Penguin (1445) - London 1960 - Cover illustration

The Disenchanted

Budd Schulberg - Penguin (1498) - London 1960 - Cover illustration

1961

The Little Perisher

Dighton Morel - Secker & Warburg - London 1961 - Jacket
1962

Anatomy of Britain

Anthony Sampson - Hodder & Stoughton - London 1962 - Endpapers

Out of My League

George Plimpton - Andre Deutsch - London 1962 - Jacket

1963

The Incomparable Atuk

Mordecai Richler - Andre Deutsch - London 1963 - Jacket

Hurry on Down

John Wain - Penguin (1442) - London 1963 - Cover illustration

The full collection of Len Deighton covers is below, kindly provided by Edward Milward-Oliver.

Board already? The curious case of The Ipcress File game

2012-01-02T02:40:00.000-08:00

About now in households across the UK and beyond, a multiplicity of board games like Monopoly or Cluedo - purchased as Christmas gifts and played, sometimes reluctantly, on Boxing Day - are being put back on the top of the cupboard, to be played again only occasionally on future Boxing Days if the TV is no good.

In this electronic age, board games have become something of an anachronism. When a world of immersive 3D fun is available on the PlayStation or Wii, why resort to pushing a plastic character around a board?

The answer was always using your imagination and interacting and having fun with others in a way you cannot with electronic gaming. Until perhaps the 'nineties or thereabouts, when a character in a book, TV series or film, or the film/book itself was a hit, it was often made into a board game. In the marketing parlance, such a 'tie-in' was produced to maximise revenue for the rights holder and create a lucrative commercial bond with fans of a particular character or series.

I was prompted to blog about board games having come across recently - via eBay - a copy of The IPCRESS File board game, made by Milton Bradley.

The Harry Palmer character is not the only espionage fiction character to have his own board game. A little research shows that in the past, the board game's proved a popular route to market for some major characters in spy fiction, and indeed about the Cold War and spying in general.

And one can see why: the best board games encourage players to be tactical, to keep secrets, to bluff their opponents, to take on missions, to make (metaphorical) threats and, ultimately, to come out on top. The Cold War in cardboard.

In 1965 Milton Bradley (MB) Games in the US bought out a board game based on The IPCRESS File, clearly hoping to ride on the coattails of the commercial success of the movie in the cinemas in the US. Images from the film's marketing materials are used - presumably under license - and on the box is the legend: 'Harry Palmer, the cool British agent'.

It is difficult to determine their target audience. The movie was aimed at an adult audience, yet the game is marked as 'from 10 to adult'. It is a bit of a stretch to imagine many adults playing the game as it is incredibly simple and lacking in sustained interest. In form it is a simple chasing game, with players picking up orders and enacting them through dice rolling and movement. Up to four players move around a board which features representative scenes from the film complete with recognisable characters of Harry Palmer and Dalby and Ross. Players are gven spy assignments, but one player secretly becomes a double agent. Those around the table are required to solve their assignments so that they can identify the double agent. Any player who knows who the double agent is then 'licensed to kill' the double agent and thereby win the game. Simple as.

Of course, to a collector one of the attractions of a game like this is not the game itself but, given the fate of most board game is to end up in charity shops or on the sum, their rarity. That in itself is of value to a collector, along with the sheer curiosity factor. The design of The IPCRESS File box and game is of interest as it clearly by the same artist who produced the cinema poster and bill campaigns for the film in the US market. This is evidence the the board game rights were clearly an integral part of the studio's overall marketing campaign for the film in the 'States.

However, no such games were produced for Funeral in Berlin or Billion-Dollar Brain, which suggests either the game was a complete failure, or the marketing people at the studio were looking to target a more mature audience through more traditional marketing means.

Beyond collecting books and films, for a fan of any particular genre or character, the ephemera - the items which float around in the outer rims of the character galaxy, so to speak - offers then new sources of interest, particularly as favourite characters and themes are played out in new forms of media.

The IPCRESS File board game follows in path of a number of games which have a clear espionage link; indeed, some of the most famous spy fiction characters have appeared in cardboard and plastic form.

James Bond, for example, appeared on a famous board game published by MB games during the sixties which came out alongside some of the early films: the James Bond Secret Agent 007 game of 1964 was the first of many tie-ins around the film series, and was produced when only three Bond films had been released. Clearly there was enough popularity surrounding those early films to justify the move into gaming marketing. It has been re-released and updated at certain points, and now demands serious money from collectors for a good copy.

MB also produced games tied to specific movies : Thunderball from 1965 follows on from the release of the generic Bond game, and is the first specific film-based game; Goldfinger appeared in 1966 and the action follows themes in the film, your objective being to capture Goldfinger, who's hiding out in Fort Knox. These games are simple roll and move games, where the players' pieces capture other gamers' and have to undertake missions managed through simple card instructions. The main link to the film - as is the case with The IPCRESS File game - is in the attractive box packaging, which contains scenes recognisable from the films which were intended to attract adults and children who had seen the film, and wanted to enact the scenes themselves. Whether the reality of the game play matched their expectations is another matter! More contemporary is Scene It?, a film trivia game which is linked to a DVD of clips from the films. 007 has also appeared on playing cards.

Bond, of course, has also made the obvious leap from screen to computer game console over the last twenty years, the most recent example being the re-imagining of James Bond Goldeneye, which was a hit on the PS2 when it first came out in the 1990s. But that's probably something for another blog post; the closest Len Deighton's writing reached in the digital age is the Commodore 64 game Blitzkrieg!

The sixties were a golden period for TV and film-based spy characters and series, and this is reflected in the sixties being a boom period for board game. So the characters from the original Mission: Impossible TV series made it to cardboard. The New Avengers, not strictly spies I guess, also made it onto the toy shelves in the same decade with an eponymous game. The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was a major sixties hit and not surprisingly, it was also produced as a board game tie-in to tap into the demand from fans to re-enact the missions outside of the broadcast schedule. This blog post carries some more detail about what the game involved.

More broadly, a little Internet-based research has thrown up a number of generic spy-related board games, few of which I've heard of but which sound intriguing: Vienna (naturally, a centre of the spy world in the fifties and sixties in Europe), Conspiracy (what else!) and Inkognito, which draws on the historical world of the spy in the heart of the Venetian Republic.

In 1973, Espionage is one of the more successful games which play on the general interest in popular culture in all things spying, which was a feature of the Cold War period right up until the late eighties. Spy Ring is a contemporary spy game to The IPCRESS File, requiring players to visit embassies placed across the international city of Espiona, the one who collects the most valuable set of secrets being the winner. Thriller writer Robert Ludlum put his name to a Game of Counter-Espionage in 1988, which again plays on the obvious gaming factors of deception and secrecy from your other gamers around the table. Spy Ring was the entry into this increasingly burgeoning market from Waddingtons, the UK game maker which was in a perpetual game of catch up with its much larger US competitor, MB.

The attractions of the spy-related board game to makers are clear. It introduces elements of mystery, detective work, outwitting your friends around the table and keeping secrets. Most involve the elements of chance (dice), movement around the board, and missions and objectives for each player, all of which encourage repeat play and repeat association with the theme and brand and, presumably, repeat custom at the box office or on the TV screen.

This webpage, and the website Board Game Geek, both have more information on each and links on these and other games. If you've played any of the games mentioned, or can recommend to readers any other games of interest, do put up some posts below.

The reissues - the job is done .....

2011-12-23T10:35:00.001-08:00

Arnold Schwartzman, Len Deighton's friend and collaborator on a number of books, emailed me recently to say he's now completed the full set of covers for the Harper Collins reissues of all of Len Deighton's fiction works.

Having seen them all, I can say they're on a par with the original set of Ray Hawkey covers, in the sense in which they innovate and provide a consistency of design across all the books, and give the book buyer a clear sense of what themes the book is exploring.

Make up your own mind by checking out the covers in this online gallery.

Reproduced below are the covers for the final four books in the reissue series, coming out in 2012. Noticeably, Arnold's chosen to adopt a common theme running across the books, of a pair of spectacles, worn by the hero. The 'spy with no name', a certain Harry Palmer? Given that Palmer (unnamed spy) isn't in Spy Story, for example - based on my understanding of the story and a reference by Len in a previous edition - might this cause confusion? To the book-buying public, probably not. The covers are on a par with all the others produced so far, and Arnold's to be congratulated on revitalising Len's existing collection of stories.

Bored already? ....

2011-12-16T07:59:00.000-08:00

Nick Jones, chronicler of all things books in Lewes and writer of the Existential Ennui blog, has put up an interesting post about The Ipcress File, in which he references well known comments by author Kinglsey Amis in an article called 'A New James Bond', in a published collection of essays, Kingsley expresses frustration with the complex plot:

"tough sledding with The Ipcress File... The endless twists and turns of the plot, the systematic withholding of clues and even of settings in time and place..."

Great article that's worth checking out.

Shelf Life redux...

2011-12-10T03:54:00.001-08:00

Blog reader Richard Corles has shared a picture of his bookshelf, showing his collection of Len Deighton first editions, including it looks like a mix of US and UK first editions:

So I thought, what about asking other blog readers to send in photos of their own bookshelves and collection of Len Deighton books (or, indeed, any other relevant author). To kick things off, here's part of my collection of Deighton's books, including the reissued Game Set and Match series with the spine design spelling out 'Bernard Samson':

If you want to post up a picture of your bookshelf, send me a photo (max 2MB).

Dutch blog follower Arthur Nutbey has sent in a photo of his shelf; he tells me he takes off all the dust covers to make it more 'library-like':

Sci-Fi? Ah, no, San Francisco

2011-12-08T11:13:00.001-08:00

A number of readers - including author Jeremy Duns, who dragged himself away from his plagiarism research to Tweet me - have alerted me to an excellent overview of Len Deighton's work in the SF Daily. That's SF for San Francisco, not Science Fiction as I first thought, confused.

The article - here - by Casey Burchby, makes the case that Deighton's works have stood the test of time, as we near the fiftieth anniversary of The Ipcress File next year in 2002. I think Casey's opening analysis of Len's position in the literary world is pretty accurate:

"For many of us, Len Deighton may be a shadowy name at best. His best-sellerdom, though it lasted decades, is now a memory. (His most recent novel was published in 1996.) Yet Deighton is one of the best writers of the second half of the 20th century, being a master of spy fiction as well as a major contributor to the literature of World War II in fictional and nonfictional forms."

Well worth a read.

Competition - win a Top Notch thriller

2011-11-30T11:43:00.001-08:00

Author Mike Ripley - who's a keen reader of this blog - has made it his own one-man mission to resuscitate, rescue and re-purpose British thriller books that have gone out of print but which deserve their day in the sun again. His Top Notch Thriller imprint has over the last couple of years republished over fifteen books by British thriller writers.

I've just finished a great little story: Cold War, by David Brierley.

It's set in Paris in 1979 and follows the trail of a young, CIA-trained agent Cody, who's now left the CIA and is living in Paris with her lover. She gets caught up in the fever pitch of the election in France when it appears sinister forces are set up to bring down the Government. Though she is trying to escape the spying game, after a former colleague reveals to her secret information before he is killed, she is forced to track down the real story behind a scientist, Jean-Louis Ladouceur.

From being a by-stander at a shooting, Cody becomes the central player in a spy drama that moves from Paris to Berlin and tests her agents skills to the limits.

It's a good read, which I polished off commenting on the train over one week. Always good too to read stories with female espionage heroines, which in 1979 were still a relatively new phenomenon. Author David Brierley was described then as a new name joining the range of the world's great spy fiction writers.

To celebrate Mike's efforts in promoting British thriller writers, I've agreed to run a little competition for Deighton Dossier readers. The prize: a copy of another Top Notch Thriller - Undertow, by Desmond Cory, the story of Johnny Fedora, a half-Spanish, half-Irish assassin contracted to British Intelligence, who's charged with getting to grips with a KGB plot to uncover secrets from a sunk U-Boat in the Mediterranean (shades of Horse Under Water!). This character made his debut in 1951, two years before the arrival of James Bond.

To win this book, please answer this question (and send your answers to me at deightondossier [AT] me [DOT] com):

What is the name of the film about German U-Boats by Wolfgang Petersen from 1981, which starred Jurgen Prochnow?

Competition closes 12 December. No correspondence will be entered into. Judge's decision is final. One winner from the winning answers will be picked at random. Winner will be notified through email.

Good luck, readers!
________

We have a winner: Matthew Comstock!