Spy vs spy stuff from the 1960's when every studio had to make a spy film in their ongoing attempts to compete with the Bond franchisee. The Quiller Memorandum has every film's favorite villains the well cultured Nazis as the bad guys. In any case, seen it all before.
The film has a decent cast, with Alec Guinness and Max Von Sydow the standouts. George Segal tries to play it straight as the agent attempting to find Mr. Blond Nazi guy Von Sydow but he still goes down that wise ass quip thing that only James Bond could get away with.
The chief interest in the film was the participation of the playwright Harold Pinter a writer who was known for using dialog in a subtle and obtuse manner. Story was not Pinter's strong point and there are a lot of plot holes and situations that don't make any sense. Even the dialog in the film isn't particularly memorable. It doesn't seem like the producer got his money's worth hiring Pinter. Pinter was probably just cashing a paycheck on this film anyway.
The film was directed by Michael Anderson who probably did about as good a job as possible considering the source material. Anderson was an assistant director to Carol Reed and he must have learned a thing or two from Reed. The film has a fairly decent atmosphere and good filmed on location settings in Berlin.
105 minutes
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