Michael Anderson



6.5 The Quiller Memorandum (1966)
6.5 Logan's Run (1976)
Links:

British-born Michael Anderson (1920) directed the war movie The Dam Busters (1955), 1984 (1956), an adaptation of George Orwell's dystopian novel, the Jules Verne adaptation Around the World in 80 Days (1956), the war movie Yangtse Incident (1957) and the melodrama All the Fine Young Cannibals (1960) before the mediocre spy thriller The Quiller Memorandum (1966), adapted by Harold Pinter from Elleston Trevor's novel "The Berlin Memorandum" (1965). The film is set in divided Berlin during the Cold War. A British secret agent is shot dead at night in a street while he is trying to make a phone call from a phone booth. The British secret services choose Quiller to replace him. Quiller meets emissary Pol at a stadium who describes to him the dangerous mission of destroying the neo-Nazi organization Phoenix. Quiller realizes that he is being followed by a man and first loses him and then follows him into a pub. He then approaches the man, who knows the password: the man is also a secret agent, in charge of watching over him, Hengel, who gives him some clues about the assassinated agent, notably a newspaper article about a school teacher who has been revealed to be a a wanted Nazi war criminal. Quiller pretends to be a journalist and interviews one of the school's teachers, Inge. She is single and he flirts with her. At his hotel Quiller is hit with a suitcase by a porter, in what seems like a random accident. Quiller drives away in his car and Hengel follows him in another car, but Quiller accelerates and loses Hengel. However, another car is following him. The porter has injected a drug into Quiller's leg and Quiller is beginning to lose control of the car. Quiller is easily kidnapped when he has to stop. He wakes up in a palace. A German aristocrat interrogates him, already certain that Quiller is a secret agent. A truth serum makes him confess some details, but not the important ones. We learn that the aristocrat's name is Oktober, the leader of Phoenix. Quiller manages to escape and checks into a cheap hotel. He calls Inge and asks for a date. A British agent takes him to Pol, who asks him to locate the neo-Nazi headquarters. Quiller meets Inge and confesses that he is not a journalist but a detective investigating a neo-Nazi organization. Quiller seduces Inge and after sex she gives Quiller the name of a former Phoenix member who might know their location. Quiller and Inge meet with the man, who turns out to be the manager of a swimming pool that the dead agent used to frequent, Hassler. He doesn't know the new location of the neo-Nazi but he knows someone who might know. This turns out to be Inge's headmistress. She fully cooperates, claims to be the one who turned in the teacher, and meets them in front of Oktober's palace. Quiller decides to walk into the palace alone and tells Inge to call a number if he's not back in 20 minutes. Oktober's men capture both Quiller and Inge. Oktober now threatens to kill Inge if Quiller does not reveal the location of the British secret services. On the other hand, Oktober's men are preparing to move to a new location. Quiller is released in the night but followed by Oktober's men. He tries in vain to get to a phone: they stop him from using any phone. At dawn he returns to his hotel and finds that his room has been searched. He tries to sneak out from the back but realizes that a bomb has been place under his car. He leaves it on the hood and turns on the engine: the bomb begins sliding down. He hides behind a wall until the bomb explodes. Oktober's men think that he died in the car and leave. Quiller runs to Pol's office (in the top floor of the city's tallest building) and delivers the address of Oktober's headquarters. Pol orders the raid and all of Oktober's men are arrested. There is no sign of Inge, who is supposed to be held hostage there. Quiller finds Inge at school, teaching regularly as if nothing had happened. She claims that Oktober released her, which is implausible, and that she tried to call the phone number but the number doesn't exist. Quiller insinuates that she too is a member of the neo-Nazi group but he cannot prove it. Quiller bids goodbye and walks out of the school. Inge returns to her schoolchildren.

Then came the war movie Operation Crossbow (1965), and especially the sci-fi movie Logan's Run (1976), an adaptation of on the dystopian novel "Logan's Run" (1967) by William Nolan and George Clayton-Johnson.

Other films include:
Waterfront (1950)
Hell Is Sold Out (1951)
Dial 17 (1952)
Will Any Gentleman? (1953)
The House of the Arrow (1953)
Chase a Crooked Shadow (1958)
Shake Hands with the Devil (1959)
The Wreck of the Mary Deare (1959)
The Naked Edge (1961)
Flight from Ashiya (1964)
Wild and Wonderful (1964)
The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968)
Pope Joan (1972)
Doc Savage (1975)
Conduct Unbecoming (1975)
Orca (1977)
Dominique (1979)
Murder by Phone (1982)
Second Time Lucky (1984)
Separate Vacations (1986)

(Copyright © 2022 Piero Scaruffi | Terms of use )