The Ipcress File: First look at remake of classic Michael Caine flick debuts

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Fun fact: If you say the words My and Cocaine together, it sounds like you are saying Michael Caine's name using his accent. In other fun news, the classic Caine film The Ipcress File is getting a small screen update. To that end, a new batch of photos has been released of young Peaky Blinders star Joe Cole in Caine's legendary role. Written by Trainspotting scribe John Hodge, the six-part series is set to air on the British channel ITV. While no word exists on when we can expect it to hit North America, it seems likely that this is a perfect fit for a streaming debut soon.

Set in the 1960s, and directed by Emmy award-winner James Watkins (McMafia, Black Mirror, The Woman In Black), The Ipcress File tells the story of Harry Palmer, an entrepreneurial army sergeant in post-war Berlin, who gets drawn into a life of espionage when the law catches up with his life of crime. He's given the chance to turn his life around by the secret service, with the Ipcress File his first job as a spook.

Joining Cole for the update are Bohemian Rhapsody actress Lucy Boynton and Tom Hollander (Pride & Prejudice), who plays Major Dalby, Harry's handler, with Ashley Thomas (NYPD Blue, Top Boy, The Night Of) as Maddox, Joshua James as Chico (Darkest Hour, Industry, Life, Absentia), David Dencik (Top of the Lake, Face to Face, Chernobyl) as Colonel Stok and Tom Vaughan-Lawlor (Dublin Murders, Avengers: Endgame, Avengers: Infinity War) as Cathcart.

Recently while talking about the show, Hodge said: “This is a wonderful opportunity to inhabit a time when the post-war world was morphing into the way we live now, when social mobility, civil rights, and modern feminism were forcing their way into public consciousness, and all of it happening with the world divided into two and both halves threatening to blow the whole thing sky high.”

The original film, directed by Sidney J. Furie (Iron Eagle, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace), is set in London and revolves around a counter-espionage Agent who deals with his own bureaucracy while investigating the kidnapping and brainwashing of British scientists. It stars a young and scrappy Michael Caine as Harry Palmer, Nigel Green as Major Dalby, Guy Doleman as Colonel H.L. Ross, Sue Lloyd as Jean Courtney, and Gordon Jackson as Jock Carswell, in addition to several others. The movie generated two sequels: Funeral in Berlin (1966) and Billion Dollar Brain (1967), and Caine also reprised his role decades later in Bullet to Beijing (1995) and Midnight in Saint Petersburg (1996).

We'll be sure to let you know if The Ipcress File makes a move beyond screening on ITV.