The Quiller Memorandum is a 1966 British neo noir eurospy film filmed in Deluxe Color and Panavision, adapted from the 1965 spy novel The Berlin Memorandum, by Elleston Trevor under the name "Adam Hall", screenplay by Harold Pinter, directed by Michael Anderson, featuring George Segal, Alec Guinness, Max von Sydow and Senta Berger.
The film had its world premiere on 10 November 1966 at the Odeon Leicester Square in the West End of London.
A man walks along a deserted Berlin street at night and enters an internally lit phone box.
Quiller meets his controller for this mission, Pol, at Berlin's Olympia Stadium, and learns that he must find the headquarters of Phoenix, a neo-Nazi organization.
Quiller leaves the Konigshof Hotel on West Berlin's Kurfurstendamm and confronts a man who has been following him, learning that it is his minder, Hengel.
Quiller asks after Jones at the bowling alley without success and the swimming pool manager Hassler tells him spectating is not allowed.
Oktober demands Quiller reveal the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) base by dawn or Inge will be killed.
He finds that a bomb has been strapped underneath and sets it on the bonnet of the car so it will slowly slide and fall off due to vibration from the running engine.
Harold Pinter was nominated for an Edgar Award in the Best Motion Picture category, but also didn't win.
[4] In a contemporary review for The New York Times, critic Bosley Crowther wrote: "Clearly, 'The Quiller Memorandum' is claptrap done up in a style and with a musical score by John Barry that might lead you to think it is Art.
Variety wrote that "it relies on a straight narrative storyline, simple but holding, literate dialog and well-drawn characters".
Ian Nathan of Empire described the film as "daft, dated and outright confusing most of the time, but undeniably fun" and rated it with 3/5 stars.
[6] According to Fox records, the film needed to earn $2,600,000 in rentals to break even and made $2,575,000, meaning it initially showed a marginal loss, but subsequent television and home video sales moved it into the black.