FUNERAL IN BERLIN (1966) **1/2 I didn't see him throw a punch that looked like it would knock out a Mossad agent, but Michael Caine does have that mix of toughness and intelligence that would have worked for him as a spy. He has that arrogance, that lack of concern and, here, those glasses. It has as many plot twists as a spy novel [which it is], so if you have interest in such things-and I admit to extreme interest 30 years ago, and I still read one every couple years-you can do much worse than this. For one thing, obviously, Cold War Berlin is a perfect setting. I would have liked to see more of the landmarks playing a role playing a role than just the towers and checkpoints, but that's a small enough matter, really. Oskar Homolka is a lot of fun as the gregarious Soviet general defector, and I imagine Len Deighton made a stronger case for his reasons to defect-as a disillusioned but loyal communist-in the book. It's not an argument you'd expect from someone who apparently sat idly by throughout the Stalin era, but maybe it's one of those incongruent type things that they ran into all the time in the spy game. More interesting than fun game, anyway.
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