Talk:The Quiller Memorandum

Nationality

Is Quiller British or American in the film ? -- Beardo (talk) 03:39, 20 April 2010 (UTC) British, but pretends to be American during his investigation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.73.131.156 (talk) 11:44, 13 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Yours is a clever explanation, but that's not the way I see it. In the first club scene, he is referred to as being "On leave...On vacation." which latter point I take to be a clear sign that his American nationality is being highlighted. If he were just pretending, he surely wouldn't use the American accent with Pol. However, it is clearly incongruous for an American to be working for such an obviously British intelligence agency. PDAWSON3 (talk) 21:18, 6 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Assumptions

Perhaps based on having read the book, previous writers have tagged the neo-Nazi organization as Phoenix and the British group as SIS. There are also assumptions about who felt what.

I just finished watching the movie, and I don't agree that SIS or Phoenix are clearly enough mentioned in the movie to justify the constant references. Perhaps an article on the book should have such details, but not the film. --Uncle Ed (talk) 15:27, 24 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Needs tighter Plot Summary and maybe section on Character

Having also just watched the film (and having seen it several times before) I agree with the above point about Phoenix and SIS being overstressed. The plot summary also has some rather loose language in parts, eg. "Quiller refuses to answer Oktober's questions about the SIS operation". Firstly, "refuse" is wrong - he answers willingly but feigns having no knowledge of (nor any interest in) the names and events put to him. Secondly, the plot summary mentions "the SIS" here with no previous reference, leaving one wondering what SIS means? Plus there is no specific "operation" discussed - the questions are about operations generally ("Who is your contact? Where is your HQ?" etc). The summary continues later, "Quiller is horrified to see that Inge has been brought there too." No no no, he is not horrified at all - he remains self-controlled, his face and voice expressing no concern or emotion, and he pretends to remain disinterested in her fate (a pretence echoed in the film's closing scene in the school). The plot summary should also include Quiller's near-final remark, '"We caught them all, by the way... Well, perhaps not all of them..." - the film's clear inference that he now knows Inge was involved with Oktober's organisation, and wishes her to understand that he knows. This is the plot summary's downfall - it describes every little action in the film, but doesn't describe what's really going on at all. It rather omits the big picture entirely. Some element of interpretation is needed in the article too. Compare how Quiller departs at the close, tired and disappointed but not angry like Deighton's Harry Palmer, and not self-fulfilled like Fleming's James Bond. Just quietly walking away, tired and disappointed that Inge remains unchanged in her beliefs. Maybe some explanation of Quiller's character and attitudes could be cited via new sections on "Quiller's character" or "Production and contrast with other spy franchises", similar to sections in The Ipcress File (film). Something like that. Sorry to post at length, but the film is far better than the overall article suggests. Pete Hobbs (talk) 07:21, 2 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I've just watched the film (although seen before), then read the Wiki article and saw the Plot's "too long or excessively detailed" marker dated May 2021. Yes, there's some unnecessary detail (eg. "...an internally lit phone box"), and too many instances of 'Quiller goes to X. Quiller meets Y. Quiller does this... Quiller does that...' (surname 32 times, while the shorter "he" is only used 21 times - that's 53 total instances in a currently 909 word plot, a big repetitive 6% of the whole). And Wiki's Film style guideline suggests "plot summaries .. should be between 400-700 words". But the plot does need closer to 700 than 400 words, considering (in section: Awards & critical reception) that Empire mag's Ian Nathan described the film as "...outright confusing most of the time" - despite Variety's writing that "it relies on a straight narrative storyline, simple but holding, literate dialog and well-drawn characters". I disagree with Nathan's view because the plot is a clear step-by-step investigation by Quiller, almost seen through his tired eyes, and he is necessarily present in every scene (except for the initial phone box) as he slowly comes to piece things together and achieve his set goal. Then I read the talk page, and found the posting above written in Jan 2014, which I fully agree with. And then noticed who wrote the posting - IT WAS ME! (10 years ago! I'd long forgotten!). So I thought "Well, if anyone's gonna get round to shortening the plot, it'll have to be me..", but then I noticed someone DID SHORTEN IT in Jan 2019, down from 1256 words to 690! Seems to me that it was a good effort, no disrespect, a lot of verbose description was stripped out - but since then, others have noticed other important details missing (before and after the 2019 cut) and added them, and hence the length has grown back to its current 909 words. That's surely an independent indication that the plot does indeed need much closer to 700 than 400 words. So yes, it needs shortening again but not by much. So I'll try to give it a careful go in a day or two. Pete Hobbs (talk) 18:09, 14 September 2024 (UTC)[reply]