Assignment K (also known as Department K) is a 1968 British spy thriller film directed by Val Guest in Techniscope and starring Stephen Boyd, Camilla Sparv, Michael Redgrave, Leo McKern, Robert Hoffmann and Jeremy Kemp. It was written by Guest, Bill Strutton and Maurice Foster based on the 1964 novel Department K by Hartley Howard.
Contents
Plot
A British spy has his cover blown, leading to the East German Stasi kidnapping his girlfriend to try to extract information about his double agents' activities.
Cast
Stephen Boyd as Philip Scott
Camilla Sparv as Toni Peters
Michael Redgrave as Harris
Leo McKern as Smith
Robert Hoffmann as Paul Spiegler
Jeremy Kemp as Hal
Jane Merrow as Martine
Carl Möhner as Inspector (credited as Carl Moehner)
Vivi Bach as Erika Herschel
Werner Peters as Kramer
Dieter Geissler as Kurt
John Alderton as George
Jan Werich as Dr. Spiegler
David Healy as David
Ursula Howells as Estelle
Basil Dignam as Howlett
Geoffrey Bayldon as The Boffin
Joachim Hansen as Heinrich Herschel
Windsor Davies as Joe
Karl-Otto Alberty as fake policeman
Production
Val Guest said "We shot it all out in Kitzbuhel, great cast: we had my Leo McKern again, and Michael Redgrave who was a very sick man, had terrible difficulties with his lines... Stephen [Boyd] was a wonderful person, a great giggler, a great professional, very nice guy."
Critical reception
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "Routine spy thriller, unimaginatively scripted and directed. The entirely conventional settings include the inevitable night clubs, expensive hotels and ski slopes (where the travelling matte is much in evidence). Stephen Boyd is bland and wooden as the toy tycoon/spy; Camilla Sparv has little to do but look alluring; and Leo McKern and Michael Redgrave appear fleetingly and to little effect. The plot meanders from dull beginning to dull end with nothing of interest in between."
Leslie Halliwell said: "Dreary espionage thriller, instantly forgettable, and only watchable at odd moments while it's on."
Writing in the Los Angeles Times, critic Charles Champlin commented: "the dialogue is intermittently sophisticated, very intermittently, and the total effect is old chapeau, very old chapeau."