Since David of Teleport City and Permission to Kill has already done an admirable job reviewing this, I'll only add a few short thoughts I had while rewatching this very excellent spy movie.
What I find always extremely interesting when watching British movies is the way they deal with class politics. The IPCRESS File is rather subtle about it, so subtle that I'm not sure how much someone not looking for the intricacies of class relations would get out of them here. Michael Caine's Harry Palmer is of course part of the working class, but of a very specific kind of working class person who is more educated, competent and intelligent than most of the people he's working for. Palmer's sarcasm (or "insubordinance") shows very clearly how conscious he himself is of the fact that it's his upbringing that will always hinder him being more than a footsoldier; he just doesn't seem willing to be all that bitter about it, even when his superior Ross (Guy Doleman) uses him as tool.
Ross, on the other hand, is interesting in that he's more of a professional than of an upper class twat, although his scenes with Dalby (Nigel Green) - as upper class as they come - show where he initially comes from and how good he speaks the language of that place. He's an upper class man in transition to competence yet still as morally bankrupt as his class tradition demands, using his own private working stiff to do his dirty work for him.
Also of interest (and just pretty damn cool) is the film's aesthetic, at once as far away from the also Saltzman-produced Bond films as possible and very much in the same spirit of style. Where the Bond films go for the exotic and the colorful, The IPCRESS File uses the mundane and the brownish grey, yet both series are equally stylized - the Palmer films just make an art out of pretending to be artless.
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There's a scene, maybe the first time Palmer enters his CO's office, shot at a weird angle and using a set that is so bizarrely elongated, stark, and empty that it becomes as "full of emptiness" as the average Bond set was crammed with doodads.
I've always broken class down into three categories based on the Three Stooges: Moes, Larrys, and Curlys.
Moes are the blustering, incompetent, abusive managers in positions of power only because they are the loudest or because they were born into the right family/kissed the right ass.
Larrys are the unfortunate cogs, the poor schmucks who know they got a bum deal but are too lame to do anything about it other than sit around and complain to other Larrys.
And Curlys are the free spirits and artists, the people who see the absurdity of the system and chose to toy with it rather than succumb to it or whine about it.
Moes can, on occasion, break the mold and become a Curly, though often only upon retirement. More often than not, a Moe who tries to become a Curly ends up as something we call a "Curly Joe." Usually, though, they are a Moe until another Moe trumps them, at which time they become a Larry.
Curlys can become Moes if they suddenly find a position of power thrust upon them for which they are ill suited.
Larrys, however, are always Larrys.
The unspoken fourth class are the Shemps: nameless, faceless journeymen, contractors, and skilled laborers who just get in, get the job done, then disappear with very little recognition of how valuable their services are.
Dalby is a Moe, Ross is a Larry, and Palmer is definitely a Curly.
The film's stuffed with details like the one you mentioned. The big difference between this and the next one for me is probably Funeral's comparative lack of these kinds of conscious decisions to do things differently.
I gotta keep that way of looking at class in mind - it sounds very American to my ears. ;)
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