The film is set in France in the 1990s, the French were defeated by the Germans early in World War II, an armistice was signed in 1940 which effectively split France into a German occupied part in the North and a semi-independent part in the south which became known as Vichy France. In reality the Vichy government was a puppet regime controlled by the Germans. Part of the agreement was that the Vichy Government would assist with the 'cleansing' of Jews from France. The Vichy government formed a police force called the Milice, who worked with the Germans...
Colonel Stok, a Soviet intelligence officer responsible for security at the Berlin Wall, appears to want to defect but the evidence is contradictory. Stok wants the British to handle his defection and asks for one of their agents, Harry Palmer, to smuggle him out of East Germany.
The Dirty Dozen meet the Stiff Upper Lip. A British Petroleum executive is assigned to work with the British Army in North Africa handling port duties for incoming fuels.
Sherlock Holmes is as dashing as ever, but with a little secret: Dr. Watson is the brains behind the operation. When Reginald Kincaid, the actor he has hired to play Holmes becomes insufferable, Watson fires him and tries to go out on his own, but finds that he has done too good a job building Holmes up in the public's mind.
A war veteran tries to investigate the murder of his son who was working as a Russian translator for the British intelligence service during the Cold War. He meets a web of deception and paranoia that seems impenetrable...
A British agent's son is kidnapped and held for a ransom of diamonds. The agent finds out that he can't even count on the people he thought were on his side to help him, so he decides to track down the kidnappers himself.
Scottish orphan David Balfour is betrayed by his wicked uncle Ebeneezer, who arranges for David to be kidnapped and sold into slavery so that he cannot claim his inheritance. The boy is rescued and befriended by Alan Breck, a Scottish rebel fighting on behalf of his country's independence from the British.
Harry Palmer heads a private investigation business based in Moscow. His associates are Nikolai "Nick" Petrov (Jason Connery), ex-CIA agent Craig (Michael Sarrazin), and ex-KGB Colonel Gradsky (Lev Prygunov). They take on the job of finding 1000 grams of weapons-grade plutonium stolen from the Russian government, though they do not know the identity of their client.
When the Nazi high command learns in late 1943 that Winston Churchill will be spending time at a country estate in Norfolk, it hatches an audacious scheme to kidnap the prime minister and spirit him to Germany for enforced negotiations with Hitler.