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Midnight in Saint Petersburg

1996 film by Douglas Jackson

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 3, 2026
Entity authorityQ3421861 ↗
Source-derived summary

Midnight in Saint Petersburg is a 1996 made-for-television thriller film starring Michael Caine for the fifth and final time as British secret agent Harry Palmer.

It served as a sequel to Bullet to Beijing, which had been released the year before, the two films having been shot back-to-back. Three previous films featuring Caine as Palmer were released in the 1960s, beginning with The Ipcress File.

Plot

Harry Palmer heads a private investigation business based in Moscow. His associates are Nikolai "Nick" Petrov, ex-CIA agent Craig, and ex-KGB Colonel Gradsky.). 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.

This leads Harry back to Saint Petersburg, where (in Bullet to Beijing) he managed to make enemies of both of the leading rival gangsters, Alex and Yuri. Nonetheless, suspecting that Alex is involved, Harry talks Yuri into helping him.

As a complication, Nick's ballerina girlfriend Tatiana is kidnapped by a gang working for Alex in order to pressure her father, the head curator of the Hermitage Museum, into helping steal valuable artwork for crooked art dealer Dr. Vestry.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Midnight in Saint Petersburg” is 1996 film by Douglas Jackson. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Midnight, Saint and Petersburg, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful identification and reception guide that helps separate the work itself from editions, performances, ownership and later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1996, 1000—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1996-01-01. For this dossier, Midnight, Saint and Petersburg is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “1996 film by Douglas Jackson” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3421861. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1996 and 1000.

Critical limits

Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Midnight in Saint Petersburg”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Midnight in Saint Petersburg primary sources, Midnight in Saint Petersburg archive and Midnight research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Midnight in Saint Petersburg”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Midnight in Saint Petersburg” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.