ferbs54 In the third film of my Harry Palmer weekend, 1967's "Billion Dollar Brain," which I HAD seen a few times before, Cockney thief turned secret agent Harry, played once again by Michael Caine, has left the Secret Service and is operating as a private detective. But he is pulled back in by his ex-superior, Guy Doleman, and gets involved in the biggest case of his career. It seems that a Texas oil billionaire has decided, in his anti-Commie furor, to invade Latvia with his private army and thus kick off WW3! (This wackadoodle, it seems, has taken a page from Sterling Hayden in "Dr. Strangelove.") The billionaire (maniacally well played by Ed Begley) also has the titular supercomputer to aid in his plans. Oscar Homolka returns as the lovable Colonel Stok to give Harry assistance here, and an old friend of Harry's, played by Karl Malden, pops up also, with decidedly ambiguous plans of his own. Also on hand, in her final picture before her untimely death by car crash, is Francoise Dorleac, Catherine Deneuve's older and (sez me) better-looking sister, and she surely does make for a marvelously mysterious damsel. I don't think I've ever seen Dorleac look more beautiful than she is in this final picture of hers.Ties to the Bond franchise in the final Palmer outing consist of Harry Saltzman's producing and the title credits by Maurice Binder. But what really make this film special are the truly outrageous direction by Ken Russell (his second film), a haunting theme score on piano, and gorgeous-to-look-at scenery of the Finnish countryside in winter. In all, a marvelous trilogy of films that I can recommend very highly to you all. I know that you will enjoy each and every one of them, for different reasons....

JohnWelles "Billion Dollar Brain" (1967), directed by the iconoclastic Ken Russell, in the 1970s a firebrand of British cinema. This was the third and final Harry Palmer spy film, following "The IPCRESS File" (1965) and "Funeral in Berlin" (1966), based on Len Deighton's popular novels, Palmer had been pitched as an anti-James Bond. Michael Caine as the bespectacled and cockney hero was certainly far away from the suave glamour of Sean Connery's Bond movies and seemed to inhabit a recognisable Swinging Sixties London. Yet after the dour realities of the previous two films, which are closer to le Carré than Ian Fleming, Russell makes a spy film that is as much a parody of the genre as it is a thriller.Caine looks consistently bemused by the intrigues and betrayals after encountering his old friend Leo Newbigen (an excellent Karl Malden who conveys his character's unease and unreliability). Once Midwinter's plot emerges (Ed Begley who overacts outrageously), the entire facade of the film threatens to crumble. Russell constantly undercuts our expectations: the Soviet authorities, represented by a faintly ridiculous Oskar Homolka, are seen as essentially reasonable and as keen as MI5 to avert World War Three, while Midwinter's base, run by a giant computer that is coordinating his plan, is so over the top that it could be production designer Syd Cain commenting on his own work for "From Russia with Love" (1963). Russell extends the none-too-serious tone with Caine getting beaten up and knocked out more than everyone else and the entire climax is a replication of Sergei Eisenstein's "Alexander Nevsky" (1938) ending, with its battle on a frozen lake. There's no denying the skill with which Russell directs the whole farrago, particularly the scenes with Caine stumbling across the frozen Finnish landscapes, benefiting enormously from shooting on location.Other treats are Billy William's elegant cinematography, the entire title sequence with its elaborate computer motifs and Richard Rodney Bennett's thundering, highly romantic piano score, borrowing liberally from Rachmaninoff and Stravinsky, strangely fitting the action on screen and helps maintain the tension when it seems as if Russell is engaged with other tangents such as the subplot of Françoise Dorléac and her ambiguous relationship with Karl Malden. The film as a consequence, isn't brilliant, its energies dissipated by too many digressions, but "Billion Dollar Brain" still provides a lot of entertainment, partly as it playfully rejects so many of the clichés of the genre that it's nominally a part of.

jjnxn-1 Enjoyable if dated, they are still using punch cards to program their computers!, espionage thriller with a solid cast. Caine is cool as ice as the reluctant protagonist casting a jaundiced eye on all the shenanigans going on around him. Francoise Dorleac is a lovely mystery woman although her character seems to vanish at several key points in the film when it feels like she would be there. This might be because she was killed in a traffic accident while the picture was still filming necessitating a rethinking to still make her completed work usable. She's quite magnetic, her resemblance to her sister Catherine Deneuve is striking, and her death cut short a career that was already very successful in France and was starting to expand worldwide. Ed Begley also stands out, having a great time as a crazy old coot. Subtle he ain't but memorable for sure.

christopher-underwood This should have been so much better but it appears that Mr Russell may have paid more attention to filming the stunning snowy landscapes than to his actors. Michael Caine is, of course, laid back at the best of times but here he seems allowed to almost walk through the part. He would be so much more alert and aware in Collinson's Italian Job two years later. The storyline is OK but for me this switches from stunning landscape to plodding acting and the tale, as a result, never gets properly told. Francoise Dorleac also seems to be lacking some verve, she certainly seems reluctant to show us any of her lovely body. Maybe she knew she was about to die, tragically. For whatever reason this may be a decent enough spy movie and a decent enough performance for Caine fans but this is not vintage Ken Russell. Maybe like me he got a bit bored with it all.