Michael Caine as Harry Palmer comes up against the "Billion Dollar Brain" in this 1967 film also starring Karl Malden, Oscar Homolka, Francoise Dorleac and Ed Begley, directed by Ken Russell.
Harry is dragged back into MI-5, this time to get biological warfare out of the hands of the enemy. The enemy in this case is the lunatic Texas oilman Midwinter (Ed Begley) who's funding his own army to beat down Communism. He's planning on attacking Latvia, and one of the men working for him, Newbigen (Karl Malden) is controlling the movements of 30 agents working there. Except there aren't - Newbigen is pocketing the money. That's 30 agents at $30,000 a week. Midwinter also has these enormous computers that have tons of paper coming out of them and get fed info with punch cards - oh, the memories! Bizarre and very sixties in its style, "Billion Dollar Brain" is filled with wild camera angles and lunatic crowd scenes, as well as some gorgeous Finnish scenery. The finale is fantastic.
It's all completely insane and yet futuristic - the biological warfare, the bad intelligence, the Texas warmonger - let's face it, you could have those elements in a film today and they would all seem pretty timely.
The anchor for all this madness is Michael Caine, whose underplayed Harry is laid back as he tries to figure out who's working for whom. Homolka is great as Stok, and Ed Begley portrays the mad Midwinter way over the top, which is totally appropriate for such a character. Smiling Karl Malden is effective as a man in love who only cares about getting his.
Fast-moving and enjoyable.
Harry is dragged back into MI-5, this time to get biological warfare out of the hands of the enemy. The enemy in this case is the lunatic Texas oilman Midwinter (Ed Begley) who's funding his own army to beat down Communism. He's planning on attacking Latvia, and one of the men working for him, Newbigen (Karl Malden) is controlling the movements of 30 agents working there. Except there aren't - Newbigen is pocketing the money. That's 30 agents at $30,000 a week. Midwinter also has these enormous computers that have tons of paper coming out of them and get fed info with punch cards - oh, the memories! Bizarre and very sixties in its style, "Billion Dollar Brain" is filled with wild camera angles and lunatic crowd scenes, as well as some gorgeous Finnish scenery. The finale is fantastic.
It's all completely insane and yet futuristic - the biological warfare, the bad intelligence, the Texas warmonger - let's face it, you could have those elements in a film today and they would all seem pretty timely.
The anchor for all this madness is Michael Caine, whose underplayed Harry is laid back as he tries to figure out who's working for whom. Homolka is great as Stok, and Ed Begley portrays the mad Midwinter way over the top, which is totally appropriate for such a character. Smiling Karl Malden is effective as a man in love who only cares about getting his.
Fast-moving and enjoyable.