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.

Harry Palmer is a character played by Michael Caine who is very much unlike James Bond. While Bond is amazingly athletic, sexy and,...well...PERFECT, Palmer is a spy who is none of these---just very lucky! "Billion Dollar Brain" begins with Harry no longer working for MI-6 but is now a private eye--albeit one with no clients. When the agency tries to get him to return, he's insistent on remaining a free agent--and soon gets an odd case involving making a delivery. The recipient turns out to be an old associate (Karl Malden)--one who is working for a VERY eccentric megalomaniac Texan (Ed Begley Senior). Apparently, Begley insists that the Soviet Union is about to fall apart--all they need is some assistance from him and his private army. However, his intelligence is wrong--all the information his agent (Malden) is giving him is made up and Malden is pocketing the money supposedly going to pay the insurgents in Latvia--though there are NONE! When Harry tries to tell the nutty Texan, he won't listen--his computer (the billion dollar brain) tells him the plan WILL succeed. What's Harry to do? What about the potential of this nut starting WWIII? And what of Harry's Soviet friends--such as the rather avuncular Colonel (Oskar Homolka)? The film has some good acting going for it. Caine is wonderful and although Begley's part is far from subtle, his scene-chewing is captivating. The only real serious shortcoming in the film is the unlikeliness of it all--and the computer angle certainly doesn't help. But, if you turn off your brain and just watch, then it does deliver solid undemanding entertainment.By the way, on a sad note, this would be Françoise Dorléac's last film. The pretty blonde actress was a large part of this, her last film. Shortly after shooting was completed, she was killed in a road accident. And, incidentally, she was the older sister of Catherine Deneuve.

Billion Dollar Brain was produced by Harry Saltzman, who produced the James Bond films of the 60s, and there are a lot of similarities between this film and those. The production is top-notch, the opening and closing credits have the same graphic quality, the music is similar, composed by the same John Barry? The lead of Harry Palmer is played by the fan favorite Michael Caine, with a sidekick/villain played by Karl Malden. There are the requisite intelligence superiors, the English played well by Guy Dolman, and the Russian side played by the very entertaining Oskar Homolka, who works the good-natured half-drunk Russian bear to the hilt.The movie wanders around quite a bit until a plot emerges about the typical psychopathic leader bent on some insanely ambitious scheme. What's different about this interpretation is that the villain is a Texas billionaire with the world's biggest computer who is bent on attacking communism by liberating Latvia in a surprise attack.We're not really let on to this actual motive until well into the second half, so the movie lacks a certain seriousness before that point. It's all sort of a pretty trip to Finland for Michael Caine to work with an old spy friend, and his pretty double-agent girlfriend.Michael Caine keeps the movie alive by being eminently watchable, and reacting subtly to whomever he shares scenes with. I'm half-latvian, and any movie that mentions this small nation is always a treat, but those scenes are so stereotypical of the bumbling communist eastern European living in barns that it's hard to take seriously. Creating an uprising in Latvia to destabilize the USSR is so ludicrous on its face as a plot, that it lacks the true peril of the classic Bond Villains' plans.The UK directors/producer obviously have it in for the Americans in this film, as the Texas villain is portrayed as a deeply insane aggressor.The plot seems fairly pointless, especially years after the end of the cold war, but the film retains a feel for the era, and is watchable for that as well. The production is beautiful, and reminds one of how cinema worked before CGI, when all shots had to be prepped, executed and edited well. It's also a great winter film, leaving any filmographer wondering how they got through some of the shots.What the film lacks the most is finding a credible balance between it's lighter side and a serious, bleak story about cold war standoffs. It says things, but then doesn't really back them up. The computer gets a huge amount of screen time, but ends up essentially irrelevant to the story. The sets look the same as in Collosus: The Forbin Project which said much more about the influence of computers on humans. The film is kind of a weak amalgam of Dr Strangelove, Bond, and Colossus, except the computer is not in control.The final invasion sequence has some cool elements, including a German winter half-track that shows up in Where Eagles Dare, good costumes and an exciting unusual demise, but the believability of the invasion itself really suffers, after the film was somewhat geographically credible up until that point.The actors are good, the production watchable and entertaining, but the plot politics are totally dated, the film doesn't know whether its a thriller or a farce and I would not purchase this movie or even watch it again.

A spy flick from '67 produced by Harry Saltzman (hold the Broccoli) with titles by Maurice Binder- the bad news is that Connery is nowhere to be seen! Instead we're stuck with Michael Caine in a buffoonish, distinctly-British 007 ripoff.You ever have a headache on a perfectly lovely Spring day? The air is full, the trees are in bloom, the sun just won't go down... but your throbbing head just ruins the day. This movie is that headache.I never quite got Michael Caine's appeal... he always seemed to be a benign British dullard- two steps behind everyone else in the room. Here he does his own Austin Powers impression as "dashing" secret agent Harry Palmer in black-rimmed glasses, crooked teeth and a shaggy perm. Whereas Sean Connery brought a raw masculine swagger to the role of super-spy, Mr. Caine looks ready for a shawl and warm glass of milk. His superior arrives and asks him to return to work and Caine earnestly pleads with him: "Please... sir... I... don't... want... to... come... back... to...work." You have just witnessed the most dramatic scene in the film.Director Ken Russell- before exposing his insanity in films like "Tommy"- directs here with a sprawling stupidity; in trying to imitate the Bond movies by-the-numbers he exposes the film's weak script and lackluster performances. Karl Malden- usually consistently wonderful- shows up as a panicky communist double agent. Palmer's woman has nothing on any of the Bond girls- she's short, blond, and wears black-rimmed glasses and spends most of the film berating him about his commitment issues.Michael Caine has the same look on his face when he's tied up and horsewhipped by an enemy that he does buttering his everything bagel. It's impossible to hate the guy, but impossible to love him, either. In fact this whole movie spontaneously unravels as it unreels... like a car crash... or a headache...I need some Tylenol.GRADE: D+