PeteThePrimate I spent most of the film trying to work out who had taken more recreational drugs, Ken Russell or most of the actors. Even Caine seems ill at ease in this turgid crapfest. Forget whether it's Anti-American or not it's just poorly acted & directed

murray_johnc 1967 was a bad year for British Cinema. As if Casino Royale wasn't ludicrous enough, Ken Russel made this clunker his debut on the big screen. In their heyday, cinemas used to hand out cardboard face masks with red and green lenses; alas in 1967 there were no usherettes issuing clothespins that the hapless audiences could clip on their noses. Speaking of noses, one of the film's saving graces was the miscasting of Karl Malden with that hilarious nose with a tip shaped like a woman's butt, Malden was the only actor who could make Jimmy Durante look handsome. Having never had the misfortune of reading Len Deighton's novel, I'm not sure whether to blame him or John McGrath for the awful script. However often producers rely on an audience's ability to suspend disbelief, facts are still facts. YOU CAN'T BREED DEADLY VIRUSES OUTSIDE A HUMAN HOST, CERTAINLY NOT IN EGGS OR PETRI DISHES. The film's other saving grace is the casting of Ed Begley as Gen. Midwinter, an over-the-top demagogue, who seems to be a hybrid of Barry Goldwater and H. Ross Perot with a generous dash of T. Boone Pickens. LOL

Uriah43 In this third film featuring the character "Harry Powell" (Michael Caine) he has now become a private detective who has been contracted to travel to Helsinki to deliver a package to an unnamed contact. When he gets there he is met by a beautiful woman named "Anya" (Francoise Dorleac) who instructs him to follow her in order to collect the remainder of the money he is owed. He is then met by his old friend "Leo Newbigen" (Karl Malden) who tells him that a super computer has devised a plan to foster a rebellion within the Soviet Union and that the package Harry was carrying contained deadly viruses intended for use against the Soviet army. It's at this point that things become quite complicated as various other characters and agencies become involved in this complex scheme. Having said that the film itself contains numerous subplots which appear with little if any introduction and eventually disappear with little impact in the grand scheme of things. As a matter of fact, even though the actors performed quite well, the story itself seemed to totally disintegrate in the last 20 minutes or so which really affected the entertainment value of the entire movie. On a more serious note, although Michael Caine has appeared in a host of additional movies—to include two more as Harry Powell in "Bullet to Beijing" and "Midnight in Saint Petersburg"—this was, sadly, the last film made by Francoise Dorleac who died in a fatal car wreck only weeks after its completion. What a shame.

MrOllie I enjoyed both The Ipcress File and Funeral in Berlin but not Billion Dollar Brain. Whilst the first two films in the trilogy had a feeling of realism about them, Billion Dollar Brain felt like it was just a send-up of the spy world(which maybe is was meant to be). From the opening James Bond type titles I felt that it was being played tongue-in-cheek. We even have a wild eyed maniac type character who wants to take over the world in the form of Ed Begley. Perhaps if Ipcress and Funeral had not been serious visits into the espionage world than Billion Dollar might be viewed differently.Finally, the soundtrack to this film is pretty bad, which is a shame as it was written by the usually excellent Richard Rodney Bennet who wrote the wonderful soundtrack for the Julie Christie film 'Far From the Madding Crowd'.