Jeanskynebu the audience applauded

Ameriatch One of the best films i have seen

Beystiman It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Gary The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

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

HotToastyRag Michael Caine reprises his role as Harry Palmer in Billion Dollar Brain, two years after The Ipcress File. He's drawn into a political scheme with his friend Karl Malden, but there's more to the plan that meets the eye. For one, Karl's girlfriend Francoise Dorleac is also having an affair with Michael, and she seems to have no qualms about her deception. For another, Michael finds a dead body in Karl's house. . .Sometimes I get a little confused during complicated plots, and I'll admit that Billion Dollar Brain did lose me a couple of times. However, I didn't really mind. To be honest, I was only watching the movie for the eye candy. If you have as much of a crush on Michael Caine as I do, you should definitely check this one—this movie—out. He's incredibly handsome, so it's no wonder Francoise couldn't help herself! DLM Warning: If you suffer from vertigo or dizzy spells, like my mom does, this movie might not your friend. There's one scene about halfway through with Michael Caine and Francoise Dorleac, and the camera is hand-held. Also, there's a scene twenty minutes later, after Ed Begley makes an impassioned speech, and the camera swirls and tilts. In other words, "Don't Look, Mom!"

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.

chaosHD This film hasn't much to recommend, aside from some nice location photography in Finland (standing in for Russia). It's too boring and low key to appeal to those looking for a James Bond type of film, and too goofy to appeal to those looking for a serious spy film. The goofy plot would look more at home in a Matt Helm film, except this film doesn't have the bevy of beauties that are rampant in the Helm movies to keep the eye's interest. The sole female of note in the cast is Francoise Dorleac (Catherine Deneuve's sister), who unfortunately died in a car crash not long after shooting most of her scenes. Michael Caine and Karl Malden clearly had fun playing off each other in their scenes, it's just too bad that they weren't doing a better movie.This was Ken Russell's first theatrical film. At the time he was more known as a TV director. Some of his usual trademarks are already present, such as an overabundance of odd characters and experimental editing techniques.With a title sequence at the beginning by Maurice Binder, who was also behind the vast majority of the James Bond title sequences, they give you reason to believe that you're in for something on the level of James Bond. But alas, it wasn't to be. Billion Dollar Brain was the last of the Harry Palmer franchise at the time. Michael Caine returned to the role however, for two USA Network TV movies which i haven't seen (yet).