BILLION DOLLAR BRAIN

This 1967 spy thriller was the third in as many years to star Michael Caine as Harry Palmer.

Whereas the two previous films were anchored closer to le Carré's dour reality than to Fleming's sex-and-gadgets fantasy world, this one veers very much towards the latter.  But it  lacks the stunts and budget to compete with the Bond films, and in fact at times (especially the opening credits) seems more like a spoof.  For whatever reason it was a commercial and critical flop, and killed the franchise.

Who to blame?  

Is it the screenwriter John McGrath, a playwright who used his plays to promote socialism?  Judging from his short Wikipedia entry this might have been the only screenplay he wrote.

Or is it the director, Ken Russell, not anyone's first choice to direct a gritty espionage thriller?  At this stage in his career he had worked mainly in TV, but was recommended for this assignment by Caine himself, who later regretted it. 

Or perhaps it would be fairer to blame the producers.  They took a successful franchise and a successful novel to adapt, and handed it over to two inexperienced individuals, neither of whom was obviously suited to the task.

The cast certainly cannot be blamed.  

Michael Caine does what Michael Caine does.  Guy Doleman and Oscar Homulka are back as Colonels Ross and Stok.  Karl Malden is fine as Leo Newbigen, an old American acquaintance of Harry's who can't be trusted,  Françoise Dorléac (in her last performance before her untimely death) is sexy as Anya, who also cannot be trusted, and Ed Begley is splendidly over the top as the megalomaniac General Midwinter who wants to start an uprising in Latvia as the first step in his plan to topple Communism.

As research I read the novel (by Len Deighton), which is a good read, but there's a lot of talking and not a lot of action, as well as a lot of moving to and fro between London, Latvia, Finland, Russia, Sweden and the US.  

So I can understand the impulse to simplify the plot and also to make the focus more on Midwinter as a Bond-type villain.  Unfortunately the finale (in the film, not the book) in which Midwinter leads an invasion force across the frozen Gulf of Finland is too silly for words although admittedly Russell directs it with a lot of visual flair.

The book includes a lot of confusing stuff about a virus being transported in eggs which could usefully have been dropped from the film but sadly wasn't.

The three scenes involving Colonel Ross add virtually nothing to the plot but I suppose they are worth having if only for Ross's sardonic presence. 

At the end of it all I looked back and asked myself what exactly had Harry achieved?  He spends the film being shuttled between different locations without having much of a clue as to what is going on, being seduced by Anya (nice work if you can get it), and he walks into a trap which Stok has warned him about which he's very lucky to survive.   

Most stupidly of all, at the end he turns up in his car on the frozen ice to try to intercept Midwinter's army rather than just notify Stok (who is in charge of Latvian security).  Fortunately Stok knows what is going on anyway and scuppers the invasion very easily.

Russell makes the whole thing passably entertaining if you're prepared to disengage brain.  Talking of which, the eponymous Brain is merely a whizzbang computer that issues orders, and disappointingly the film's budget didn't run to creating something special so we have to make do with some run-of-the-mill computers at Honeywell's facilities.

All-in-all rather disappointing, given how good 'The Ipcress File' is.