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Billion Dollar Brain is the third and final film with the protagonist Harry Palmer following The Ipcress File and Funeral in Berlin, but the first that I have watched.

Harry (Michael Caine) now retired from the British Intelligence service is scrapping by as a private investigator when a mysterious package arrives along with a promised of a substantial payment for delivering it to a location in Finland. Simultaneously Harry is recruited back in the service as they are aware of the job and its vital national concerns. After using a fluoroscope at a shoe store (People really did use to utilize X-ray machines unsupervised to get better fitting shoes.) and determining the package contains eggs, the method by which viruses are transported, Harry travels to Finland, worming his way into the mysterious and sinister private organization. What he discovers has the potential to spark a nuclear exchange between the world’s superpowers, and Harry must work hard to prevent the coming disaster.

I had heard of this film from one of my many movie podcasts though they made the plot sound more fantastic as though it dealt with artificial intelligence. While the massive computer from which the novel and the film took their title is impressive there is no hint of intelligence in the machine. Rather, it is being used and programmed to analyze and execute insurgency operations behind the Iron Curtain. For me, this vastly improved the nature of the film and its plot. Many technical details, such as using eggs to transport viruses or the use of a mount when attempting a long-range sniper shot, are quite accurate. There’s even a sub-plot where a member of the organization is feeding bad data into the billion dollar brain for his own greedy goals and the bad data produces bad analysis well before the term garbage in garbage out became widely known.

Ken Russel, working with a decent budget, assembled a very good cast and production team giving Billion Dollar Brain the quality that many of the 60s spy genre lacked. Filmed on location in Finland the movie captures the unique charm of that nation and its precarious geo-political position as it remained a free nation bordering directly on the USSR.

In addition of Michael Caine the cast included Karl Malden as Harry’s former friend that brought him into the clandestine organization, Francoise Dorleac as another operative, the film was released the same year she tragically died in a single car auto accident, and Ed Begley as the deranged Texan behind the entire plot.

All in all, this was a surprisingly good espionage flick, more akin to LeCarre than to Bond and that was very much my preferred taste.

Billion Dollar Brain is currently streaming on Pluto TV.