I read the book many years ago, but had to wait over 30 years to see this movie. Two culprits can be blamed for that long exile: Texas and Michael Jackson. The Michael Jackson angle has to do with some Beatles music being used in part of the soundtrack and the high rate of royalties necessary to liberate their use (hopefully, the DVD will have this). The Texas angle comes from the Brits portraying Texans as some square-dancing, KKK-style, Bible-belt wackos. I live in Texas and as a spymovie fanatic in the Sixties, I could not understand how I missed this movie. Viewing revealed all. If this movie was shown anywhere in Texas back then, it would have been boycotted like a post-Lennon diatribe Beatles record. The Russians (make that commie b*st*rds) seem to be the only ones competent, while the anti-communists are bumbling fools and nuts. The cold,cold fate of the misguided Texan liberators was certainly not what any John Wayne-lovin' Texas audience would want to sit through.
Aside from that...
Michael Caine is as cool as ever as apparently the only sane person in the movie. Ken Russell's signature cinematography gives $Billion Brain a stylish literal Cold War feel. It's probably good the series ended with this one, because it was straying further away from the romantic realism of the first Saltzman production. But it's still an interesting member of the Sixties Spymovie Phenomenon. Even a Texan, now that Ivan has more or less settled down, could enjoy it.
The tattered remnants of a once great series
This is the last in the trilogy of movies based on the Len Deighton novels about a down at heels British spy -written and filmed ,at least to begin with ,as an antidote to the glamour and high living of the Bond movies .The first The Ipcress File was excellent ;the second Funeral in Berlin added some elegant macabre touches to help make it memorable ;this ,alas is just a silly sub -par ,sub Bondian romp and a betrayal of everything the books and earlier series movies stood for
Michael Caine reprises his role as Harry Palmer who uncovers a plot by a crazed Texas oil billionaire to invade the Soviet Union ;the brain of the title is a super-computer which controls the whole operation .
The direction from Ken Russell is an abomination ,seeking to call attention to itself rather than advance the story although to be fair he does orchestrate the climactic secenes rather well and the icebound finale is memorable .Normally reliable performers like Karl Malden ,playing a US agent and Ed Begley as the megalomaniac billionaire overact dreadfully in sterotypical and poorly written roles and it is left to the great Oscar Homulka as a Soviet general ,reprising his role from Funeral in Berlin to give any depth or quality to the acting department
Francoise Dorleac as the female lead is decorataive and Caine battles valiantly against the cliches .
Good location photography in winterbound Helsinki is a help but its a poor end to a series that began so well
Rent the other two movies insterad
It's about time!
Each one of the "Harry Palmer" films is radically different from the other. "The Ipcress File" (Universal, 1965) was a psychological thriller. "Funeral in Berlin" (Paramount, 1966) was a taut espionage triple cross. "The Billion Dollar Brain" (United Artists, 1967) was something else.
Throughout the series, Micahel Caine starred as "Harry Palmer" -- the spy with no name in the Len Deighton novels. Each film has its own spin on Deighton's work. The first two films depicted Harry Palmer as a working class spy. Very down to earth and gritty. This third outing, directed by Ken Russell, was more Bond-like in feel -- but then, so was the book on which it's based. Some love it, some hate it. The actors are quite good, production values are high, the snow is for real and lots of it. A cracking good action yarn!
This is quite a good film and long overdue on DVD. It's been available since September 2004 on Region 2 disc and now at long last on Region 1 on October 4, 2005, in its original aspect ratio and Dolby stereo. Apparentlty a short segment with Beatles music had to be deleted for copyright purposes. Perhaps the holding company held out for to much money?
Now if only someone would bring the first two back into print!
After a lapse of over 25 years, the next Harry Palmer films with Michael Caine would be "Bullet to Beijing" and "Midnight in St Petersberg".
Walker (Lee Marvin) strides through Los Angeles with the steel-eyed stare of a stone-cold killer, or perhaps a ghost. Betrayed by his wife and best friend, who gun him down point-blank and leave him for dead after a successful heist, Walker blasts his way up the criminal food chain in a quest for revenge. Did he survive the shooting or return from the grave, or is it all a dying dream? The question is left in the air in John Boorman's modern film noir, a brutal revenge thriller based on Richard Stark's novel The Hunter (remade by Brian Helgeland as Payback), set in the impersonal concrete and steel canyons of Los Angeles and eerily empty cells of Alcatraz. Walker kills without remorse, guided by shadowy "informant" Keenan Wynn, whose own agenda is carefully concealed, and... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Lee Marvin - Angie Dickinson Director(s): John Boorman DVD Release Date: Released the 05 July 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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This vastly underrated Arthur Penn film from the mid-1970s ranks as one of the era's nastiest and most fascinating pieces of business, a detective story that shuttles back and forth between Hollywood and the Florida Keys, with a plot nearly as complex as Chinatown. Gene Hackman stars as a tired, aging private eye who, as a favor to a friend, agrees to track down a runaway teen. But the case turns out to be something much larger: a smuggling ring of Mayan antiquities. The human impulses get darker and darker and Hackman's character gets pulled in deeper and deeper, even as his own life is falling apart. Ultimately, in one of his best and most unsung performances, Hackman winds up hurting the people he is trying to help. A great cast includes Susan Clark, Jennifer Warren, a young... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Gene Hackman - Jennifer Warren Director(s): Arthur Penn DVD Release Date: Released the 12 July 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Mixing action, humor, sentiment, and even a few righteous moral convictions, The Wild Geese is good, rousing fun. Released theatrically in 1978 (oddly, this 2005 DVD release is referred to as the "30th Anniversary Edition"), director Andrew V. McLaglen’s film depicts the adventures of a group of British mercenaries hired by a shady multinational corporation to free the benevolent leader of an African nation held captive by a ruthless dictator. Led by the caustic, no-nonsense Col. Allen Faulkner (Richard Burton), these soldiers of fortune are all stout fellows out to earn a big payday and restore a good man to his rightful place of power (the underlying message of universal racial brotherhood is effective, if somewhat simplistic), and they do their job swiftly and... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Richard Burton - Roger Moore - Richard Harris - Hardy Krüger - Stewart Granger Director(s): Andrew V. McLaglen DVD Release Date: Released the 27 September 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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This restoration of Sam Peckinpah's 1965 western Major Dundee is nothing short of magnificent, a noble attempt at restoring a famously wrecked masterpiece. When Peckinpah went over budget and over schedule during the Mexico shoot, unshot scenes were canceled and the footage rudely cut by the studio. The director disowned the results. In 2005, surviving footage was patched back in, and a new musical soundtrack commissioned to replace the score Peckinpah hated. This raises some legitimate questions about interpreting a director's intentions, and about messing with film history, but Major Dundee--The Extended Version is such a rousing, mysterious experience, one feels grateful.
Major Dundee (Charlton Heston) is a vainglorious officer busted to the decidedly inglorious job... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Charlton Heston - Richard Harris Director(s): Sam Peckinpah DVD Release Date: Released the 20 September 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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This silky smooth film noir pits gruff police detective Dana Andrews, stiff and blunt in his street-bred manners, against a cultured columnist and acidic wit (Clifton Webb at his prissiest) in a battle of wits during a murder investigation. The cop is a romantic hiding under a hard-boiled exterior who falls in love with the beautiful victim through the portrait that hangs in her apartment. Gene Tierney, whose heart-shaped face mixes the exotic with the girl next door, brings the poise and calm of a model to her role as the object of every man's gaze and the target of a killer. Laura, handsomely shot in dreamy black and white, is the first and best of Otto Preminger's cool, controlled murder mysteries. In the gritty world of film noir it remains the most refined and elegant example... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Gene Tierney - Dana Andrews Director(s): Rouben Mamoulian - Otto Preminger DVD Release Date: Released the 15 March 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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