Billion Dollar Brain

Billion Dollar Brain
original film poster
Directed by	Ken Russell
Produced by	Harry Saltzman
Written by	John McGrath
Based on	Billion-Dollar Brain 1966 novel by Len Deighton
Starring	Michael Caine Karl Malden Ed Begley Oscar Homolka Françoise Dorléac
Music by	Richard Rodney Bennett
Cinematography	Billy Williams
Edited by	Alan Osbiston
Production company	Jovera S.A. Lowndes Productions Limited
Distributed by	United Artists
Release date	20 December 1967 (US)
Running time	111 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Box office	$1,500,000 (US/ Canada)

Billion Dollar Brain is a 1967 British Technicolor espionage film directed by Ken Russell and based on the novel of the same name by Len Deighton. The film features Michael Caine as secret agent Harry Palmer, the anti-hero protagonist. The "brain" of the title is a sophisticated computer with which an anti-communist organisation controls its worldwide anti-Soviet spy network.

Billion Dollar Brain is the third of the Harry Palmer film series, preceded by The Ipcress File (1965) and Funeral in Berlin (1966). It is the only film in which Ken Russell worked as a mainstream 'director-for-hire', and the last film of Françoise Dorléac. A fourth film in the series, an adaptation of Horse Under Water, also to be released by United Artists, was tentatively planned but never made. Caine played Palmer in two later films, Bullet to Beijing and Midnight in Saint Petersburg.

The film's credits show the title as "$1,000,000,000,000,000,000.00" and "BILLION DOLLAR BRAIN" – 1 followed by 18 zeros is actually one quintillion in the short scale or one trillion in the long scale.

Harry Palmer (Michael Caine), who has left MI5 to work as a private investigator, is told by a mechanical voice on the phone to take a package to Helsinki. The package contains six virus-laden eggs that have been stolen from the British government's research facility at Porton Down. In Helsinki, he is met by Anya (Françoise Dorléac) who takes him to meet her handler, Harry's old friend Leo Newbigen (Karl Malden). Leo is in love with Anya, but Harry knows that she is only pretending to reciprocate. Leo takes Harry to a secret room where a computer issues daily instructions to Leo and Anya. The computer speaks in the same voice as the one which summoned Harry to Helsinki.