Billion Dollar Brain (1967)

Interesting facts

• Based on: Billion Dollar Brain
• Filmed in: Pinewood Studios and Finland

Billion Dollar Brain is a 1967 British espionage film directed by Ken Russell and based on the 1966 novel Billion-Dollar Brain 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.

Production

Film rights were purchased by Harry Saltzman in November 1965, prior to the novel's publication in January 1966. Saltzman paid $250,000; he had already bought the rights to The Ipcress File and Funeral in Berlin. The book became a best seller. The New York Times called it "a strikingly effective thriller".

In January 1966, Caine announced he had signed with Saltzman to make 11 films in five years, with three of the films to be Harry Palmer stories by Len Deighton: Funeral in Berlin, Billion Dollar Brain and a fourth, mostly likely Horse Under Water.

Ken Russell was a highly regarded television director who had made one unsuccessful feature. Caine narrated a series of Russell's films and became friendly with the director; he recommended him to Saltzman for Billion Dollar Brain. Caine later said this was a mistake, although Russell was "an emotional genius. Billion Dollar Brain is a highly complicated thriller which needs a draftsman.

Principal photography took place from 30 January to the end of May 1967.

Approximately five weeks later, on 26 June, Françoise Dorléac was killed in an automobile accident in Nice, France. It is unclear whether or not her voice was dubbed by another actress, due to her death.

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