In England, Colonel, the historic mission of the proletariat consists almost entirely of momentary interest.

Billion Dollar Brain

(1967)

(SPOILERS) A reluctant Ken Russell (his second feature, and helming under protest, so he said) at least ensures this final (well, until the ‘90s, if we really mustgo there) looks good. Crucially, however, it’s all but devoid of internal tension, except momentarily when Harry experiences an altercation or two with a couple of heavies. Which invariably leads to a ream of exposition from his captor; this is about as far from an espionage investigation or mystery begging to be solved as it gets, and while the Bond comparisons batted its way are slightly unfair, Billion Dollar Brain does support a similarly incidental approach to plotting.

The negligible sense of threat in Billion Dollar Brain means those Harry encounters are largely affable or persuadable after the initial introductions, as he casually traipses through snow from side to side or visits masterminds’ lairs. That and the Maurice Binder-meets-Austin Powers, Bond-esque title sequence add to a vague sense of hapless spoofery, although not in the way that would later inspire such twisted delights in Diamonds are Forever.

Ross: Do you get all your equipment from Kelloggs?

It’s a shame, as it begins so well, with the underused Guy Doleman as Colonel Ross dropping in unannounced of the now absconded Palmer (he’s become a detective) and trying to persuade him to return to the fold. That Harry’s almost immediately off on a spy mission, at the behest of the computer of the title/ old chum Leo (Karl Malden, irrepressible but decidedly small-time and unmenacing), who is in turn aided/being manipulated by out-of-his-league Anya (Françoise Dorléac in her final role; she died in a car wreck before filming was completed).

The MacGuffin is more diverting than Funeral in Berlin’s – eggs carrying deadly virus(es) stolen from Porton Down (“How are you going to have them, Leo? Scrambled or fried?”) – but such a potentially unnerving scenario is left rather limp. Harry travels from Helsinki to Latvia (cue some whacky rebels – everyone’s whacky in this), gets into scrapes and meets up with Colonel Stok (Oskar Homolka) again, encounters various threats and double-crosses from Leo and Anya, and is guest of Ed Begley’s lunatic oil tycoon General Midwinter in Texas, who plans to bring down the Commies with the aid of his computers and the viruses.

Midwinter: Do you like the sound of gunfire? Me, I love it.

Unfortunately, despite the travelogue nature of the movie, Harry’s rendered largely passive and reactive, particularly so during the much-cited Eisenstein-inspired ice-breaking climax. The picture briefly becomes invested during his stay at Midwinter’s base, with Palmer under pressure and talking for his life (Ken also engineers a nice speechifying scene entirely drowned out by the score).

In outline, Billion Dollar Brain follows Len Deighton’s novel fairly closely, so one might lay the blame at his door, but the reality is that, while on paper the idea of Ken Russell making a spy movie is appealingly off-the-wall, the material suffers from his being unable to disguise his disinterest in the plot and characters. Ken Adam suggested it was “the wrong type of movie for Ken” while Pauline Kael was of the view that “he hurled the audience from one crisis to the next, and things went by so fast that the story got befuddled and nothing seemed to be happening”. There’s a vague straining towards an eccentric, Strangelovian vibe (Begley’s general, who hasn't left Texas in twenty-five years owing to it having "the only truly wholesome air in the world" has a touch of Jack D Ripper about him), but it’s mostly heavy handed rather than sharp.

One can only assume the audience agreed; Billion Dollar Brain’s box office performance was underwhelming, which put the kibosh on planned fourth instalment Horse Under Water (actually the second Palmer novel). Caine’s fond of citing Harry Salzman’s generosity in releasing him from his seven-year contract, but it may have been partly fuelled by the practicality of his star’s vehicle having run out of steam. Caine himself suggested he would have liked to make An Expensive Place to Die, the fifth in Deighton’s “unnamed hero” series, but when he returned in that pair of blighted ‘90s pictures, Deighton’s novels were nowhere in sight.

Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.

Comments

He’s probably paranoid, high-strung, doesn’t like daylight. You know, has a lot of crumbs in his beard, if he has a beard.

Godzilla vs. Kong (2021) (SPOILERS) I’d like to report I had a blast with Godzilla vs. Kong . It’s lighter on its oversized, city-stomping feet than its slog of a MonsterVerse predecessor, Godzilla: King of the Monsters , and there are flashes of visual inspiration along with several engaging core ideas (which, to be fair, the series had already laid the seeds for). But this sequel still stumbles in its chief task: assembling an engaging, lively story that successfully integrates both tiny humans and towering titans.

Roswell was a smokescreen, we've had a half a dozen better salvage operations.

The X-Files 1.24: The Erlenmeyer Flask The Erlenmeyer Flask makes for a fast-paced, tense and eventful ride, but does it make any sense? That less than mattered at the time, but revisiting the mythology arc (for probably the fourth or fifth time) reveals increasingly tenuous internal coherence as the various conspiracy elements begin to pile up and the situations become ever-more convoluted. This will become the Chris Carter’s signature: don’t examine the details too closely, go with the flow. Trust Chris implicitly.

You stink, my friend.

Mulan (2020) (SPOILERS) Let that be a lesson to Disney. It’s a fool’s errand to try and beat the Chinese at their own game, no matter how painstakingly respectful – or rather, pandering – you are. Indeed, Mulan ’s abysmal $40m box office take in the country – where it did get a proper release, so no plandemic excuses can be cited – feels like a direct rebuke; don’t try and tell us how to suck eggs. There’s an additional explanation too, of course. That Mulan sucks.

UFO IN MOSSINGHAM?

A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon (2020) (SPOILERS) One might reasonably suggest the recourse of the ailing or desperate franchise is to resort, seemingly out of nowhere, to space aliens. Even Police Academy didn’t go that far (to Moscow, yes, but not to space). Perhaps animators think kids have no skills of discernment and will swallow any old sugar-coated crap. Perhaps they don’t, and they will. Ice Age had been enjoying absurd success until Collision Course sent Scrat spinning into the cosmos and grosses tumbled. Shaun the Sheep has been around for a quarter of a century, but this is only his second movie outing and already he’s pulling an E.T. on us. Of course, this may all be part of the grand scheme, and Nick Park is simply doing his bit to familiarise the tots in time for Project Blue Beam.

It's Dark Age, by Jupiter!

The Dig (2021) (SPOILERS) An account of the greatest archaeological find Britain would know until Professor Horner opened the barrow at Devil’s End. And should you scoff at such “ fiction ”, that’s nothing on this adaptation of John Preston’s 2007 novel concerning the Sutton Hoo excavations of the late 1930s. The Dig , as is the onus of any compelling fictional account, takes liberties with the source material, but the erring from the straight and narrow in this case is less an issue than the shift in focus from characters and elements successfully established during the first hour.

By heaven, I’d thrash the life out of you… if I didn’t have to read the Nine O’Clock News.

The Green Man (1956) (SPOILERS) The Green movie from Launder and Gilliat starring Alastair Sim that isn’t Green for Danger. Which is to say, The Green Man can’t quite scale the heady heights of that decade-earlier murder mystery triumph, but neither is it any slouch. Sim is the antagonist this time – albeit a very affable, Sim-ish one – and his sometime protégée, a young George Cole, the hero. If the plot is entirely absurd, Robert Day’s movie wastes no time probing such insufficiencies, ensuring it is very funny, lively and beautifully performed.

Careful how much boat you’re eating.

Onward (2020) (SPOILERS) Pixar’s Bright , or thereabouts. The interesting thing – perhaps the only interesting thing – about Onward is that it’s almost indiscernible from a DreamWorks Animation effort, where once they cocked a snook at such cheap-seats fare, seeing themselves as better class of animation house altogether. Just about everything in Onward is shamelessly derivative, from the Harry Potter /fantasy genre cash-in to the use of the standard Pixar formula whereby any scenario remotely eccentric or exotic is buried beneath the banal signifiers of modern society: because anything you can imagine must be dragged down to tangible everyday reference points or kids won’t be able to assimilate it. And then there’s the choice of lead voices, in-Disney star-slaves Chris Pratt and Tom Holland.

A subterranean Loch Ness Monster?

Doctor Who The Silurians No, I’m not going to refer to The Silurians as Doctor Who and the Silurians . I’m going to refer to it as Doctor Who and the Eocenes . The Silurians plays a blinder. Because both this and Inferno know the secret of an extended – some might say overlong – story is to keep the plot moving, they barely drag at all and are consequently much fleeter of foot than many a four parter. Unlike Malcolm Hulke’s sequel The Sea Devils , The Silurians has more than enough plot and deals it out judiciously (the plague, when it comes, kicks the story up a gear at the precarious burn-out stage of a typical four-plus parter). What’s most notable, though, is how engaging those first four episodes are, building the story slowly but absorbingly and with persuasive confidence.

Well, I’ll be damned. It’s the gentleman guppy.

Waterworld (1995) (SPOILERS) The production and budgetary woes of “ Kevin’s Gate ” will forever overshadow the movie’s content (and while it may have been the most expensive movie ever to that point – adjusted for inflation, it seems only Cleopatra came close – it has since turned a profit). However, should you somehow manage to avoid the distraction of those legendary problems, the real qualitative concerns are sure to come sailing over the cognitive horizon eventually; Waterworld is just so damned derivative. It’s a seafaring Mad Max. Peter Rader, who first came up with the idea in 1986, admitted as much. David Twohy, who later came aboard, also cited Mad Max 2 ; that kind of rip-off aspect – Jaws birthing Piranha – makes it unsurprising Waterworld was once under consideration by Roger Corman (he couldn’t cost it cheaply enough). Ultimately, there’s never a sufficient sense the movie has managed to become its own thing. Which is a bummer, because it’s frequently quite good fun.

The Reverend Thomas says you wet his trousers.

Double Bunk (1961) (SPOILERS) In casting terms, Double Bunk could be a sequel to the previous year’s magnificent School for Scoundrels . This time, Ian Carmichael and Janette Scott (he still almost twice her age) are wedded, and the former continues to make dumb choices. Despite being an unlikely mechanic, Carmichael allows himself to be sold a lemon of a houseboat; last time it was the Nifty Nine. And Dennis Price is once again on hand, trying to fleece him in various ways. Indeed, the screenplay might not be a patch on School for Scoundrels , but with Sid James and the fabulous Liz Fraser also on board, the casting can’t be faulted.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

Search This Blog