Billion Dollar Brain

You can always tell Ken Russell's arty farty and not wholly successful direction in this film. Some of the scenes are just plain eccentric, but add a certain charm, especially when coupled with the wonderful Finland scenery. Definitely not as good as the Ipcress File, but still worth a look as an interesting 1960's period piece. It's the familiar Cold War story though this time Deighton has introduced a slightly more inventive, albeit fantastic plot. In this film it revolves around a billionaire nutcase who has built a super computer that is orchestrating an anti-communist revolution. As it's the late 1960's, when sophisticated computers were becoming in vogue, expect the usual enormous mainframe with lots of flashing lights, reel to reel memory banks, clackerty-clack machines which spew paper out and electronic noises nicked from James Bond films. I'm sure I saw some of the equipment in You Only Live Twice filmed in the same year. Also, I can't decide whether the soundtrack is good or rubbish - it sounds disjointed and inappropriate in some places. However, worth a look.