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Billion Dollar Brain (1967)

Billion Dollar Brain
Some games are more dangerous than others.
—Harry Palmer
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An inhuman voice stutters orders at Harry Palmer.

“Yes, but who is this, eh? And how did you pick on me?”

A billion dollar brain – a supercomputer – is calling, and it has chosen the bespectacled British spy for a mission to Helsinki. With the frantic blast of horns, the “how” of that selection is revealed to be the whirling of magnetic tapes and shuffling of punch cards. PALMER. PALMER. PALMER. Infallible decision-making courtesy of the best tech of the era.

This mechanical spymaster is a vacuum tube Skynet, its sinister string-pulling and cold calculation are aided by the deft button presses of feminine fingers that seem to match the rhythm of that languid piano score. Like us, the brain has been watching Palmer for some time. Through compound eyes it has followed those thick turtleshell rims one byte at a time, from IPCRESS to Berlin, into the arms of women, and through the barrel of a gun. Over and over, it analyzes, organizes, and compiles a symphony of numbers, colors and data, playing and replaying what it knows about the mod Palmer in a series of abstract tableaux, seemingly unable to decipher this cool spook.

Billion Dollar Brain end credits

Supplementary: Billion Dollar Brain end credits

  • Credits

Titles Designed by: Maurice Binder

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Title sequence

  • Title Designer

    Maurice Binder
  • Category

    Film
  • Styles

    1960s, copyright line, graphic, live action, main title, mixed-media
Billion Dollar Brain
  • Film Director

    Ken Russell
  • Release Date

    December 20, 1967
  • Aspect Ratio

    2.35:1
  • Studio

    United Artists
  • Country

    UK
  • Language

    English
  • Reviews

    Reviews on Letterboxd
  • IMDb has full details

Article

  • Writer

    Will Perkins
  • Editor

    Lola Landekic
  • Published

    December 11, 2012

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