A mad Texas general wants to start to overthrow parts of the satellite Eastern Block using his own private army and super computer. Reluctant secret agent - and former crooked army sergeant - Harry Palmer is given the job of trying to stop him before it is too late.
Last of the three HP films made for the cinema.
What a silly idea this film is based on. For a start the plot is far too James Bond for a series whose raison d'etre is to be anti James Bond and besides how can a basic Honeywell Computer (with punch cards) be worth a billion dollars? The thing had about as much power as a Sinclair Spectrum!
Star Caine looks bored to death with all this nonsense and chases around Finland looking like he would rather have been anywhere else but here - and I don't think it is all skilled acting. Director Ken Russell has his supporters and fans, although every passing years his supporters seemed less-and-less inclined to put their hands in their pocket for his product. He became a clapped out old duffer very early in life.
Danger, tension and silly are not easy bedfellows and even solid pros like Malden, Begley and Caine cannot breath much life in to this race-and-chase nonsense. Although Ed Begley chews up the set as a red-baiting Texan general gone mad in a bunker. Part Hitler, part Sterling Hayden in Doctor Strangelove.
Russian general Colonel Stock (Oskar Homolka) turns up again to reprise his role from Funeral in Berlin, even though it makes no sense to the plot - why would the enemy (in the cold war) help a British agent? Last thing on earth he would do unless he had gone stark raving mad or liked Gulag food.
Despite the series coming back much later as a made-for-TV double (made back-to-back) the show had clearly had its day. I could have lived without seeing this and you could too.
