reward Harry with a promotion. However, when he opens the package to inspect the eggs, he finds it is now full of baby chicks. Cast Michael Caine as Harry Palmer Karl Malden as Leo Newbigen Ed Begley as General Midwinter Oskar Homolka as Colonel Stok Françoise Dorléac as Anya Guy Doleman as Colonel Ross Vladek Sheybal as Doctor Eiwort John Brandon as Jim Milo Sperber as Basil Susan George as Russian Girl on Train Stanley Caine as GPO Special Delivery Boy Fred Griffiths as Taxi Driver Cast notes: Donald Sutherland has a very small appearance as the computer technician who asks Karl Malden, "What's going on?" Sutherland also appears as the mechanical voice on the phone at the beginning of the film. Actress Susan George makes an early appearance as a young Latvian girl on a train who offers her copy of Izvestia to Michael Caine. Production Development 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 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. The last thing you need is an emotional genius." Russell wanted to make a film about Nijinsky with Rudolph Nureyev and Saltzman was interested. He suggested Russell make Billion Dollar Brain to "keep his hand in." "We never quite realised we had a lunatic genius on our hands," said Caine in 1976. "He was the least ideal man to do a thriller. What he has is this passion to make thundering great messes." In January 1967, it was announced Russell would direct from a script by John McGrath, with Oscar Homolka reprising his role