History Film / BillionDollarBrain

* SpyFiction: Oscillates between Stale Beer and Dirty Martini. On the one hand, the more flamboyant visuals place it closer to a Bond film from the same time period, and the technology on display borders into light SpyFi. On the other hand, said tech, though certainly certainly advanced for the time, is far from implausible and practically quaint by today's standards. The titular "Billion Dollar Brain" is a roughly on par with real signals intelligence systems that would be in use just a few years later.

* GeneralFailure: Stok acknowledges that General Midwinter was brave and patriotic, the kind of person who is a great hero in wartime, but also derides him as foolish and unable to adapt to the complexities of the ColdWar. [[spoiler:In the end he only leads his men to their deaths.]]

* PrivateEye: At the beginning of the film, Harry Palmer has left the intelligence business to become a poorly paid private eye handling sleazy divorce cases. [[RefusalOfTheCall He still refuses initially]] when Colonel Ross tries to recruit him back into British Intelligence, but to no avail.

* FemmeFataleSpy: Anya. She's Leo's mistress but seduces Harry the moment he turns up. [[spoiler:[[DoubleAgent She betrays Leo to the Soviets and Harry to Midwinter.]], and turns out to have been one of Stok's agents the whole time.]]

* AluminiumChristmasTrees: Suspicious about the package he's to deliver, Palmer puts the thermos into a pedoscope to get an X-Ray image of what's inside. Shoestores used pedoscopes to check the fit of shoes, before concern about cumulative radiation poisoning caused them to be abandoned.

* GeneralRipper: General Midwinter is an absurdly wealthy Texan oil billionaire who commands a private army of mercenaries with [[spoiler:the goal of overthrowing the Latvian government and, ultimately, Communism itself.]]

* ANaziByAnyOtherName: Midwinter does the obligatory {{Motive Rant}}ing against a montage of BookBurning followers, and gives a RousingSpeech against a background of a symbolic American eagle that looks a lot like a Reichsadler. His logo, placing an 'M' directly over a 'W', seems deliberately meant to [[NoSwastikas resemble a swastika]].

* NonProtagonistResolver: All Harry does is run around trying not to get killed (which is no easy task admittedly). Colonel Stok turns out to have been playing everyone the entire time.

** The advance of Mindwinter's private army [[spoiler:is shown being plotted by the Soviets on a large mapboard, shown by a single black counter marked with Mindwinter's symbol, with an array of red bomber-shaped counters being moved into position around it. After Midwinter's force is destroyed, Colonel Stok picks up the black counter and contemptuously tosses it over his shoulder.]]

Now a private detective, Harry Palmer receives a mysterious phone call from an anonymous client tasking him with transporting an an apparently innocent Thermos flask to an old friend in Helsinki.

* ShootingGallery: Harry Palmer is introduced to General Midwinter--a Texas oil billionaire who's a fervent anti-Communist--blazing away in his mansion's private indoor shooting range. Later when Harry is framed as a Soviet agent he's beaten up and dragged onto the range, where he has to talk Midwinter out of shooting him on the spot.

* SpyFiction: Oscillates between Stale Beer and Dirty Martini. On the one hand, the more flamboyant visuals place it closer to a Bond film from the same time period, and the technology on display borders into light SpyFi. On the other hand, said tech, though certainly certainly advanced for the time, is far from implausible and practically quaint by today's standards. [[spoiler:The titular "Billion Dollar Brain" is a roughly on par with real signals intelligence systems that would be in use just a few years later.]]

** The advance of Mindwinter's private army [[spoiler:is shown being plotted by the Soviets on a large mapboard, shown by a single black counter marked with Mindwinter's symbol, surrounded by an array of red bomber-shaped counters being moved into position around it. After Midwinter's force is destroyed, Colonel Stok picks up the black counter and contemptuously tosses it over his shoulder.]]

* ConspiracyTheorist: Midwinter is convinced Communists are single-handedly responsible for all of America's ills, including air pollution, much to Palmer and Stok's amusement.

* BrickJoke: At the start of the movie, Ross offers Harry a pay upgrade of an extra 300 pounds per year. At the end of the movie [[spoiler:Harry returns the eggs containing the virus and Ross promises to deliver...until he opens the case and finds out now full of baby chicks put there by Stok as a joke. An embarrassed Harry suggests maybe 200 pounds?]]