MovieChat Forums > Billion Dollar Brain (1968) Discussion > General Midwinter's invasion plan

General Midwinter's invasion plan

posted 11 years ago by dazfiddy
4 replies | jump to latest

I love the way that Billion Dollar Brain pokes fun at mindless anti Communism in the form of General Midwinter and his Crusade for Freedom. His speech/rant about love to his men, and his belief that his super computer would provide him with the right programme to defeat Communism are so ludicrous that you have to laugh at him.
"I love the smell of gunfire."

The invasion force reminds me of the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. Did JFK really believe that a CIA trained force of 1500 men would topple a well armed Cuban Soviet backed army?? Surely it was doomed to fail. The same thinking would later lead to another disaster in Vietnam on a much larger scale.

In BDB, Midwinter hopes to enter Riga in Latvia, in the sincere belief that the people will rise up against the Soviet rulers. Should I mention that he has zero air cover to protect his troops?The sincere belief that with God on your side,and a vast sum of money, you can defeat any Godless enemy was "stupid" as described by Colonel Stok.

I wonder if George W Bush ever saw this film??

[–] franzkabuki 11 years ago

Not just air cover, but they did not have a remotely sufficient amount of weaponry of ´any´ sort. Maybe he hoped that the Latvians serving in the Soviet Army would split with its guns and joyn him, but aside from the fact that it would still have been a largely insignificant fire power, there´s also the fact that most conscripted Latvians would have served in other parts of Soviet Union as the common practice was (not to mention that in the then-current political/social climate, only extremely few would have been ready and willing to engage in such a blatantly suicidal military effort). Nothing about Midwinters invasion made any sense.

"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan

[–] dazfiddy 11 years ago

General Midwinter was clearly unbalanced.His whole enterprise was doomed to failure, even though he had God AND a billion dollar super computer on his side. Not forgetting a treacherous underling who was stealing his money and feeding his computer bullsquash information about his Crusade for Freedom.

I'm thinking that the film's makers wanted us to laugh at the ludicrous nature of the General's scheme.His speech above Love is both funny and scary.

[–] franzkabuki 11 years ago

Yeah, unhinged lunatics don´t usually win wars. Midwinter´s attack over the icy sea should certainly earn him the Darwin reward as it should have occurred to any sane person that all the Soviet army needed, were a couple of jets to bomb out the ice from under his troops.

"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan

[–] Squeeth2 11 years ago

I enjoyed the satire of the Americans being worse than the Soviets, it turned out to be right....

Marlon, Claudia and Dimby the cats 1989-2005, 2007 and 2010.