Main Cast: Bourvil, Jean-Paul Belmondo, David Niven, Eli Wallach
Release Year: 1969
Country: US/IT/FR
Run Time: 100 minutes
Plot
The Brain (Le Cerveau) is a tongue-in-cheek caper film with more twists and turns than a rural Oregon highway. David Niven plays The Brain, so named because it was he who mapped out the British Great Train Robbery (it says here). Now The Brain plans to lift a fortune in NATO money, which is being shipped by train from France to Belgium. Complicating matters are a pair of free-lance thugs (Jean-Paul Belmondo and Bourvil), who hope to steal The Brain's plans and claim the money for themselves. A plot device derived from The Lavender Hill Mob involves a 50-foot replica of the Statue of Liberty. An amusing closing-credits bit caps this exhilarating exercise. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Henri Attal; Jacques Balutin - L'inspecteur Pochet; Yves Barsacq - Le gerant; Jacques Ciron - L'inspecteur Duboeuf; Robert Dalban - Belgian with a Cold; Mario David; Raoul Delfosse; Tom Duggan - Le superintendant Cummings; Raymond Gerome - Le Commanissaire; Fernand Guiot - L'inspecteur Mazurel; Jean Le Poulain - Man from Fifth Floor; Silvia Monti - Sofia; Fernand Valois - Bruno; Dominique Zardi; Henri Genes - Le gardien-chef; Roger Lumont; Paul Mercey; Patrick Prejean; John Rico; Arch Taylor; Max Montavon; Sophie Grimaldi
Credit
Jean André - Art Director, Tanine Autre - Costume Designer, Janine Autre - Costume Designer, Gérard Oury - Director, Albert Jurgenson - Editor, Georges Delerue - Composer (Music Score), Armand Thirard - Cinematographer, Vladimir Ivanov - Cinematographer, Alain Poiré - Producer, Marcel Jullian - Screenwriter, Gérard Oury - Screenwriter, Danièle Thompson - Screenwriter
Le Cerveau (english title : The Brain) is a 1969 comedy film about a second train robbery by the brains of the Great Train Robbery.
Two clumsy French thieves, Anatole and Arthur, plan a spectacular heist : the attack of a freight train which carries from Paris to Brussels the secret funds of NATO. They don't know that another team is planning the same attack, the same one which performed the Glasgow-London Great Train Robbery; the team is headed by The Brain (David Niven), a British criminal mastermind whose massive brain is so heavy that, when he has a strong emotion, he cannot keep his head upright. The Brain has also a deal with the Sicilian mafia.
