Operación Telefon

Riveting political thriller. Bronson plays a Russian intelligence major assigned to stop programmed Stalinist agents from carrying out a possible doomsday plan. Bronson's a member of a reformist wing of the Soviet Communist Party that has replaced hardline Stalinists. However, the earlier doomsday plan remains in effect, and now it's being executed in the US by a renegade Soviet agent (Pleasance). Fortunately for Bronson, the winsome Remick is assigned by Soviets to assist him. Problem is if Pleasance is not stopped he could well set off a nuclear catastrophe.

The movie has two elements from earlier Cold War films: The Manchurian Candidate (1962) and Dr. Strangelove (1964). Like Laurence Harvey in the former, agents here are programmed by trigger words to carry out their mission in robotic fashion. At the same time, there's the overhang of a possible doomsday as in Strangelove. Here those elements are skillfully blended to build suspense.

What really distinguishes the film, however, is an overall absence of Cold War good guys and bad guys. There's really only one villain, the unreformed Stalinist. Unlike 50's Cold War films, this one treats operatives of both sides strictly as professionals doing their duty without noticeable favorites. One possible exception is Remick. Despite her coy girlish manner, she's also been assigned to eliminate partner Bronson once he succeeds in killing Pleasance. That way, no one will be left to spill the beans about the aborted plan and embarrass the new Soviet regime. So Bronson is to be rewarded by his superiors with death. Maybe that's a good enough reason, but not unarguably so.

Meanwhile, Bronson's his usual steely self, while Remick plays up the girlish appearance, leaving us to guess how much of a façade it is. But stealing the show is Tyne Daly as the plain-looking brain behind the American side. Her superiors appear rather addled much of the time, while she deftly maneuvers clues behind her bank of computers. Good touch. Most of the action comes from explosions that blow up real good. I don't know how they did them in 1977, but they're impressive as heck.

Anyway, the movie suggests a possible waning of Cold War passions on our side, perhaps because of growing recognition of what a nuclear exchange would entail. Be that as it may, the movie remains a taut and under-rated political thriller, helmed by the masterful Don Siegel.

I've always liked this movie. But watching it now it is difficult not to laugh out loud at the ridiculous scenes featuring Tyne Daley and her "supercomputer." This stuff was out of date when the film came out, relying on "Lost in Space" style simplicity.

But that's forgivable. What really kept the flick from really being a classic, however, is that it is totally missing the third act! The film ends abruptly with the villain, Dalchimsky, done away with in a fairly simple manner in the small town bar. In the novel, Dalchimsky is also killed in the bar, but not before passing along the coded message that set off the last "sleeper" who then proceeds to make his way to blow up Hoover Dam (or some big dam—can't remember off the top of my head). Then Bronson and Remick's characters had to race to stop the impending disaster. It was a big, exciting ending and I can't understand why they left it out. Maybe they just didn't have the budget. I think spending the dough it would have taken to include the book's ending would have helped mitigate the low budget "TV Movie" feeling "Telefon" often suffers from. But producers knew that Bronson's name would consistently pull a certain audience no matter what, so they rarely tried to do anything big in his films and he never insisted on it—a fact that eventually led to the decline of his career.

If you look at the history of American Cold War films, you see they often, but not always reflect the current state of Western-Soviet relations. Many of the B-movies of the 1950's reflected the anti-communist paranoia that existed stateside; and that decades's Invasion of the Body Snatchers (also directed by Don Siegel) brilliantly parodied McCarthyism. Now we find ourselves in the late 1970's. Gone are Stalin and Kruschev - now we have Breznev and Nixon/Ford and Jimmy Carter and a gradual policy of rapprochement and cooling of tensions. In this film, neo-Stalinists are purged by the pro-Détente Soviet leadership. One such old guard agent, played by Donald Pleasance (who is always in fine form with these 'oily' character representations) decides to unleash an old Soviet conspiracy hatched by leaders in the 50's and unknown to most of the current Soviet brass. I am not going to rehash the entire plot, but let it suffice to say that we have a top Soviet Army General (played by Charles Bronson who mercifully does not even attempt a Russian accent) working together with American double agent Lee Remick, to battle forces more sinister than the current leadership of either the US or the USSR. This truly is the movie that best reflects the détente political philosophy in vogue at this time.

I was never a big Charles Bronson fan. His movies usually followed the same predictable patterns of revenge and violence with Bronson usually coming off dry and stiff. His performances were usually always one note.

Of the few films of his I have enjoyed (see also "The Mechanic" and "Hard Times") from that era, "Telefon is a surprisingly gripping thriller even though the story is downright silly at times. Bronson plays (and doesn't even begin to resemble) a KGB agent out to track a killer who have been brainwashed. One call from this guy and the reciting of some lines from a Frost poem and that person is hypnotized into going out and committing an act of violence that resembles terrorism in many cases. Donald Pleasance convincingly plays the bad guy and that, I think, is what makes the movie work. Pleasance is credible in the role, thus we fear him and route for Bronson to catch him. Also on hand is Lee Remick as an American agent assigned to help Bronson but who also has a hidden agenda of her own.

Director Don Seigel handles the silly material in a straightforward manner never taking things too seriously. Bronson is less stiff then usual and the action scenes are well done. The ending is a bit abrupt but that is minor nit picking. It's a silly thriller I enjoyed and, if you are a Bronson fan, I am sure you will enjoy it too.

One effect of watching this one is that you will always read Frost's "Stopping By Woods" from a very different point of view.

No question, there's a whole lot of good acting in Don Siegel's "Telefon" (from Tyne Daly, for instance), but the story, from Walter Wager's novel, is, at least partly, ridiculous. Criticism of international secret policy comes off o.k., claiming that what intelligence agencies have always lacked most is intelligence. But it's more about suspense and action; especially the blowing up of a whole valley is staged with Siegel's dynamic perfection routine.

The film has got Charles Bronson in its center and he does his usual fine job as an ultra-cool Soviet major smuggled into the U.S. in order to exterminate a fellow KGB agent (Donald Pleasence) who has gone crazy there and is now endangering the whole Cold War balance system.

Please note the important rôle telephones play throughout the whole film, not just for Pleasence's ambitions. And watch out for Roy Jenson as his last victim, a man who has played lots of minor parts in major movies. - And don't forget listen to the film, as Lalo Schifrin's score is very fascinating once again.