Telefon (1977)

User Rating:

6.4/10   

Director:

Don Siegel

Writers:

Walter Wager (novel)
Peter Hyams (writer) ...

Release Date:

16 December 1977 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Action | Thriller

Tagline:

They'll do anything to stop Telefon. The operation that can trigger 51 human time bombs.

Plot:

The KGB's looking for one of their people, a man named Dalchimsky cause he has stolen something important...

Plot Keywords:

KGB | Brainwashing | Poem | Sabotage | Hypnosis

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Charles Bronson	...	Major Grigori Borzov
Lee Remick	...	Barbara
Donald Pleasence	...	Nicolai Dalchimsky
Tyne Daly	...	Dorothy Putterman
Alan Badel	...	Colonel Malchenko
Patrick Magee	...	General Strelsky
Sheree North	...	Marie Wills
Frank Marth	...	Harley Sandburg
Helen Page Camp	...	Emma Stark
Roy Jenson	...	Doug Stark
Jacqueline Scott	...	Mrs. Hassler
Ed Bakey	...	Carl Hassler
John Mitchum	...	Harry Bascom
Iggie Wolfington	...	Father Stuart Diller
Hank Brandt	...	William Enders

Runtime:

102 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Metrocolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:PG | Iceland:16 | West Germany:16 (nf) | Finland:K-16 | Norway:15 | Norway:16 (1978) | Spain:T | Sweden:15 | UK:PG | USA:PG

Filming Locations:

Atrium Lobby, Hyatt Regency Hotel - 5 Embarcadero Center, San Francisco, California, USA

Company:

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)

Trivia:

While shooting in Helsinki, a young Renny Harlin was there watching 'Don Siegel (I)' and Charles Bronson working. After seeing two big Hollywood names working, he announced to his friends that he is going to be a film director.

Goofs:

Anachronisms: Sergeant in KGB office is pulling out unloaded gun to shoot everyone in the room. The gun is revolver which used to be Soviet Army official gun but was changed soon after WWII to Makarov (clip type). Hence quite unlikely general would have such an obsolete weapon in his office minding all the security and control in KGB.

Quotes:

Nicolai Dalchimsky: The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, but I have promises to keep. And miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep. Remember. Miles to go before I sleep.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Grindhouse (2007)

A Good Film featuring dated technology and missing the Big Ending

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 This stuff was out of date when the film came out, relying on "Lost in Space" style simplicity.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.