Telefon (film)

After the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Soviet Union planted a number of long-term, deep-cover sleeper agents all over the United States, spies so thoroughly brainwashed that even they did not know they were agents and can be activated only by a special code phrase. (The phrase is a line from the Robert Frost poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening", followed by the agent's real first name.) Their mission was to sabotage crucial parts of the civil and military infrastructure in the event of conflict.

More than 20 years pass, and the Cold War gradually gives way to détente. Narrowly escaping a relentless purge of old Stalinism loyalists, Nikolai Dalchimsky (Donald Pleasence), a rogue KGB headquarters clerk, travels to America, taking with him the Telefon Book which contains the names, addresses and telephone numbers of all the sleeper agents. He starts activating them, one by one. American counterintelligence is thrown into confusion when seemingly ordinary citizens blow up what were formerly top secret facilities that have since become relatively inconsequential, and then either commit suicide or die in the act itself.

The KGB dares not tell its political leaders, much less the Americans, about its negligence in not deactivating the spy network. KGB Major Grigori Borzov (Charles Bronson), who is selected for his photographic memory, memorizes the contents of the only other copy of the Telefon Book. He is then sent to find and stop Dalchimsky quietly, before either side learns what is happening, which would greatly embarrass the KGB and possibly even start a war between the powers. Borzov is given the assistance of only a single agent, Barbara (Lee Remick), planted in America years before.

Eventually, Borzov realizes the method behind Dalchimsky's pattern of attacks: he has chosen the agents by the first letters of their American hometowns, "writing" his own name in sabotage across America. Using that information, Borzov is able to anticipate Dalchimsky's next chosen sleeper agent, and locate and kill Dalchimsky.

However, there are a number of twists. Barbara has orders from the KGB to assassinate Borzov once he succeeds, to get rid of a dangerous loose end. In addition, she is a double agent actually working for America. When she informs her American superior, Sandburg (Frank Marth), he also tells her to kill Borzov, so she will retain the confidence of the KGB. However, Barbara has fallen in love with her would-be target. She informs Borzov, and together they blackmail both sides into leaving them alone, holding the threat of the remaining Telefon agents over their heads.

Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote, "Though there are action sequences in 'Telefon,' they are never sustained, and the screenplay only occasionally comes up with witty substitutes for the missing plausibility. However, to describe 'Telefon' as synthetic is to take it more seriously than it's taken by anyone connected with it."[13] Arthur D. Murphy of Variety called the film "pleasant escapism" with a story that "runs its interesting if predictable course until fadeout romantic clinch as the stars tell their respective employers to let them live in peace somewhere nice and idyllic, which by this time is really asking too much of audiences."[14] Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film 3 stars out of 4 and wrote that it "is by no means a great picture — just solid action held together by a string of explosions. In other words, it's a good movie to eat popcorn by."[15] Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times called the film "a sleek diversion that hasn't much more to it than a routine TV movie."[16] Gary Arnold of The Washington Post stated, "The real problem is that the filmmakers lay out this story blueprint so doggedly that the audience is invariably 25 pages of expository chitchat ahead of them. Following 'Telefon' is about as thrilling as being kept on hold for the better part of the day."[17] Richard Combs of The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote, "This dismal attempt to ring some changes in the spy genre—the protagonist is a KGB agent, his mission is to preserve East-West cordiality—is fatally undercut both by its surprisingly lukewarm plot and unengaged characters and by the fact that its updating is already out of date, Russian-American détente having sprung many leaks."[18]

"It was a typical Siegel film," Siegel said later. "It made absolutely no sense. I did the film because basically I'm a whore."[19]

The film currently holds a score of 40% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 15 reviews.[20]

Quentin Tarantino later wrote that "just because the premise is nutty doesn’t mean it’s bad. In fact, it’s far out enough that in the right hands, it could have been a stone gas. But those right hands definitely didn’t belong to old fart Siegel, who blew the picture’s chance for success by de-emphasizing the kooky elements and emphasizing the dull ones. Siegel not only wasted his time, he wasted the Stirling Silliphant and Peter Hyams (who should have directed) script."[21]

• The Manchurian Candidate
• The Simultaneous Man
• The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!, a comedy film whose plot borrows heavily from Telefon
• Salt, a 2010 action film starring Angelina Jolie about Russian sleeper agents
• Assassinations in fiction
• Conspiracy thriller
• Homeland (TV series)

• Bettencourt, Scott. "Telefon" (PDF). Film Score Monthly.

• Telefon at IMDb
• Telefon at the TCM Movie Database
• Telefon at AllMovie