*** Welcome to piglix ***

Telefon (film)

Telef on
Telefon poster.jpg
theatrical poster
Directed by Don Siegel
Produced by James B. Harris
Written by Walter Wager (novel)
Peter Hyams
Stirling Silliphant
Starring Charles Bronson
Lee Remick
Donald Pleasence
Music by Lalo Schifrin
Cinematography Michael C. Butler
Edited by Douglas Stewart
Production
company
Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
United Artists
Release date
  • December 16, 1978 (1978-12-16) (U.S.)
Running time
102 minutes
Country United States
Language English

Telefon is a 1978 spy film starring Charles Bronson, Donald Pleasence and Lee Remick. It was directed by Don Siegel. The film is based on a 1975 novel about mind control by Walter Wager.

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 (a line from Robert Frost's poem "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," followed by their real given names). 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 are formerly top secret facilities that were declassified or abandoned years before, then commit suicide.

The KGB dares not tell its political leaders, much less the Americans, about its negligence in not deactivating the spy network. 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 and embarrasses the KGB or possibly starts a nuclear war. He is given the assistance of only a single agent planted in America, Barbara (Lee Remick).


...
Wikipedia

...