Telefon

A Cold War thriller. Years ago the Soviets placed a group of agents in America. These people built ordinary lives; they do not remember their own pasts and live as normal citizens. Each has a trigger. On hearing a fragment of a poem read over the telephone the hypnosis lifts, an order given years ago takes over, and they attack an assigned target. The programme was cancelled. But a man holding the list ran, crossed to America, and is telephoning them one by one and waking them. Both sides want it stopped. For the Soviets the reason is simple: these attacks could start a war. Moscow sends an agent. Borzov's task is to find the list and silence the man; a contact is provided to help him in America. From there the film becomes a chase. In each section a call is made, a person wakes, and the team tries to catch up. What the narrative is interested in is not espionage but consciousness: people who know nothing acting outside their own will and not remembering it. Charles Bronson plays Borzov and Lee Remick the contact. Donald Pleasence is in the cast, as the man carrying the list. Don Siegel directed. Peter Hyams and Stirling Silliphant are credited on the screenplay. Who it is for: anyone who likes 1970s Cold War thrillers and Bronson. Who it is not for: anyone looking for realism; the hypnosis idea is entirely invented and the film accepts it without question.