Telefon (1977) on Netflix
Nikolai Dalchimsky, a rogue KGB clerk, steals a list of deep-cover sleeper agents and starts waking them by telephone in America. Major Grigori Borzov follows with the one other copy.
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- Netflix2.7/5
- IMDb6.5/106,882 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes44%
Trailer
Plot summary
After the U-2 incident, fearing a war with the United States, the Soviet Union hides brainwashed agents in American towns. They believe they are ordinary citizens and can be switched on by a telephone call quoting a Robert Frost poem and the agent's first name. Their targets are parts of the civil and military infrastructure. Nikolai Dalchimsky, a KGB clerk gone rogue, takes the Telefon Book of names and numbers to America and begins dialing the agents one by one. Buildings fall and American counterintelligence has no answers. Moscow cannot admit the operation exists, so it sends Major Grigori Borzov, whose photographic memory holds the only other copy of the list, to track Dalchimsky down quietly, with one planted agent named Barbara as his contact.
Cast
- Helen Page Campas Emma Stark
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Telefon (1977)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The exploding building in Telefon is the real controlled demolition of the old Paris Gibson Junior High School, filmed on February 20, 1977; the blast started roof fires on nearby houses, put out by city firefighters hired by the movie company.
- The crew had to order two truckloads of snow for a scene because chinook winds at the location had taken away the snow they had; the snow was trucked in from the mountains.
- According to director Don Siegel, actress Lee Remick was terrified of Charles Bronson and, asked to touch his face during a scene, said, "I don't dare. He'll bite me!"
- Charles Bronson said the female lead was perfect for his wife Jill Ireland, who often worked with him, but he did not insist, and Lee Remick was cast instead.
- The city skyline standing in for Houston is actually that of Great Falls, Montana, where the majority of the film was shot.
