TELEFON (1977)

MORGAN'S RATING

COMING SOON

Nicolai Dalchimsky, a mad KGB agent steals a notebook full of names of "sleeping" undercover KGB agents sent to the U.S. in the 1950s. These agents got their assignments under hypnosis, so they can't remember their missions until they're told a line of a Robert Frost poem. Dalchimsky flees to the U.S. and starts phoning these agents who perform sabotage acts against military targets. Since the Soviets can't disclose the crisis to the U.S. government, they send Colonel Borzov, a military intelligence officer, to find and eliminate Dalechimsky before his actions trigger a war.

Charles Bronson (KGB Agent Grigori Borzov), Lee Remick (Barbara), Donald Pleasance (Nicolai Dalchimsky), Tyne Daly (Dorothy Putterman), Alan Badel (Col. Malchenko), Patrick Magee (Gen. 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), John Carter (Stroller), Burton Gillian (Gas Station Man), Regis Cordic (Doctor), Carmen Zapata (Nurse), Carl Byrd (Navy Lieutenant), Robert Phillips (Highway Patrolman), Kathleen O'Malley (Mrs. Maloney), Ake Lindman (Lt. Alexandrov), Ansa Ikonen (Dalchimsky's Mother), John Hambrick (TV Newsman), Henry Alfaro (TV Reporter), Glenda Wina (TV Anchor Woman), Jim Nolan (Appliance Store Clerk), George Petrie (Hotel Receptionist), Jeff David (Maitre d'), Lew Brown (Petty Officer).

YOUR NEXT PHONE CALL MAY BE YOUR LAST!

FACTS

PRODUCTION INFORMATION

RELEASE DATE: December 1977 (USA) - During the parking garage sequence, a yellow Lincoln Continental sedan plays an important part in the attempted bombing of the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Houston Texas (actually San Francisco, California). In Charley Varrick (1973), also directed by Don Siegel, a yellow Lincoln Continental was used during a bank robbery, where the driver, Jacqueline Scott, is wounded and dies. - Charles Bronson and Donald Pleasance appear together for the last time. - The interior of the Hyatt Regency is located at 5 Embrarcadero Center in San Francisco, California. This is the same location where The Towering Inferno (1974) was filmed. - The code used to activate sleepers is taken from a poem by Robert Frost, "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening", originally published in 1923 in his collection titled "New Hampshire". The exact lines are: 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.

DIRECTOR: Don Siegel. WRITERS: Peter Hyams and Stirling Silliphant, and based on the novel by Walter Wager. PRODUCER: James B. Harris. ORIGINAL MUSIC: Lalo Schifrin.  DISTRIBUTOR: MGM

QUOTES

Grigori Borzov: Being paranoid doesn't mean we're not being followed.

CRITICAL COMMENTS

"A sketchy, feeble thriller...apart from a certain energy evident in the cutting, you'd never know it was the work of Don Siegel, a generally excellent action director." -- David Kehr, Chicago Reader