When I was a kid, FOX-16 out of Little Rock, Arkansas would have “Charles Bronson weeks” where every night they’d show a different Bronson film. I saw several of his films for the first time during those weeks and TELEFON was one of those movies. I remember really enjoying it that first time I saw it, and I’ve always carried that positive feeling with me.
The plot of TELEFON is pretty interesting. In a nutshell, Charles Bronson is Russian KGB agent, Grigori Borsov, who’s been sent to the United States to stop radical Russian Nicolai Dalchimsky (Donald Pleasance), before he can set off more hypnotized human time bombs. Lee Remick is a beautiful Russian agent (double agent?) who helps him with his mission.
I personally think TELEFON is an underrated Charles Bronson film, and it seems like a movie that has almost been forgotten. This is strange to me because it had quite the pedigree at the time of production. Bronson was a huge star at the time, and the director was Don Siegel, the man behind such classics as DIRTY HARRY, ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ, and THE SHOOTIST. The cast is exceptional as well, with Bronson being joined by the likes of Donald Pleasance, Lee Remick, Tyne Daly, Sheree North and Patrick Magee. The screenplay was co-written by Peter Hyams, who would go on to direct such excellent films as OUTLAND, THE STAR CHAMBER, and RUNNING SCARED. My point of sharing all of this is that true professionals were at work in front of, and behind the camera, and they created a damn fine Cold War thriller. I was glad that Shout Factory put out a nice blu ray of the film in January of 2024. Hopefully film enthusiasts will begin discovering the film again.
With that said, TELEFON isn’t a perfect film and I do have a few small complaints. First, Charles Bronson doesn’t appear in the film until we’re already 21 minutes deep. That’s a long time for me to have to wait for the man! Second, Bronson and Remick don’t have a lot of sexual chemistry. She’s beautiful and he oozes masculinity, but somehow it doesn’t really extend to a real connection between their characters. That’s one of the reasons I like it when Bronson works with his wife Jill Ireland. That chemistry is usually there between them. Third, Donald Pleasance wears several wigs and looks kind of dorky at times. Fourth, Sheree North wears a housecoat during her section of the film. If you’ve seen her in BREAKOUT with Bronson from a couple of years earlier, you understand just what a missed opportunity that was. Finally, Tyne Daly is so good in her small role, but she ultimately just kind of exits the film. I’d have liked even more of her. These are small complaints, with the exception of Bronson’s entrance & North’s wardrobe choice, that I don’t really hold against the movie.
The last thing that I want to mention is that there are a couple interesting pop culture references to TELEFON in movies that came out later. First, the writers of THE NAKED GUN borrowed the plot about hypnotized human time bombs in their own plot to assassinate the visiting Queen of England. Certain scenes are taken directly from TELEFON. I remember watching THE NAKED GUN in theaters in the late 80’s and wondering if I was the only person who realized this fact. Second, in DEATH PROOF, Quentin Tarantino used the major plot device of quoting the Robert Frost poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” in order to trigger something. In TELEFON, it was human time bombs. In DEATH PROOF, it was human lap dances. God bless Quentin Tarantino!
Through the Shattered Lens