Details

Release year: 1977

Storyline

A Russian officer is sent to the U.S. to try and stop sleeper agents who will mindlessly attack government entities when they hear certain coded words.

Top credits

Directors

Don Siegel

Writers

Cast

Charles Bronson — Maj. Grigori Borzov
Lee Remick — Barbara
Donald Pleasence — Nicolai Dalchimsky
Tyne Daly — Dorothy Putterman

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Did you know

• Director Don Siegel asked Charles Bronson to shave his trademark mustache off for this movie. Bronson replied, "No mustache, no Bronson." Siegel said in his book 'A Siegel Film: An Autobiography', "I felt that as much as Bronson wore a heavy mustache in Russia, it would help his disguise if he had no mustache when he arrives in Canada. However he didn't want to shave it off."

• The name of the poem used as the code spoken over the telephone to activate sleepers was 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening' by Robert Frost. This poem was originally published in 1923 in his collection titled 'New Hampshire'. The exact lines from the poem heard in the movie each time were: "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."

• Reportedly, during filming, star Charles Bronson didn't want to kiss actress Lee Remick in the scene at airport. Bronson said that "When my wife meets me at an airport, we never kiss." Director Don Siegel asked Remick to kiss him anyway and Remick replied, "But, Don, I don't dare. He's liable to hit me!" The airport greeting scene went ahead and made Don's day.