their respective employers to let them live in peace somewhere nice and idyllic, which by this time is really asking too much of audiences." Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film 3 stars out of 4 and wrote that it "is by no means a great picture — just solid action held together by a string of explosions. In other words, it's a good movie to eat popcorn by." Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times called the film "a sleek diversion that hasn't much more to it than a routine TV movie." Gary Arnold of The Washington Post stated, "The real problem is that the filmmakers lay out this story blueprint so doggedly that the audience is invariably 25 pages of expository chitchat ahead of them. Following 'Telefon' is about as thrilling as being kept on hold for the better part of the day." Richard Combs of The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote, "This dismal attempt to ring some changes in the spy genre—the protagonist is a KGB agent, his mission is to preserve East-West cordiality—is fatally undercut both by its surprisingly lukewarm plot and unengaged characters and by the fact that its updating is already out of date, Russian-American détente having sprung many leaks." James Monaco wrote that Telefon don't do much but play with paranoia. "It was a typical Siegel film," Siegel said later. "It made absolutely no sense. I did the film because basically I'm a whore." The film holds a score of 40% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 15 reviews. Quentin Tarantino later wrote that "just because the premise is nutty doesn’t mean it’s bad. In fact, it’s far out enough that in the right hands, it could have been a stone gas. But those right hands definitely didn’t belong to old fart Siegel, who blew the picture’s chance for success by de-emphasizing the kooky elements and emphasizing the dull ones. Siegel not only wasted his time, he wasted the Stirling Silliphant and Peter Hyams (who should have directed) script." See also The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad!, a comedy film whose plot borrows heavily from Telefon. Conspiracy thriller References Notes External links 1977 films 1970s spy films 1970s psychological thriller films American spy films American thriller films Cold War spy films Films about the Central Intelligence Agency Films about the KGB Films based on American novels Films based on thriller