for Russia. A magazine in the Soviet Union ran an article critical of the film, claiming it aimed to stir up trouble and demonised the Russians. Don Siegel denied this saying the film was "pro Russia and pro peace." "I have to face the fact the story is cockamamie at best," said Siegel. "So I've been particularly painstaking to give the movie a feeling of authenticity." The city skyline depicting Houston, where part of the story line occurred, is actually that of Great Falls, Montana, where the majority of the film was shot. During filming, the crew had to order two truckloads of snow needed for one of the scenes, because the chinook winds in the area took away the snow they had. They were trucked from the mountains. Filming in downtown Great Falls was also included. The exploding building in one scene is actually the controlled demolition of the old Paris Gibson Junior High School. The explosion scene was filmed on February 20, 1977. The present day Paris Gibson square was undamaged, but the explosion started roof fires on a couple of nearby houses that were quickly extinguished by city firefighters hired by the movie company on stand by. The Houston scenes were shot on a Hollywood backlot, while the interior of the Houston Hyatt Regency was portrayed by 5 Embarcadero Center in San Francisco, California – the location which was also used in The Towering Inferno. The scenes with fires and explosions at a rocket engine test site were filmed at Rocketdyne's Santa Susana Field Laboratory in the mountains northwest of Los Angeles. According to director Siegel, actress Lee Remick was terrified of Charles Bronson, and when asked to touch his face during a scene, responded, "I don't dare. He'll bite me!" As parts of the film were shot in Finland, there are several cameo appearances by Finnish movie stars, most notably Ansa Ikonen. Reception Critical response Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote, "Though there are action sequences in 'Telefon,' they are never sustained, and the screenplay only occasionally comes up with witty substitutes for the missing plausibility. However, to describe 'Telefon' as synthetic is to take it more seriously than it's taken by anyone connected with it." Arthur D. Murphy of Variety called the film "pleasant escapism" with a story that "runs its interesting if predictable course until fadeout romantic clinch as the stars tell