10 clues to movie

[cmvgor]

*3.* Opening credits image: A graphic of a telephone receiver with a frayed and useless cord. Closing credits background a silent telephone receiver swinging on it's cord. Themes of distance, regret, longing and loss. // Concerns at the top levels of the London office that there may be a leak. At first, minor things, like papers and briefcases being taken out by people who were supposedly just going to lunch. // Lower-echelon paranoia: Arriving home and learning that a new "electricity man" had done some work in the house today. Reasonalble to check the fuse box area to see if there was anything new (bug?) present in the house.

[cmvgor]

*4.* Lower-echelon humor: "I'm afraid the bottom's dropped out of the British Secrets market."

 

Upper-echelon thinking: No publicity, no trials. "And we don't want the midnight departure, the plane out of the country, followed by the press conference in Moscow."

[cmvgor]

*5.* The former field man now working the London office: He had worked in South Africa, where he had met and married a beautiful tribal woman. He brought her and her son with him when he was promoted to the Admin. level. Home some 10 years now and they lived happily in a suburb. The lad has grown into a proper little Brit, and the man's mother considers the boy her grandson, although

her son is not the boy's father biologically.

[cmvgor]

*6.* Droll, deadpan comedy of manners moments: An executive, after a weekend "shoot" at his estate, brings uncleaned, unplucked dead phesants to work as gifts for underlings who are in no position to refuse them and must feign gratitude. // A man makes a lunch date with an uncaring woman who doesn't keep the date. He has to make a verbal report to a superior after the lunch, so he has some office documents with him for a quick review. He is observed by a superior -- work materials out of the office and awaiting someone who doesn't show up. And this is a man already under suspicion for leaking department info. // An executive attends his daughter's wedding reception, meeting his dreaded ex-wife for the first time in years. He gets a phone call informing him that an underling has died suddenly -- the one who misbehaved with the office documents at lunchtime. Just as the executive departs, he manages to break one of the ex-wife's prized ceramic owls.

[cmvgor]

*7.* Flashback some 8 years or so to when the agent was operating in South Africa, with a cover story as a magazine writer. The woman was active in anti-Apartheid efforts, as was the biological father of her son. He had asked some favors in getting her out of that zone, and was obligated for some favors in return. Back in the "present day" of the 1970s, his Department is visited by a South African police official who is belligerenty eager to arrest the wife and take her back. "If you want to f**k a black ****, why don't you go to a whorehouse in Swaziland? It's still a part of your so-called commonwealth."

 

In other developments, the Security chief reviews all facts concerning the young office man who had died. (An in-house doctor had brought about this fatality, then covered it up as a natural-causes death, to be blamed on excessive drinking.) The Security man's report: "I think you killed the wrong man." The doctor's response: "Pity."

 

The operative now tells everything to his wife, about what he did to bring about her freedom. "I've been a double agent for seven years". Sure now that he is close to arrest, he sends the wife and son off to his mother's home, with a story that they have argued and separated. Now he must get himself to safety.

[The Lady Eve]

*The Human Factor* (1979), film by Preminger, novel by Graham Greene?

[cmvgor]

...and script by Tom Stoppard, with a cast that included Nicol Williamson, Derik Jacobi, Richard Attenborough, Robert Morley and John Gielgud. Correct. Did not get the attention that that assembly of talent deserved, IMO. Eve's thread.

[The Lady Eve]

Thanks, I'll be back

[The Lady Eve]

1. A ripping adventure set in a faraway land?

[phroso]

ICE STATION ZEBRA?

[The Lady Eve]

Good guess, but that?s not it?

 

2. Daring men have audacious dreams of claiming riches and glory

[phroso]

TOPKAPI?

[The Lady Eve]

Another good guess, but I?m thinking of a different film?

 

3. They?re assisted by their outsized ambition, a fateful incident, guns?and a decent translator?

[cmvgor]

*The Man Who Would Be King* ?

[The Lady Eve]

That?s right, cmvgor?John Huston?s 1975 adaptation of Rudyard Kipling?s story?it starred Sean Connery, Michael Caine and Christopher Plummer as Rudyard Kipling?good work, your thread?

[cmvgor]

Thanks, Eve.

 

*1.* A bar in a large city. Lower-income clientel. The viewer gets acquainted with the patrons and staff along with a new customer: A man who attempted a high-drop suicide and survived. Long recovery, difficulty walking.

[cmvgor]

*2.* (63,046)

The patrons have formed friendships, and they help each other cope with handicaps and shortcomings. One man reads porn fiction for his blind friend. Those who have trouble getting around are helped by their friends. The regular bartender has a crippled leg, but he gets around okay, and he is good at his job. These people are supportive of each other.

[phroso]

Gotta be INSIDE MOVES, (aka the OTHER Harold Russell movie.)

[cmvgor]

Right. Harold Russell as "Wings", the patron with hooks instead of hands. For my money it has some of the best work that Amy Wright (the junkie hooker) ever did, and that's going some. Some 20 views or so. phroso's thread.

[phroso]

I always like Amy Wright, and wish she had more high profile roles. Ditto for fellow cast member Diana Scarwid, who seemed to drop off the map after several promising roles in the early 1980s.

 

 

 

Next clue:

 

1.) A likable but hapless lead character.

[cmvgor]

*The Sad Sack* ??

[phroso]

Not SAD SACK, good guess, but . . .

 

 

 

 

 

2.) . . . This character has just gotten out of the army, and is trying to make his mark in the private sector.

[phroso]

Not A PLACE IN THE SUN, although a reasonable guess.

 

 

3.) He attends a few business orientations, with results ranging from awkward to disastrous.

[phroso]

4.) His uncle talks him into taking a blue collar job, where, when his movie was made, a new employee could make better money than an entry level white collar employee.

[phroso]

5.) The hero is immediately mistaken for an efficiency expert at his new job, causing friction with the plant's eccentric union leader and a two-faced personnel manager.