The Chairman
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Movie Reviews of The Chairman
Movie Review: Opportunity, oppression and an explosive opportunity
Summary: 5 Stars
We are in the middle of the cold war. Too bad because we ar also victims of increasing population and decreasing farmland.
Looks like Professor Soong Li (Keye Luke, of Charlie Chan fame) has invented an enzyme to produce extra cheap food. Unfortunately he is behind the iron curtain in Red China. The formula cannot come out so someone capable of understanding it must go in; Dr. John Hathaway (Gregory Peck) a scientist with scruples.
Naturedly incase he can not get out they fitted his head with a micro-transmitter so he could relay the formula. They seem to have forgotten to tell him the transmitter was also a bomb large enough to take out anyone standing near.
We see how ruthless and conniving the red's are and how they humiliate Soong Li for being a professor.
Should we take revenge and a perfect opportunity as Dr. John Hathaway stands next to the Chairman (Conrad Yama?)
Movie Review: Kaleidoscopic Cold War Epic
Summary: 5 Stars
Well it is not entirely an epic but it certainly is bizarre. This film has great potential as a somewhat conventional spy film with a few experimental eavesdropping gadgets thrown in for good measure. Yet director J. Lee Thompson puts his own distinctive stamp on it making it a frenzied and often unsettling kaleidoscopic affair. It is taut, suspenseful and often defies credibility and that is what makes it so much fun and very entertaining. Gregory Peck and Arthur Hill are as stoic as ever and it is good to see actress Anne Heywood show up in this film. One of the highlights of this film is Jerry Goldsmith's incredible score. It is amazing how he intuitively puts such great effort at times into modest production's that aspire or beg for some added dimension to enhance the film. In all this is a very interesting and entertaining look at China during the height of the Cold War era. Great packaging on this DVD by the way.
Movie Review: Great film and superb extras
Summary: 5 Stars
It was great to see this film get the five star treatment it deserves. The deleted scenes, especially the ones for 'overseas' countries are fantastic. The audio commentary is both informative and entertaining.
A must have DVD for any fan of 60s cinema and Gregory Peck. Now if only Fox will release Hard Contract (1969) with James Coburn...
Movie Review: Atmospheric Cold War Thriller...
Summary: 4 Stars
In 1969, Red China was a dark and mysterious place, closed to the outside world, in the grip of the cultural revolution, and run by the charismatic Mao, Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party. When American scientist and Nobel Prize winner John Hathaway receives a letter from a former mentor now living in China, he is asked by his government to make a visit. His old teacher may have invented an enzyme that allows crops to be grown anywhere.
Gregory Peck is gruffly realistic as Hathaway, scientist and aging former intelligence asset. His handler is a General Shelby, played with bureaucratic starchiness by Arthur Hill. Shelby, at the head of a combined US, British, and Soviet operation, dispatches Hathaway into China with a micro-transmitter emplanted in his head.
Upon arrival in China, Hathaway is graced by an audience with the Chairman himself, an intriguing political set-piece. Hathaway finds his mentor in a remote rural compound near the Russian border, where the old man is under siege by the fanatical Red Guard. When Hathaway suspects Chinese security is closing in, he will make a try for the enzyme formula and a break for the border. The thrilling escape sequence is made all the more suspenseful for the audience by the knowledge, not shared by Hathaway, that Shelby will not let his agent be taken alive.
The Cold War theatrical effects of "The Chairman" look slightly overdone at this distance of time, as does the effort to portray Hathaway as both spy and humanitarian. However, the location shooting in China is grittily authentic and recreates the claustrophobic atmosphere of a revolution out of control. The Chairman's meeting with Hathaway is stagey but contains a key philosphical point. Hathaway's escape attempt holds up extremely well as a thrilling action sequence. "The Chairman" is therefore highly recommended as a dated but still worthwhile Cold War thriller.
Movie Review: Best of Genre
Summary: 4 Stars
Gregory Peck was without peer as a convincing actor who always brought something special to every role he played.
Here, he was a renowned scientist, pretending to know more about hybrid plant species than he did. This helped him in a role of deception so that he could unlock a secret from an enemy (Red-China) that would neutralize their ability to have an undue and unbelievable influence on third world nations struggling to feed themselves.
What Peck's character did not know was that people in his own governmment,(the USA) were not telling him everything about his covert mission and what he did not know could have killed him.
An exciting film about a very nervous time in our recent history.
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