Final Assignment

Final Assignment is a 1980 Canadian thriller drama film, written by Marc Rosen and directed by Paul Almond.[1]

Final Assignment
Directed byPaul Almond
Produced byGail Thomson
Written byMarc Rosen
StarringGeneviève Bujold
Michael York
Burgess Meredith
Colleen Dewhurst
Music byPeter Jermyn
CinematographyJohn Coquillon
Edited byDebra Karen
Production
company
Cinema One
Release date
Running time
98 mins
CountryCanada
LanguageEnglish

Plot

In this complex spy caper, Nicole (Geneviève Bujold) is a Canadian broadcast journalist working on assignment in the Soviet Union. She is there to cover a visit by the Canadian Prime Minister, but along the way she discovers an unethical experimentation on children involving the use of steroids, she is also involved in smuggling out a girl for emergency brain surgery. Things get complicated when in the process, she develops a romantic liaison with yoshita (Michael York), a bureaucrat in the Soviet press corps whose job is to watch her during her stay. A rich businessman (Burgess Meredith) she knows happens to be in Russia at the same time, and she asks him to help her in the smuggling attempt.

The film's cast also includes Colleen Dewhurst and Richard Gabourie.

Production

The film had originally been slated to be directed by Silvio Narizzano, although he left the production and Almond was brought in.[2] Production was further complicated when the Soviet government refused Almond's request for stock film footage of Moscow and Leningrad, due to its displeasure at Canada's diplomatic response to the 1979 Soviet–Afghan War.[3]

Dewhurst described her experience working on the film as "summer stock in Podunk". She clarified that "the crew was terrific. The hierarchy was at fault. I keep praying that it will never come out. I have no comment about Mr. Almond and you can write that down. You will never see four more confused actors on the screen in your life."[4]

Critical response

In his 2003 book A Century of Canadian Cinema, film scholar Gerald Pratley trashed the film, calling it "probably the worst spy movie ever made".[1]

gollark: But it's also able to respond to signals and start/stop it accordingly somehow.
gollark: *But* it's also handling stdio from that process too.
gollark: Yes, I know THAT much.
gollark: I mostly want to know how the apioids it is waiting for a process to exit and doing other stuff without threads.
gollark: There are no comments beyond stuff like `case '2': /* sig usr2 */`.

References
  1. Gerald Pratley, A Century of Canadian Cinema. Lynx Images, 2003. ISBN 1-894073-21-5. p. 77.
  2. "Director replaced on Bujold film". The Globe and Mail, September 15, 1979.
  3. Sid Adilman, "Soviets clash with movie maker". Toronto Star, January 7, 1980.
  4. Sid Adilman, "Colleen Dewhurst is coming home". Toronto Star, March 22, 1980.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.