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An old-line Stalinist opposed to warming US-Soviet relations, KGB man Pleasence begins activating Americans brainwashed 20 years earlier to blow up US defense emplacements when someone reads the Robert Frost passage "The woods are lovely dark and deep/But I have promises to keep/And miles

to go before I sleep to them over the phone." When the Kremlin, previously unaware of the whole scheme, realizes what a series of bombings at abandoned US installations means, they send crack KGB man Bronson to stop Pleasence. With him is fellow KGB agent Remick, secretly a double agent and

predictably the woman Bronson wants to run away with at the end. The ludicrous relationship between these two spies almost destroys what little credibility the story has, but director Siegel keeps their screen time to a minimum and instead concentrates on propelling the narrative at top speed. The

Russian scenes were shot in Finland, the usual Hollywood substitute for the real thing (serving the same purpose in films from DR. ZHIVAGO and THE KREMLIN LETTER to GORKY PARK).