Customer Reviews

Agency

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I think this DVD was mastered from a television broadcast. The video quality is very bad, and "R" rated words are omitted from the audio portion. Not bleeped, there's just a "moment of silence" when a character in the film curses. The picture of Mitchum on the cover was taken at least 20 years before the film was made.

Now this is a very good movie.I saw this in about 1984 for the first time.Lee Majors acted very well in this movie alongside Robert Mitcham.
He had a quick witted humor in this movie did Lee Majors.
There is one scene which i found quite amusing,when he was trapped in a car by 2 guys who were going to kill him.One of the guys said one of us is about to commit suicide,Lee Majors said i dont suppose its one of you 2.Then he looked around as these bikies pulled up along side of them at a railway crossing.He blew a kiss at one of the bikies as well as shoving his fist up.He opened the window and said to the bikie,hey are you a farmer,the bikie responded,i aint no farmer, he said then whats that pig doing on your back refuring to his girlfriend.A fight broke out and he managed to get to the driving wheel and escaped.
The movie is good and its one i didnt forget.I have this DVD version but the quality of it is a bit poor.Looks like it was transferred from a video tape.But if you cant put up with the occaisional flicker you should enjoy this movie.I would have given it 5 stars if not for the quality of the video.

Based on a best-selling novel by Paul Gottlieb, and set in the high-pressure veldt of Madison Avenue's advertising jungle (but actually fimed in Montreal, Canada), Mitchum and Majors both star in this provocative thriller about the effects of subliminal messages in TV commercials.

At the time the film was released (1980), an investigative reporter named Wilson Bryan Key published a book entitled "Subliminal Seduction" that took the advertising industry to task for allegedly inserting subliminal messages in print advertising and a Congressional investigation and hearing followed. Nonetheless, the implications for a thriller were undoubtedly in the making for a exciting motion picture.

"Agency" takes the story an exciting step further. When media manipulation and unscrupulous politicians combine, agency owner Ted Quinn and his minions, using technology and subliminal messages, hatch a devious scheme to persuade the unsuspecting public to vote for Quinn's (Mitchum) hand-picked candidate.

Despite a transfer that looks like its been pirated off a VHS tape, the film is fun to watch. In his later years and no longer the leading man commanding starring roles in A-list movies, Mitchum sought to embrace more character types akin to crooked sheriffs and corrupt corporate titans. "Agency" is such an example.

Majors, then just breaking into feature films with the forgettable "The Norseman" (1979) and a very successful run on ABC-TV as "The Six Million Dollar Man," is fairly well-cast as the creative head at Quinn's agency who begins to suspect that Quinn is more than just another corporate suit running the company who will do anything, including murder, to keep his trade secrets. The same year, Majors would star opposite Burgess Meredith and Chris Makespeace in the now-forgotten sci-fi film "The Last Race."

Supporting cast with Valerie Perrine as Majors' love interest, is adequate, and she mangaes to infuse some scenes with charm and humor. The actress, the same year, would go on to play a coveted role opposite Gene Hackman in the 1980 blockbuster "Superman". It is a pity an enjoyable film like this is not digitally remastered with interviews and extras.

The photo of Majors on the slipcase of the DVD is a bit misleading; in the film Majors sports a well trimmed beard. This photo is obviously from Major's stint as TV's bionic man sporting his trademark red tracksuit!

I remember seeing this film at theater in 1981. I own VHS version and I could not wait to DVD with decent quality to be released. This DVD quality is total joke. It is worse than recorded from TV or transferred from VHS to DVD. I understand this movie was not produced nor distributed by major studio. This is Canadian produced film marketed as an American film. Does it mean this movie is never gonna be released with decent quality on DVD!? I hope not.
This movie had a potential to be very powerful thriller film, but script was very one demensional and failed to develop the story. However seeing late Robert Mitchum and Movie stardom hungry Young Lee Majors was priceless as guilty pleasure here. Even 25 years later, I like to pop this VHS into my old VCR and I can not help thinking about how time has flied so quickly......

Also known as "The Agency" on the original DVD and VHS media.

This is a really bizarre "B" movie. I inherited the original DVD from my belated ex. The original is now selling on Amaz0n for under 3 d011ars but beware it is terrible quality. I don't know about the quality of this on-demand copy at 4 times the price.

Despite the impressive cast, these actors must have been desperate for income to have become involved with this movie. I can see how the story sounded like a great idea to them. Unfortunately, it is clearly the work of a substandard director with a low budget and poor quality equipment. I can't blame the actors. They needed to work to pay their bills like the rest of us and probably had no idea just how bad the movie would turn out after the director ruined every aspect he touched.

The movie opens with this utterly bizarre group of dancers wearing demonic, S&M costumes which is almost laughable and would have emptied the theater. The dance is supposedly a commercial for an anti-perspirant. The story was a good concept but this director turned it into trash. There was no excuse. With the story and this cast, he could have made a good movie similar to "Looker" which had similar theme and better direction. You might want to read some of the IMDB reviews... mostly 1 stars. They quite correctly related how this opening drag dancing sequence led the viewers to think this was some p0rn movie. I had the same concern when I watched it the first time and nearly turned it off before watching the rest which was sheer torture with the bad sound. The opening scene best illustrates the mindset of this bad director who would barely qualify for TV movies much less films.

I think the original concept of the movie by the writer was a good idea. It was the director, amateurish crew and production company who turned it into trash. I read up on the director; a Hungarian with no decent list of films under his belt. He took a good concept and turned it into a poor, low budget joke. The ridiculous dialogues and scenes are clearly the fault of the director. Low budget has nothing to do with bad judgment or bad directing. I think this director's only attribute was his friendship with Mitchum... but even Mitchum and Lee Majors could not save the terrible job this director did. A high school teen with a home video camera could have done a much better job. I'm sure this left a bad taste for Majors and Mitchum when they saw what the director had done.

The movie has bizarre scenes, terrible sound quality... no redubbing so you get all the trash noise picked up by the microphones. In some scenes, it is quite muffled. In others, the sound is over compressed and rattles in the speakers. At other times, it blasts you out of the chair. I doubt there was any professional sound editing dept involved with this movie. The rest of the audio distortion was from the age of the film reel used to produce the original DVD.

The camera quality is the type you would have using old 1960's TV studio equipment (As a former TV camera operator in my teens, I recognize the quality of the old mounted cameras and grainy images). You can see the slight movement of the camera operator during stationary shots. You can see his breathing while he holds onto the camera controls... something you would not see from a good professional camera operator.

My original DVD copy shows degradation of color and grainy clarity with muffled sound. This original version appears to have been copied from an old movie film reel copy which had been cloned one too many times. I don't know if this DVD on demand copy is any better. I think I will buy it just to see if there is any improvement in the sound. As it is on my original copy, the dialogue is very hard to hear due to the muffling. There is no closed captioning or subtitles to help with the bad audio. However, not all of the sound problem is from the old film reel. For instance, in some scenes, Lee Major's microphone is better quality while the second actor's microphone is muffled and distorted. This happens in more than one scene with more than one actor... so it is obvious that they had one bad microphone which they never bothered to fix as they used it in numerous scenes. Majors usually had the best microphone but not in every scene.

I think this original story could be refilmed and turned into a halfway decent movie with a better director and a complete rewrite of the screenplay... however, they would have to change the title since this one carries a bad stigma. I would not recommend any movie from this director, George Kaczender. Avoid his movies like the plague. He obviously learned nothing from his first 20 years of experience, so I doubt he did any better on his later work unless the producers kept a firm thumb on him. Anything that turned out decent under his directorship was unlikely his doing... rather the efforts of others to prevent him from destroying it.

Between the bad sound, bad directing and degrading quality of the video... I doubt you would like this movie. If this DVD-R on demand version is any better in quality, I'll update the review.

I didn't mind the story itself. It's an older film and looks it. To explain the background of this would be giving the major plot away so I won't go there but it did have some fine actors in it. However, be wary of the quality of this film. The sound track was hideously overdriven and so distorted in places as to make it unpleasant. Amazon was kind enough to send another copy assuming it was just that one DVD disc and it was every bit as bad as the first one. Clearly the DVD vendor didn't do a good job transferring this from VHS to DVD. I don't know which suppliers are producing poor quality copies and which aren't so you are taking a chance. If you want it, be forewarned.

Robert Mitchum plays the new owner of an advertising agency and Lee Majors is the head of the creative department. Majors' best friend suspects something funny is going on and is eventually found dead. Majors decides to find out what motive is behind Mitchum's ownership.

The quality of the dvd is not quality. The sound is not clear, the picture is not crisp, and there are a couple of the times during the film where the screen flickers.

Was this a technically great movie? No. I would guess that the film didn't have much of a budget, and most of the production costs probably went to pay Mitchum, Majors and Perrine for starring in this film. What's kind of strange is that all three were still solid names that you would think would have attached themselves to bigger budget projects. But then again, you have Casablanca, an all star cast in a low budget, tight schedule production. Not that this movie is Casablanca, nor will it ever be. And the acting isn't the best job these three have done in their life's work, but just the same, it's fun watching these three acting performances.

What you get out of this movie, especially with the quality of the dvd, is like watching an old movie from the forties on broacast television. You kind of want to adjust the rabbit years. It's good old fashioned fun.

I remember seeing this film at theater in 1981. I own VHS version and I could not wait to DVD with decent quality to be released. This DVD quality is total joke. It is worse than recorded from TV or transferred from VHS to DVD. I understand this movie was not produced nor distributed by major studio. This is Canadian produced film marketed as an American film. Does it mean this movie is never gonna be released with decent quality on DVD!? I hope not.
This movie had a potential to be very powerful thriller film, but script was very one demensional and failed to develop the story. However seeing late Robert Mitchum and Movie stardom hungry Young Lee Majors was priceless as guilty pleasure here. Even 25 years later, I like to pop this VHS into my old VCR and I can not help thinking about how time has flied so quickly......

Robert Mitchum and Lee Majors rule in this superb movie.It's a must see DVD at a great price!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!