The Chairman (1969)

The Chairman is a 1969 film, a spy thriller starring Gregory Peck. It was directed by J. Lee Thompson. The screenplay was by Ben Maddow, based on a novel by Jay Richard Kennedy.

The plot involves an american who is sent to communist China in order to retrieve an important agricultural enzyme. What he does not know is that there is a bomb implanted in his head; the forces behind his mission will detonate it if he fails to carry out the assignment.

Dr No (1962), the very first James Bond movie was such a hit that, not only did it begin the most successful franchise in cinema history, it spawned a slew on imitators in the decade that followed. They ranged from the far out comedy of Matt Helm (Dean Martin), the crazy hip playboy of Our Man Flint (James Coburn) and the English knockabout Harry Palmer (Michael Caine). Even Gregory Peck got in on the act with The Chairman (1969) which attempted rather more world realism. This was Peck’s fourth collaboration with director J.Lee Thompson after working on The Guns of Navarone (1961), Cape Fear (1962), and Mackenna’s Gold (1969).

The script is pretty far ahead of its time dealing with Chinese research into genetically modified plants, allowing wheat to be grown on any land surface and in any climate. The Americans, British and Russians get together to try to steal the enzyme and send Nobel prize-winning scientist John Hathaway (Peck) into China to get the formula. Hathaway has a radio transmitter implanted in his head – but is unaware it is also a bomb which can be detonated at any time. The US military comes in the form of Shelby (Arthur Hill) an abrupt career man. He wears glasses with one glass dark, one light which gives some indication of the characters duality and references the good and bad – some may remember the exact same device is used for Archangel, Deputy Director of The FIRM, in the eighties television series Airwolf. Ori Levy has great fun as the Russian Shertov, stealing every scene he is in and literally munching through his lines with great enthusiasm.

The movie is surprising in that when Hathaway reaches China, the main protagonist is Chairman Mao! Conrad Yama gives an extraordinary performance as Mao.

He and Hathaway play a ping pong game whilst throwing each other’s temperament and nationalities at each other - words are twisted with each volley of the ball. It’s amusing to connect this scene with the later visit of President Nixon to China and the problems he faced on his return. Hathaway eventually meets up with the scientists working on the enzyme and tries to make off with the formula in an armoured tank.

The movie has many good points but unfortunately doesn't add up to the sum of its parts.

The opening main title sequence apes, and in many ways outdoes, those of the Bond movies. Created by Paul Brown Constable, photographs of the Cultural Revolution (which had only started a couple years before the movie was made) are spliced together as the wonderful Jerry Goldsmith score thunders in. There’s a kinetic energy to the film as it zips along. However a couple of scenes, with romantic interest Kay Hanna (Anne Heywood), are very poorly handled and could easily have been cut from the movie. Unlike Bond, the film does allow Peck to be roughed up quite badly and a couple of Asian actress’s are given very strong and dominant roles.