midge56 I was actually being quite generous with the stars on this one. The quality of this video was really about 2 stars, but the original author and actors deserved better than that.Spoilers! So don't read further unless you want to know what the movie was about.A much better movie with a similar theme would be "Looker" with Susan Dey. Both movies are about subliminal messages in TV advertising with murders and subterfuge.They had a good idea with this story. I'm sure the original author was mortified when he saw what was done with his story. Even with Mitchum and Majors, this director, producer and film crew managed to destroy this movie. It could have been quite good but I was in shocked disbelief from the moment the movie started until the very end.I strongly suspect that Mitchum and Majors had no idea how bad this movie was going to turn out until after it was processed. I'm sure they were both horrified with the results. It wasn't their fault. It might have been a good movie with a completely different film crew and film executives.Bad sound; bad script & screen writing; bad directing; bad lighting; bad camera work; bad video quality; bad transfer; bad dialogue...The screen writing was a disaster. When it started out with that "no sweat" commercial in demonic attire... I actually grabbed the DVD box because I thought it was some kind of drag p0rn0 based on the opening scene. I somehow pictured the entire theater emptying out with this scene. There was no excuse for the way this script was written and laid out.I'm not sure they used a script for this movie. I think they just decided on a scene the night before and handed out the dialogue just before each shot. I really felt sorry for the actors. They really did their best. From the sound, there was obviously no "voice over" to clean up the sound of the dialogue, what little there was of it.Bad directing of the worst kind. I really mean this quite literally when I say a high school kid could have done a better job with a hand held camera in their garage. A 12 year old could have done better... and I'm not sure where the producer was hiding out while all of this was taking place.The sound quality was so terrible and distorted, we could have used a cassette recorder in a purse and done a better job with the sound. It was painful just to attempt to listen to this butchered, difficult to understand sound track. It was muffled, distorted and constantly fluctuating.The video and lighting were terrible. It was dark. The quality was worse than a 1950's TV show. There was no semblance of professional lighting. I mean this quite literally. I'm not being unkind. The cameras looked like old hand-held 1960's TV cameras which required extremely bright, hot lights to obtain a decent image.When there was something to see... such as the suicide in the refrigerator... the director did not have the camera stay on it long enough for you to absorb what you were seeing. But the ridiculous notion that someone would have killed himself by clearing out the refrigerator, cramming inside, then leaving a note was dumb enough. But the added disbelief that the police detectives didn't see anything suspicious about the situation was simply too much to bear.Then we had the same "suicide" victim leave a reel to reel recording of about 6 scenes of the movie... really sounded more like something we would expect to hear from a director on planning out scenes to be filmed and then ran out of money. So, instead of filming the scenes, they had this character record the details of what was going on at the Ad Agency as if he had tracked down the entire plot of the movie. We also could not understand half of what he was saying due to the bad soundtrack. A cheap way to do half of the movie without filming it.As for the graphics on the subliminal messages in the commercials, the core plot of the movie, it was so childish, nightmarish and filled with ridiculous roars and distorted sound… not to mention "crayon style animations" (no kidding), I could not believe my eyes.If you watch the movie "Looker" you will see a much better rendition of subliminal messaging. "Agency" had the right idea... but did not have a film or production crew who could do this movie in a professional manner.I did appreciate the story the original author was trying to tell. And I did enjoy the efforts of the actors. I watched the movie for their sake... and I felt really bad for how they must have felt when they saw the finished product. I honestly don't know how this movie was ever printed and distributed for public consumption.If you have a choice... watch "Looker" instead. You will enjoy that movie. It was well done and had a similar theme with much better special effects. However, if you are intent on watching this movie, "Agency" then I would recommend having a couple drinks to wash it down. It is watchable if you can tolerate the terrible soundtrack and bad lighting.I would like to extend my apologies to the actors, their families and the original author of this story. If the movie had been handled by a different film company, crew, director & producer... and a better DVD transfer company... I think it could have been a good movie. It could certainly be remade into a very enjoyable movie but that would never make up for the duress the actors and the writer must have endured at the hands of this director and production company when they saw the final product.

jeffery47 Interesting casting, including Ms. Tessmacher from Superman. Mitchum is good as the evil head of an ad agency. Very cheesy 70s elements abound - did people dress like that? Anyway, no mention is made of where this is taking place, but clearly it's Montreal and very cold. But while there are US flags all over the place, Lee Majors' colleague calls Mitchum an American with an unflattering adjective. I'm sure the stars loved the frigid temps! One could imagine this movie being remade, perhaps even in the context of the recent election (hint hint). Since Hollywood has adopted recycling long ago, I wouldn't be surprised to see this remade. Also, the DVD had probably the worst audio I've heard on a DVD. It was just that bad. Some bad editing too, missing frames, gives the impression of an early Youtube video. It's neat to see Lee Majors on screen again, it's been a while and he was trying to rebuild his career at this point, between Million Dollar Man and Fall Guy. Can't go wrong with a little conspiracy theory concept either. I guess it would be a good cover for the CIA to takeover a Canadian ad agency to make ads for the US market. While the rented jet says US AIR Force (with probably sticky letters) I doubt the CIA uses USAF biz jets.Anyway, maybe the book it's based on is better, but there was nothing better on TV so at least it was new to me.

anthony-callaghan In 1981 whilst visiting California I had a vacant evening. And so free from visiting friends and amusement parks and not wanting to waste the evening looking at four walls of a motel room or watch the novelty of 24hour TV (remember this was 1981 and TV in the UK still closed at around midnight) I ventured out to the local Cinema to watch "Agency". From the TV trailers this promised to be an exciting story of the deceitful nature of advertisers who manipulate and lie so as to entice us, the unsuspecting general public towards the products. The trailer certainly worked; unfortunately the movie itself was as far from the mark as I was from home. The whole of the story had already been told in the 30 second trailer and there was nothing added to it. Robert Mitchum's character was not given anywhere near the scope to fulfil the potential that such a Hollywood movie idol deserves and the character of Philip Morgan played by Lee Majors could have been played by any of a dozen or more actors. To sum up - this is without doubt the worst movie I have ever endured at a cinema. Having suffered the 94 minutes (are you sure it was only 94 minutes - it seemed like an awful lot more to me), the four walls of the motel suddenly began to have a certain attraction - and as for 24 hour TV!!!If you ever get the chance to see this film do yourself a favour - lock yourself in your house and throw the keys out of the window, tape up your eyes, plug your ears or better still stay in your room and look at four blank walls. The overall effect is the same but without the hassle and expense of going out.

sol *****Major Spoilers**** Don't Read If You Did Not See Movie.... Timely movie,especially now when political campaigning never seems to end even after the elections, about the takeover of a large advertising agency, Porter & Stripe, and it's being used to further the agenda of a shadowy and unelected group of power brokers to shape America and the world into what they feel that it should be. Unknown to the advertising world but with an unlimited amount on money Ted Quinn, Robert Mitchum, buys out the giant Porter & Stripe advertising agency. Quinn soon begins producing and peddling commercials on everything from deodorants drain cleaners and soap products to powered chocolate milk for children. It turns out that the real reason for Quinn's takeover of the agency is not to sell household goods but to sell politicians and even more sinister political ideas to an unsuspecting public.Quinn slowly starts getting rid of the people working at the agency and begins replacing them with undercover political operatives. One of the people working for the agency as a commercial writer Sam Goldstein, Saul Rubinek, gets wind of what Quinn's plans really are which leads to his death. Sam's friend Philip Morgan, Lee Majors, who at first seemed to be ignorant of what was happening and thinking that Sam was a bid paranoid in his behavior changed his opinion after Sam's death when he comes across a audio tape that Sam recorded just minutes before he died. Marked to be eliminated because he knows too much Morgan is on the run from Quinn's goons throughout the rest of the movie. Even though dated "Agency" still packs a punch about media manipulation via outside sources and is as good as the many movies made about the same subject since then, 1980. "Agency" is not a top flight Hollywood production with very bad lighting and occasional muffles and drops in the soundtrack but the film still grabs your attention and keeps you interested until the final scene. Robert Mitchum gives his usual good and workman like performance as Ted Quinn like he did in the many films that he made in the last years of his acting career. Mitchum also gives the movie class and respectability just by being in it. Lee Majors is surprisingly good with a much more in-depth acting role then what you usually saw him in on TV and in films back then. Vallerie Perrine is more then adequate as Lee Majors' love interest in the film as well as the damsel in distress. Yet by far the biggest surprise in the movie was Saul Rubinek as Sam Goldstein. Sam who when you first saw him you would think that he's only in the film for comic relief instead became the most pivotal character in the movie. What I liked most about Rubinek's performance is that the more he got closer to the truth the more his paranoia subsided. As Sam seemed to resigned himself to the fate that was in store for him. Which made Sam both believable and tragic at the same time and which is just the opposite of what you would expect from a part like his in a movie filled with surprises and paranoia like "Agency" to be like.