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Instead of the enemy within, the film rattled with anxieties about communist China\u2019s scientific capabilities. It was hardly the sexiest of subjects for a spy thriller \u2013 which was reflected in its poor box office showing \u2013 but it provided a fascinating insight into real-life East-West relations.<\/p>\n
Originally developed for Frank Sinatra by writer Jay Richard Kennedy, it was ultimately scripted by Ben Maddow and directed by J. Lee Thompson. The latter had worked with Peck on the rather more gung-ho World War II film The Guns of Navarone<\/em> (1961).<\/p>\n The plot concerns a new enzyme, developed by Professor Soong Li (Chinese-American actor Keye Luke), that enables crops to grow in any climate. American scientist Dr John Hathaway (Peck), his former colleague, is tasked with following Soong to China to bring back the formula.<\/p>\n The Chairman (1969) Trailer | Gregory Peck, Anne Heywood, Arthur Hill Movie<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n However, Hathaway\u2019s military handlers, led by Lieutenant General Shelby (Arthur Hill), have implanted a recording device in his skull with a secret explosive element that will detonate if he fails. As Shelby puts it: \u201cThink any sane man would walk into China with a loaded bomb screwed into his head?\u201d<\/p>\n As the idealistic 1960s bled into the cynical 70s, Hollywood thrillers became increasingly paranoid. But before post-Watergate efforts such as The Parallax View and The…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":82475,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[10140,7485,29521,11421,29522,29523,29520,7771,7333],"class_list":["post-82474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bored-interesting","tag-bizarre","tag-chairman","tag-gregory","tag-mao","tag-peck","tag-pingpong","tag-pitted","tag-spy","tag-thriller","wpcat-33-id"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82474","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=82474"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82474\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/82475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=82474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=82474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=82474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n\nA fraught Asian shoot<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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