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Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
Television made him famous, but his biggest hits happened off screen. Television producer by day, CIA assassin by night, Chuck Barris was recruited by the CIA at the height of his TV career and trained to become a covert operative. Or so Barris said.
2002 · Directed by George Clooney · 113 min · Comedy · Crime · Drama · Romance · Thriller · History · Screenplay in the scene database · 15 frames
Tagline
Some things are better left top secret.
Plot
Tired of being rejected by the beautiful women he lusts after, Chuck Barris moves to Manhattan to become an NBC page with dreams of becoming famous in television but is eventually fired. He moves back to Philadelphia and becomes Dick Clark's personal assistant on American Bandstand in 1961. He writes the successful song "Palisades Park" and becomes romantically involved with a woman named Penny Pacino. Barris is given permission to pitch the concept for The Dating Game at ABC. He is given $7,500 to create a television pilot, but ABC abandons the idea in favor of Hootenanny.
One night after Barris is kicked out of a bar for fighting, he is approached by CIA agent Jim Byrd, who recruits him as an assassin. Returning from a mission in Mexico, Barris finds that Penny has become a hippie. Meanwhile, ABC green-lights The Dating Game, and by 1967 the show is a phenomenon. Byrd suggests to Barris that the prize for winners of The Dating Game should be a first date in a foreign country and that Barris should accompany them as a chaperone as cover for further assassination missions.
On a CIA mission/chaperoning trip in Helsinki, Finland, he is frequently bothered by the male winner from the couple he's chaperoning, but things improve when he meets female operative Patricia Watson. Following the completion of his mission, Barris and Patricia spend his final night in Helsinki together. He finds more success back home when The Newlywed Game goes on air. He and Penny decide to move to Los Angeles, but Barris is cautious of marriage, much to Penny's dismay. In 1970, Byrd convinces Barris to go on a mission to West Berlin to assassinate Hans Colbert. Barris is introduced to German-American agent Keeler, whom he helps to kill Colbert. However, he is captured by the KGB and, after some weeks, freed during a west–east spy exchange in which Barris discovers that the male winner from the Helsinki trip was actually a Russian spy.
Plot summary from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.
Crew
- Screenplay: Charlie Kaufman
- Cinematography: Newton Thomas Sigel
- Edited by: Stephen Mirrione
- Music: Alex Wurman
- Production design: James D. Bissell
- Produced by: Andrew Lazar
Cast
- Sam Rockwell as Chuck Barris
- Drew Barrymore as Penny
- George Clooney as Jim Byrd
- Julia Roberts as Patricia Watson
- Rutger Hauer as Keeler
- Maggie Gyllenhaal as Debbie
- Robert John Burke as Instructor Jenks
- Jennifer Hall as Georgia
- Kristen Wilson as Loretta
- J. Todd Anderson as Stud Bachelor
Production
- Country: Germany, United Kingdom, United States of America
- Language: English, Spanish
- Studios: Miramax, Renaissance Films, Mad Chance, Section Eight
- Budget: $30,000,000
- Box office: $33,013,805
- Themes: regret, double life, assassination, based on novel or book, hitman, show business, kgb, secret agent, microfilm, biography
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