This is the Persian Empire
known today as Iran.
For 2,500 years, this land was ruled by a series of kings
known as "Shahs"
In 1950, the people of Iran elected Mohammad Mosaddegh
a secular democrat, as prime minister.
He nationalized British and US petrolium holdings
returning Iran's oil to its people.
But in 1953
The US and Great Britain ingineered a coup d'état
that deposed Mosaddeghm, and installed Reza Pahlavi as shah.
The young child was known for opulence and excess.
His wife was rumored to bathe in milk
while the Shah had his lunches flown in by concord from Paris.
The people starved.
The Shah kept power through his ruthless internal police
the Savak.
An era of torture and fear began.
He then began a campaign to westernize Iran
enraging the the mostly traditional Shia population.
In 1979, the people of Iran overthrew the Shah.
The exiled cleric, Ayatollah Khomeini, returned to rule Iran.
It descended into score settling, death squads and chaos.
Dying of cancer the Shah was given assylum in the US.
The Iranian people took to the streets outside the US embassy
demanding that the Shah be returned
tried
and hanged.
The carnival is a little bigger today, huh?
Windows are supposed to be bulletproof, right?
I know they've never been tested.
Ok you just need to finish filling out
this section here.
We need some security.
Yes.
It's an ast...
- ...your responsibility. - They've gone through over the walls.
We should all split.
I'm going to close up my office.
My God!
What do you see Number 1?
Fall back.
- Well I need police, I need police right now. - Can anyone hear me? We're on the second floor.
- You understand me? - We need help.
Right now, goddamn it!
- Cany anybody hear me? - Attention Mano Lethalme
there is a breach.
Burn everything!
Burn it now!
Alright burn everything,
all the files, file cabinets, safe.
Lets get a cart over here.
Burn it all, come on.
Burn everything, including the classified. Everything!
Delete it all.
Don't fucking shoot anybody.
You don't want to be the son of a bitch who started the war.
They need an hour to burn the classified.
I need you to hold.
If you shoot one person
They're gonna kill every single one of us in here.
I'm telling you if we're going to go, we need to go now!
- And we need to make a decision, and... - Joe can we..Joe can we wait
can we wait until the Iranian police come?
No!
They're not coming.
How do you know they're not coming?
They may well be coming.
- Police have abandoned their post. - If the police are not coming,
ok, then the army's gonna come.
The Prime Minister is not
- gonna let the embassy be taken over. - I understand.
The Prime Minister may come tomorrow.
But the Komiteh are here today.
Alright. Is there... is there any...?
Look at me!
No one is coming.
Burn it! We have forty minutes.
Get it down in the incinerator, in the vault, now!
Tear gas is our last resource, only!
I refuse holding until and after under gun threat.
In here, we are in America right now! Outside these doors we are in Iran!
I'm not going out there! They're after us.
They're not safe here.
They get caught applying for visas to the US...
Lets...lets wait five minutes.
We're in the only building with direct access to the street.
If we're going to go, then we need to go now!
Yeah, I'm in.
Yeah.
Yeah, lets go.
I'm going outside.
Malick!
I'm gonna reason with them!
Open the door!
Open the fucking door!
So you wanna see the world?
Huh, hah.
Burn it all, come on!
Displace them if the filing cabinets get long.
All four drawers, I want them shredder, right now!
And a shred basket, man.
All four!
Anything else you see out there
set it out the shred it.
We've got ten minutes! Lets go, lets go, lets go! Everything!
Get the shredder.
There are no police.
Lets go!
Come on!
We gotta get off the streets.
This way, up here to the left.
They fuck with us, we can't get 'em back?
Mossadegh. We did it to them first.
Would the Soviets put up with this shit?
They'd fucking invade!
What do you expect? We held they guy, tortured and debald an entire population.
How many were there?
At least fifty.
We're not sure.
Shaffer!
We still haven't found Shaffer?
No I was screaming his name 'cus I was fucking'em.
It's confirmed, sir, six escaped.
I was told five.
Now sir. Apparently, it's six.
So what happened?
Not clear. We know they escaped the embassy.
Where are they?
The Canadian Ambassador's house.
Do they stay put? Are we attempting a rescue?
Hold for the Secretary of State.
Yes.
Is White House joining?
They're claiming the Embassy was a den of espionage.
We wish we were the fucking den of espionage
CIA's got three people over there, they don't see a revolution coming?
Call it other something then intelligence.
Hold for the Shief of Staff.
I'll call him back.
They're sticking to it. No release until we expell the Shah.
Well, put him on a plane then, fuck him.
He's half dead and he's in chemo.
Well, we took him in, he's ours now.
Great. So, we'll take any prick as long as he's got cancer?
Just the pricks on our side.
So all of our other pricks on their prick thrones
will know that when they get thrown out on a rail,
they won't get their fucking spleens taken out
by some camel vet with cyanide.
What about the six who are with the Canadians?
We've got sixty in the Embassy with guns to their heads right now.
The whole world is watching the Embassy.
That makes them safer than the six on the street.
Bonnie Sauder is saying it'll be over in twenty-four hours.
We leave the six where they are.
I'll go brief the President.
Iran's Revolutionary Guard, has rounded up a gang of terrorist blamed for one murder of a half-dozen followers of Ayatollah Khomeini.
It says that security at Khomeini's home now has the fight.
This by the way, is the 69th day that the American hostages have been held in Theran.
There is no change reported in the hostage situation.
In this country, George Mitty died last night
Yeah.
Yes.
What?
To begin with, of course,
we wanted to learn
about the hostages held in the American Embassy compound.
They may not understand what their ordeal means to their countrymen
that this nation, their nation
is outraged.
And we cannot really know what it is like
inside the prison that was once our embassy.
Actions of Iran
have shocked
the civilized world.
Our embassy has been
seized, and more than sixty
American citizens
continue to be held as hostages.
As this situation tends to unravel it will become a pain to free the hostages.
In besieged situations with a random change, however...
What happened?
Six of them went out a back exit.
Brits turned them away,
Kiwi's turned them away, Canadians took 'em in.
Traffic calls them 'House Guests'.
They haven't left the Canadian Ambassador's house since it happened.
Why didn't we get them ten weeks ago?
Too dangerous.
We got revolutionary guards going door to door, like Jehovah's Witnesses.
Half of them think that Khomeini's been too lenient on the ones in the Embassy.
What about the White House?
Carter's shitting enough bricks to build the pyramids.
The Canadians are done,
they say they're baring too much risk.
Their Foreign Secretary corners Vance in Brussels
and told him she wants the six of them out.
Who else knows?
Just the families.
Meanwhile, some genius in our Embassy
was keeping a mug book on everybody who who worked there.
Jesus Christ!
We think it got shredded before they got in.
But now the bastards are using
sweatshop kids to reassemble the shreds.
Once they reassemble that book they'll know six Americans got out
and they'll know what they look like.
Standing room only for beheadings in the square.
Who's handling?
State is coordinating in-house.
State?
They don't do exfil's.
They do now.
They wanna run it by us, strictly as consultants.
Engell says, it's a lose-lose.
These people die,
they die badly, publicly.
State wants the blame,
we'll give it to 'em.
What does he want me here for?
So he can tell State he ran it by his best exfil guy.
Okay.
This is Bob Pender from State OS.
He's been talking to Morgan an ex-staff.
Thank you.
Alright.
Mark and Cora Lijek
twenty-nine and twenty-five.
He's a Consular Officer, she's an assistant
newly weds.
They uh...
only just got there a couple months ago.
No language skills
or in country knowledge.
Henry Lee Schatz
Agricultural attaché from Idaho.
Bit of an oddball apparently
he was there to sell U.S. tractors to Iranian Agro.
Joe Stafford, late twenties
he's smart
and a climber, speaks Farsi.
He arranged the hire of his wife,
Kathy.
The Embassy was understaffed
so the faculty wives were the typing pool.
And Bob Anders
Senior Consular Officer, oldest of the group
and most likely to be group leader.
They've been hiding at the Canadian Ambassador residence.
Fortunately
We do not believe the Iranians are aware the six have scaped.
So.
What we'd like for this
are bicycles.
We've identified back roads
from the Chamran district,
couple of rat lines through the mountains
to the crossing near Tabriz.
Cars are off the table,
because of the road blocks.
We wait until the weather clear up,
then deliver the six bikes,
provide them with maps to the Turkish boarder.
We have intelligence they can ride bicycles
or we're prepared to send in somebody to teach them.
Or you could just send in training wheels and meet them at the border with Gatorade.
Tony...
It's three hundred miles to the Turkish border
they'd need a support team following them with a tire pump.
We were just asked to sharp shoot this
- State is handling the ops. - I'm sorry
who is this?
Tony is an exfil spesh,
he's got a lot of Shah's people out after the fall.
Sir if these people can read
or add.
Pretty soon they'll figure out they're six short of a full deck.
It's winter.
You can't afford to wait around until spring
so it's nice enough to take a bike ride.
They only way out of that city is the airport.
You build new cover identities for 'em,
you send in a Moses, he takes them out on a commercial flight.
We've explored those options.
You're never gonna get them through airport control
- Komiteh own the place. - They could
pose as reporters,
if the government issued seventy somethings...
- Seventy four. - Visas
- for American journalists... - And the Revolutionary Guards
keep them on seventy four leashes.
If they're caught with fake journalist creds
it's Peter and Jane's head in a noose in an hour.
Look, North America accents gives us limited options
so we get the Canadians to issue them
- passports. - What about English
teachers at the international school
It's a good idea, but that school's been closed for eight months.
Okay, so how about 'the do-gooders'?
Six Canadians
have been over there inspecting crops, ensuring the kids are getting enough to eat
we give them creds, makes them look like AG NGOs.
It's a 'feed the kids' thing.
Okay.
Those kids are black.
Those are African kids.
We can get ethnically appropriate kids.
Are there starving kids in Iran?
I'm sure there's some skinny kids in Iran.
Hold on.
Sir.
Do you have this newspaper in front of you?
Would you mind taking a look at it?
What's in this picture?
Tehran.
Right. What's on the ground?
Snow.
Right.
What crops are the 'do-gooders' inspecting under frosting?
Sir.
Exfils are like abortions
you don't want to need one
but when you do
you don't do it yourself.
You have a better plan?
No Sir.
What ever the conflicting signals of Iran today
would have matter everyday
about whether the hostages will or will not be tried as spies.
The government of the United States has not deviated from its basic demands.
The hostages must be freed.
...has been human rights
it not only does not defend it
it violates them for all nations.
We demand
extradition of a man
who for more than 37 years
with the United States support has killed months old
babies in the arms of their mothers.
It'll be sad if the Americans tried military force to rescue the hostages.
The students will kill them all and blow up the Embassy.
Americans were outraged
at Iran
and anyone Iranian.
...there was a demonstration in Houston
an Iranian flag was burned.
Anti-Iranians demonstrators gathered near the Iranian Consulate.
...but also it's what led to a decision to scrutinize
the bases of Iran...
They knew
exactly what was going on!
And they know it.
But I don't understand
wha...what they should do now. Send them back?
Just to be tortured and killed?
I don't think that justice is the worst thing.
...will first tell you that torture was going on in Iran.
They would never come to me and say, 'Well
Sir, we have tortured this fellow'.
...Sadat of Egypt
he calls you Imam.
Forgive me, his words not mine.
A lunatic
Why didn't he have a choice?!
Why do you think he didn't have a choice?
Because he would have been referred to as a barbarian.
Please!
I think we've better...
Please everyone
get into the cold room.
Get out of here!
At one point the mob cornered one of Iranians.
When he tried to protect himself,
this is what happened.
Hit him again!
Hit him until he can't take it anymore!
We're sick of them! Yeah!
America!
...I mean people are
drawn uptight, they're tense.
They shouldn't even let those students in there
Embassy there.
Just shoot a couple of them. Show them we mean business.
Men who served in Vietnam for what they believed to is right
are angry.
I'm mad as hell.
I'm like that movie guy, that is screaming around that movie program
You know?
I've had it!
And if huh...
If need be I'll bear arms again.
That's the way it is. Wednesday, January 16th, 1980.
The 74th day of captivity for 50 Americans in Iran.
Hello?
Money man!
I'll get mom.
I'm looking for you.
Did you do your homework tonight?
Yeah it was easy.
Excellent. What are we watching?
Battle for the Planet of the Apes.
Tell me, what channel's on?
Five.
Alright.
What did you do at school today?
Nothing. I don't know. Nothing.
It can't be nothing.
Something must've happened.
Ok you know those science fiction movies
Star Trek, Star Wars
they need an exotic location to shoot,
Moonscape, Mars, desert, you know?
Now image this.
They're a Canadian film crew on a location scout for a science fiction movie.
We put it out there.
The Canadian producers put it out there.
They were looking at Egypt
Istanbul.
Then
we go to the Consulate and say, 'Hey
we want to look in Iran too'.
I fly into Tehran
We all fly out together as a film crew.
Done.
Flamboyant cover identity
should be avoided as it increases operational visibility
This is a lot more plausible than foreigners who wanna be teachers in Iran.
You want to blend in with the population
you don't look like a rodeo clown.
Just gonna wake up tomorrow morning
and be in the movie business?
We already have credentials for the teachers.
No Sir, we have a contact in...
Chambers
John Chambers
He's a Hollywood prostetics guy
he's got an Oscar, he did Planet of the Apes
he's done a bunch of contract work for us in the past.
I go see him.
He sets this up.
One, two days, make it look real.
I went outside for thirty seconds.
Alright?
Could you give me a break? I can't breath in this house.
I need some fresh air, I can't...I can't breath!
Stay inside the fucking house!
- Who saw me go outside? Just curious. - That's not the point.
That's not the point Bob.
You see me? Did you see me go out?
No!
- You did go outside... - I did!
Okay! I saw you.
Bob it only takes one second for them to spot you.
Some Americans are missing.
Look at the repaired list of embassy employees.
The numbers don't match
Finish assembling the pictures from the Embassy.
All I need is their faces to find them.
Yes Sir, it'll be done.
We want you to go to LA.
If you can make the movie thing credible, we'll take it to the director.
Don't fuck up.
The whole country is watching you.
They just don't know it.
My creation
My creation!
What the fuck Bryan?
Cut!
We are cutting!
Chambers!
John Chambers make up.
He says the minotaur prosthetic is too tight so he can't act.
If he could act he wouldn't be playing a minotaur.
Mr. Chambers.
Kevin Arkins.
Hey Tony.
What are you shooting?
Monster movie.
Yeah? Is it any good?
Target audience will hate it.
Who's the target audience?
People with eyes.
Talk to me.
It's an exfil.
From where?
Worst place you can think of.
Universal Studio.
How are you gonna get in the Embassy?
They're not in the Embassy.
During the takeover six people escaped.
They're hiding out in Tehran
and that's who I'm going to go get.
What am I making?
I need you to help me make a fake movie.
Well, you came to the right place.
I wanna setup a production company and build a cover around making a movie.
- That we're not gonna make. - No.
So you wanna come to Hollywood and act like a big shot
Yeah.
- without actually doing anything. - No.
You'll fit right in.
Let's see.
Well this one got an M.A in English
she should be your screenwriter.
Sometimes they go on scouts, cause they want their free meals.
Here's your director.
Can you teach somebody to be a director in a day?
You can teach a recess monkey to be a director in a day.
Look if you're gonna do this
you gotta do it
The Kominiacs are fruit loops but they got cousins
who sell prayer rugs and 8-tracks on Le Brea.
You can't build cover stories around a movie that doesn't exist.
You need a script
you need a producer.
Make me a producer.
No. You're...an associate producer at best.
You're gonna do a 20 million dollars Star Wars ripoff.
You need somebody who's a somebody,
to put their name on it.
Somebody respectable,
with credits,
who you can trust with classified information,
who'd produce a fake movie,
for free.
Hi. I only got a couple of minutes.
I'm getting a lifetime achievement award.
Mazel tov, Lester.
I'll rather stay home and count the wrinkles on my dog's balls.
Okay.
You got six people hiding out in a town of what...
4 million people, all of whom
chant 'death to America' all the live long day.
You want to set up a movie in a week.
You want to lie to Hollywood, a town where everybody lies for a living
Then you're gonna sneak 007 over here
into a country that wants CIA blood on their breakfast cereal
and you're gonna walk the Brady Bunch out of the most watched city in the world.
That's about hundred militia at the airport.
That's right.
Right.
Look I...
I got to tell ya
We...we did suicide missions in the Army that had better odds than this.
Sir, the car is here.
You ever think, Lester, this is all for the camera's?
Well, they're getting the ratings. I'll say that for them.
We're going to need a script.
I love you.
Sahar,
how are you doing?
Fine, thank you.
Your friends...
from Canada, ma'am, all this time, they never go out.
Sahar knows.
How about 'The Horses of Achilles'?
No good.
Nobody does westerns anymore.
It's ancient Troy
If it's got horses in it, it's a western.
Hey, Kenny please?
Yeah it's John Chambers, about the office space.
It doesn't matter.
It's a fake movie.
If I'm doing a fake movie,
it's going to be a fake hit.
Cardinal wants all cover options
on his desk Friday morning.
Engell's prepping the bikes option,
teachers option.
You have 72 hours to make yours better.
Fine.
Hey is 8006
still on the open list?
Yeah I'll hold.
Fade in on a starship landing
an exotic Middle Eastern vibe.
Women gather offering ecstatic libations to the sky gods.
Argo.
"A Science-Fantasy Adventure."
It's a turnaround, it's dog shit.
It's a space movie in the Middle East.
Does it matter if...?
Could we get the option?
Why do we need the option?
You're worry about the Ayatollah?
Try the WGA.
Just let me do the talking.
I've known this guy for 25 years. He's full of shit,
and he comes on hard, but uh...
I can handle it.
You want to go into production with this in one month?
Up like a carny ride.
One month, yeah.
Who are you again?
Kevin Arkins, Studio 6 Films.
He's the money.
Look.
What do you say you uh...
fifteen thou and, let's close on this?
You want me to be honest with you, Les?
No. I would like you to bullshit me, Max.
Alright.
I enjoyed your films.
The early ones.
I took this meeting
out of respect, because I wanted to say no to your face.
Thank you.
Very respectful.
You're finished, Lester.
Get your cataracts fixed, read the trades.
MGM just capitalized for six new films.
They're screaming for Sci-Fi.
They're offering me four times what you guys are offering me.
Well... What can I say?
Congratulations.
But see,
it kind of worries me what you said.
Let me tell you why.
Couple of weeks ago I was sitting at Trader Vic's, I was enjoying a mai tai,
when my pal, Warren Beatty comes in,
he wishes me well, we have a little chat.
Seems he was attached to star in 'Zulu Empire',
which is gonna anchored at MGM slate.
But Warren confided in me that the picture's gone over budget
because the Zulu extras want to unionize.
They may be cannibals,
but they want health and dental so the movie's kaput.
Which means
That the MGM deal ain't goinna happen
and your script ain't worth a buffalo shit on a nickel!
So.
The way it looks to me through the cataracts I grant you,
is that you can either sign here
and take 10,000 dollars for your toilet-paper script,
or you can go fuck yourself!
With all due respect.
You really know Warrent Beatty?
Yes I do.
I took a leak next to him once at the Golder Globes.
Taco?
Got any kids, Lester?
Yeah, I have two daughters.
See 'em much?
I talk to them once a year,
maybe.
Why is that?
I was a terrible father.
The bullshit business
it's like coal mining.
You...you come home to your wife and kids
you can't...you can't wash it off.
You?
Yeah I got a son.
He lives in Virgina with his mother.
You're divorced?
Taking time off.
He needs to be...
...where he is.
Kids need the mother.
They caught the Shah's chief of security trying to get on a plane to Paris.
Listen
since the incident, the number of guards at the airport has doubled.
A thorough background examination should be expected.
The movie cover isn't strong enough yet.
I need another week, Jack.
You don't have it.
We got an office,
we got business cards,
we got a poster.
If I'm the Revolutionary Guard, there's nothing we couldn't made at home.
Six people's lives depend on this.
It's not enough.
If we're gonna fool this peole
it has to be big,
it has to have something that says it's authentic.
I did a movie with Rock Hudson one time.
If you want to sell a lie...
Get the press to sell it for you.
No, no, no!
Press event, then they're going to read through the script.
I got a bunch of actors who are gonna read from beginning to end, all the way through.
They have costumes and everything.
No, no, no! I can't! I got...
Variety has the exclusive on that.
Is there any way to make this...
more uh...Middle Eastern?
Mesopotamia? Egypt?
Iran.
Look, I can get you in, but you gotta promise me at least half a page.
No, no! This thing's an event,
it's going to be a spectacle.
Lester.
Nina, you look fabulous.
You doing the reading?
I'm playing Serksi the Galactic Witch.
Great, I'll call ya.
Keep that fucking space witch away from me.
You know her?
I was married to her.
Oh my God! Iraq is amazing!
Well, we're shooting in Iran.
Ira with an N?
Yeah. We're very excited.
You ever watch the news?
What does the title refer to?
The Argo!
The thing...
Like Jason and the Golden Fleece, or what?
No, no! It's the ship, it's the spaceship,
it goes...it goes everywhere. It goes all...
...all throughout space.
So it's the Argonaut?
No.
What does Argo mean?
I don't know.
You don't know?
It means Argo fuck yourself!