Could someone tell the story that the new Affleck movie, Argo, is based on?
From Wikipedia:
During the Iranian hostage crisis, six Americans escaped the US embassy before it was overrun and hid out in the Canadian ambassador’s house.
In order to get them out of Iran, the CIA hatched a ridiculous plot to disguise the six as a Canadian film crew scouting a bad science fiction movie.
It worked.
The main Wiki article is the “Canadian Caper”. A longer-format article on the subject ran in Wired in 2007.
Thanks all. Forgot wiki!
As a fan of Lord of Light, I’d like to leave open the hope it would have been a good science fiction movie. 
Moved to Cafe Society.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Am I the only one who thought this would be about the song “Banned From Argo”?
The most important thing for you to know about the film is that it is not an accurate depiction of the historic events. As Ken Taylor states in this article
Fortunately, Ben Affleck and Ken Taylor have met, and there is now a postscript to the film
Above quotation taken from this article.
Surprisingly, Mr. Taylor has found this sufficient. By all means, research and look into the story, but do not trust the film’s point of view - it is distinctly flawed.
A historically inaccurate movie? Say it ain’t so.
Ben Affleck was on The Daily Show tonight. He mentioned Canadians a few times, in a mix of praise and condescension.
Next you’ll be saying Ben Affleck didn’t really win the Battle of Britain like I saw him do in Pearl Harbor.
Well, in fairness, he did get his law degree despite being totally blind.
We spent a jolly shore leave there for just three days or four
But Argo doesn’t want us any more…
Interesting - Based solely on the trailers, I was guessing it was a very loose adaptation of “On Wings of Eagles.”
Let me be the first to say:
*
“God I feel old…”*
The Iranian hostage thing happened when I was in High School, and it dominated the news for over a year (Ted Koppel’s ***Nightline ***show started because of it). Though to be fair I recall that the rescue of those six by Canada got almost no press for some reason. Maybe they were afraid that if we gloated too much about it the Iranians would retaliate by killing some Americans and/or Canadians.
I also seem to recall that billionaire/looney Ross Perot had something to do with the rescue…
Well, there was that 1981 made-for-TV movie Escape From Iran - The Canadian Caper. I don’t think I saw it at the time (though I’m old enough to have vague memories of the actual crisis, I guess my first clear memories of a big-news event are from the Reagan assassination attempt), but caught it a few years later. It was a very high-tension but low-key film (entirely unlike how I expect Argo to be), including scenes of the Americans being rehearsed in how to act Canadian when being questioned by Iranian border officials and getting tripped up during practice sessions, including one schmoe who hadn’t noticed the big PROPERTY OF U.S. GOVERNMENT stamp on the bottom of his attache case.
Yeah, I saw that too, probably in '81 when it first ran. And I remember it being just as you said, very low-key. I also remember the scenes you described, plus a scene where the Canadians are trying to manufacture fake US passports (at their Iranian embassy maybe?) and having a hard time making them look real.
I’m assuming that the movie is going to have to tone down just how insanely crazy the plan actually was - “Hey guys, I have an idea - let’s get Jack Fucking Kirby to design this movie, and he’ll do a theme park too! I KNOW!”
I was in the Canadian navy when the hostages were smuggled out of Iran, we pulled into Eureka Ca and couldn’t spend our money. The local folks there, like most americans everywhere, treated us really good. Walking back to the ship my buddy and I came across two USCG chicks who paid for the room and ‘thanked’ us.
Eureka, good town