The Anderson Tapes (1971)

Director:

Sidney Lumet

Writers:

Lawrence Sanders (novel)
Frank Pierson (screenplay)

Release Date:

2 September 1971 (West Germany)

Genre:

Crime | Drama | Thriller

Tagline:

The Crime of the Century!

Plot:

A thief (Duke Anderson) just released from ten years in jail, takes up with his old girlfriend (Ingrid) in her posh apartment...

Plot Keywords:

Surveillance | Tape | Jewel Theft | Criminal Gang | Planning

Cast

Sean Connery	...	Duke Anderson
Dyan Cannon	...	Ingrid
Martin Balsam	...	Haskins
Ralph Meeker	...	Police Captain 'Iron Balls' Delaney
Alan King	...	Pat Angelo
Christopher Walken	...	The Kid
Val Avery	...	Parelli aka Socks
Dick Anthony Williams	...	Spencer (as Dick Williams)
Garrett Morris	...	Officer Everson
Stan Gottlieb	...	Pop
Paul Benjamin	...	Jimmy
Anthony Holland	...	Psychologist
Richard B. Shull	...	Werner (as Richard B. Schull)
Conrad Bain	...	Dr. Rubicoff
Margaret Hamilton	...	Miss Kaler

Runtime:

99 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | Norway:15 | Norway:16 (1971) | Sweden:15 | UK:15 (video rating) (1986) | UK:AA (original rating) | USA:GP (original rating) | USA:PG | Iceland:12

Filming Locations:

1 East 91st Street, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Columbia Pictures Corporation

Trivia:

Final feature film of Margaret Hamilton.

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: When the grappling hook is first thrown, many scratches are visible from previous takes.

Quotes:

Anderson: What's advertising but a legalized con game? And what the hell's marriage? Extortion, prostitution, soliciting with a government stamp on it. And what the hell's your stock market? A fixed horse race. Some business guy steals a bank, he's a big success story. Face in all the magazines. Some other guy steals the magazine and he's busted.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Lumet: Film Maker (1975)

Great little gem, sadly forgotten

Sean Connery plays a jail bird who's let out and decides to pull another heist with the help of a team of experienced crooks; little does he know the cops are monitoring everything.

What's so unique about this film by Sidney Lumet, in superb form as director, is that heist films rarely mount the tension by showing us the cops' side -- here it's like a ticking time bomb, we're just waiting for Connery and his crew to be arrested and we know that they don't know that the cops know (err...) and the result is pretty tense.

No fault found in the acting: Connery and a very young Christopher Walken (in his film debut) are great, particularly Walken who shows extensive range very early on. After seeing this I was reminded of his recent role in the "Stepford Wives" remake and had to wonder why he's resorting to such trash, because he's just as talented (almost, anyway) as De Niro and Pacino and the difference is he wasted a lot of this during the '80s and '90s by taking on small bits in horrible films. I mean, in 2003 he starred in KANGAROO JACK. C'mon!

Overall THE ANDERSON TAPES is a tense and unique crime thriller that, although very "70s-ish" is entertaining, if a bit outdated in terms of technology. I'm sure it will be remade some day, there's a lot of potential, however I doubt it'll ever come close to the original.

4/5