The Anderson Tapes

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The Anderson Tapes
original movie poster
Directed by	Sidney Lumet
Produced by	Robert Weitman
Written by	Frank Pierson
Starring	Sean Connery Dyan Cannon Martin Balsam
Music by	Quincy Jones
Cinematography	Arthur J. Ornitz
Editing by	Joanne Burke
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date(s)	1971
Running time	95 min.
IMDb profile

The Anderson Tapes is a 1971 crime film. It was directed by Sidney Lumet and stars Sean Connery. The screenplay was written by Frank Pierson, based upon the best-selling 1970 novel of the same name by Lawrence Sanders. The film is distinctively scored by Quincy Jones.

A remake has been announced [1].

[edit] Plot Synopsis

A burglar, John "Duke" Anderson, is released after ten years in jail. He renews his relationship with his old girlfriend, Ingrid (Dyan Cannon). She lives in a high-class apartment block (1 East 91st Street) and Anderson, almost instantly, decides to burglarize the entire building in a single sweep - filling a furniture van with the proceeds. He gains financing from a nostalgic Mafiosi boss and gathers his four-man crew, plus an extra man the mafia foist on him (the thuggish "Socks") and an old ex-con drunk, "Pop", to play concierge.

However Anderson has entered a world of pervasive surveillance - the agents, cameras, bugs, and tracking devices of numerous public and private agencies see almost the entire operation from the earliest planning to the execution. As Anderson advances the scheme he moves from the surveillance of one group to another as locations or individuals change. Yet, because the various federal, state and city agencies doing the surveillance are all after different things, none of them are able to "connect the dots" and anticipate the robbery.

The robbery proceeds over a Labor Day weekend. The crew cut phones and alarms, move up through the building and gather the residents, then rob each apartment. Despite all the observation the information is dislocated and it is not until a young resident raises the alarm over his ham radio set (via Hawaii, Wichita Falls and Portland, Maine) that law enforcement acts. As the oblivious criminals work, the police array an enormous amount of force outside to prevent their escape and send a team in via a neighbouring rooftop.

[edit] Reaction

Sean Connery's performance as the likeable criminal Duke Anderson was instrumental in his break out from being stereotyped as James Bond.

The film was also stunningly prescient in its focus on the pervasiveness of electronic surveillance, a theme that would become a movie staple following the Watergate scandal a few years later.