Taglines: Someone is listening… someone is watching… as the crime of the century unreels!
The Anderson Tapes movie storyline. Convicted safe-cracker Duke Anderson is released after serving ten years in prison. Upon visiting his old girlfriend, Ingrid Everleigh, at her upscale apartment in New York City, Anderson comes up with his next get rich scheme: rob all six apartments in the building. It will be a complex scheme, with numerous ex-con friends and acquaintances part of the plot.
Anderson realizes that life has changed in the ten years he has been in prison, where surveillance cameras are now part of everyday life. The cameras are just one more aspect that he has to consider in the scheme. What he doesn’t realize is that some of his associates are also under individual electronic surveillance by various organizations, each for a different reason. Some of these taps are legal and some not so legal. Will anyone doing the surveillance work be able to piece together the plot, and even if they do will they care if it does not relate to their prime subject?
The Anderson Tapes is a 1971 American Technicolor neo noir crime film in Panavision directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Sean Connery and featuring Dyan Cannon, Martin Balsam and Alan King. The screenplay was written by Frank Pierson, based upon a best-selling 1970 novel of the same name by Lawrence Sanders. The film is scored by Quincy Jones and marks the feature film debut of Christopher Walken. It was the first major film to focus on the pervasiveness of electronic surveillance, from security cameras in public places to hidden recording devices.
The Anderson Tapes was filmed on location in New York City, on Fifth Avenue, at the Convent of the Sacred Heart (the luxury apartment building), Rikers Island Prison, the Port Authority Bus Terminal, Luxor Health Club and on the Lower East Side. Interiors scenes were filmed at Hi Brown Studio and ABC-Pathé Studio, both in New York City. The production was on a tight budget, and filming was completed in the short period of six weeks, from mid-August to October 16, 1970. The film was the first for producer Robert M. Weitman as an independent producer.
Columbia Pictures was not happy with the concept for the ending of the film, in which Connery escaped to be pursued by police helicopters, fearing that it would hurt sales to television, which generally required that bad deeds do not go unpunished. The Anderson Tapes made its U.S. network television premiere on September 11, 1972, as an installment of NBC Monday Night at the Movies.
The Anderson Tapes (1971)
Directed by: Sidney Lumet
Starring: Sean Connery, Dyan Cannon, Martin Balsam, Ralph Meeker, Alan King, Dick Anthony Williams, Val Avery, Garrett Morris, Stan Gottlieb, Christopher Walken, Margaret Hamilton
Screenplay by: Frank Pierson
Production Design by: Ben Kasazkow
Cinematography by: Arthur J. Ornitz
Film Editing by: Joanne Burke
Costume Design by: Gene Coffin
Set Decoration by: Alan Hicks
Art Direction by: Philip Rosenberg
Music by: Quincy Jones
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Columbia Pictures
Release Date: June 17, 1971 (US)
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