# The Anderson Tapes

The Anderson Tapes is a 1971 American crime film 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.

## Plot

Safe-cracker John "Duke" Anderson is released after ten years in prison. He immediately renews his relationship with his old girlfriend, Ingrid Everleigh. While Anderson was away in prison, Ingrid has been "kept" by a wealthy man named Werner, who put her up in an Upper East Side apartment block in Manhattan. Anderson determines rapidly to burgle the entire building in a single sweep – filling a furniture van with the proceeds. He gains financing from a Mafia boss, Pat Angelo, by redeeming a favor owed him, and gathers his four-man crew. Included in this crime team is an ancient ex-con drunk, "Pop", who was released from prison the same day as Anderson, and "The Kid".
Unwittingly, Anderson is under pervasive surveillance almost the entire operation, from the earliest planning to the execution. This includes the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, checking on a released drug dealer; the FBI, investigating Black activists and the interstate smuggling of antiques; the IRS, which is after the mob boss who is financing the operation; and a private detective hired by Werner to eavesdrop on his mistress Ingrid.
The various surveilling Federal, state, and municipal agencies all have different missions (and targets), so none is able to "connect the dots" and anticipate the robbery.
Anderson taps crooked antique dealer Tommy Haskins to go through the apartment building, identifying valuables, and assess the potential loot. He brings in Edward Spencer to drive the getaway truck. "The Kid" will take care of burglar alarms and telephones. He tells "Pop", who calls to ask if he can move in with Anderson, to stand by for a "job". The Mafia foists the thuggish Rocco "Socks" Parelli, a psychopath who has become a liability to the mob, onto the crime team. As part of the deal, Anderson must kill him in the course of the robbery. Anderson sees the operation as complicated enough already, but goes along reluctantly.
The operation proceeds over a Labor Day weekend. Disguised as a Mayflower moving and storage crew, the crooks cut telephone and alarm wires and move up through the building, gathering the residents as they go and robbing each apartment. "Pop" plays concierge while the real one is bound and gagged in the cellar.
Jerry Bingham, the son of two of the residents, is a paraplegic and asthmatic who is left behind in his air-conditioned room. Using his HAM radio equipment, he puts out an emergency call about a burglary in progress in his building.
Amateur radio enthusiasts in other states pick up the alert and contact the police. As the oblivious criminals continue their work, the police assemble an enormous force outside, and deploy a special response team via a neighboring rooftop.
A shootout follows. Anderson kills "Socks", and is gunned down by the police. The other robbers are killed, injured or captured. "Pop" gives himself up while covering for the others by putting all the blame on "Socks". Having never adapted to life on the outside, he looks forward to going back to prison.
In the course of searching the building, the police discover some audio listening equipment left behind by the private detective was hired to check up on Ingrid.
Anderson dies, and when the story of the crime breaks in the morning newspaper, all four government entities Involved in an illegal wiretapping order their tapes erased so that no subsequent investigations can lead back to them.

## Cast

* Sean Connery as John "Duke" Anderson
* Dyan Cannon as Ingrid Everleigh
* Martin Balsam as Tommy Haskins
* Ralph Meeker as Edward X. "Iron Balls" Delaney
* Alan King as Pat Angelo
* Dick Anthony Williams as Edward Spencer
* Val Avery as Rocco "Socks" Parelli
* Garrett Morris as Sgt. Everson
* Stan Gottlieb as William "Pop" Meyerhoff
* Christopher Walken as Kurt Spencer aka “The Kid”
* Conrad Bain as Dr. Rubicoff
* Margaret Hamilton as Miss Kaler
* Anthony Holland as Psychologist
* Scott Jacoby as Jerry Bingham
* Judith Lowry as Mrs. Hathaway
* Meg Myles as Mrs. Longene (as Meg Miles)
* Norman Rose as Longene
* Max Showalter as Bingham
* Janet Ward as Mrs. Bingham
* Paul Benjamin as Jimmy
* Richard Shull as Werner Gottlieb

## Production

Two characters from the novel on which the film was based were merged for the film: "Ingrid Macht" and "Agnes Everleigh" became "Ingrid Everleigh".
Sean Connery, Martin Balsam, and director Sidney Lumet were to work together again on Murder on the Orient Express. Connery had previously worked with the director on The Hill, and they would reunite the following year on The Offence, and again many years later for Family Business. Balsam and Lumet had worked together previously on 12 Angry Men.
This was the first major motion picture for Christopher Walken, as well as the last on-screen film appearance by Margaret Hamilton.
Sean Connery's performance as the likeable criminal Duke Anderson was instrumental in his breakout from being typecast as James Bond. It also restored him to the ranks of top male actors in the United States.
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 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.

## Reception
### Box office

The film generated $5 million in U.S. and Canada rentals.

### Critical response

Roger Greenspun of The New York Times called The Anderson Tapes "well done and entertaining". He noted Lumet's direction by writing "The quality of professionalism appears in rather lovely manifestations to raise a by no means perfect film to a level of intelligent efficiency that is not so very far beneath the reach of art".
Roger Ebert enjoyed the film but called Lumet's emphasis on electronic surveillance a "serious structural flaw".
Andrew Sarris of The Village Voice wrote that there was only "eleven good minutes in it", calling the rest of the film "confused and uncertain".