Weekend Buff: A Classic Caper

A forgotten crime flick from the 1970's holds up today

Christopher Walken’s first major movie. A post-Bond Sean Connery. Alan King as a mafia capo. Grimy, 1970’s New York. What’s not to like in The Anderson Tapes (1971)?

This one is currently streaming on Amazon Prime, so it’s easy to get to. In sum: ex-con Sean Connery gets out of jail, hooks up with an old girlfriend — a very Nancy Sinatra, these-boots-are-made-for-walking, 1960s-ish Dyan Cannon — and puts together a team to rob her entire building: in this case, New York City’s famous Dakota on the upper west side.

Now if the building looks familiar, it should — it’s where the unsettling Rosemary’s Baby was filmed, and where in real life John Lennon lived (and was killed in front of). It’s a gothic, castle-like structure, and in the movie it’s home to a collection of rich eccentrics who fall prey to Connery’s plan to take the place down, floor by floor.

The only problem: true to the Big Government paranoia of the era — recall, we would get Watergate soon — there’s video surveillance going on all over the place. Everyone’s taping everyone, everyone has a a microphone or a shortwave radio… nothing happens that isn’t observed.

The Anderson Tapes occupies a strange movie genre subset — the “surveillance” movie (The Conversation is another excellent example). Nixon was in the White House and the infamous Nixon tapes had yet to come to light (Nixon had been taping all his White House meetings, unbeknowst to most of his staff — it proved part of his undoing).

The surveillance equipment, by today’s standards, is almost comical — all beeps and whirrs and reel-to-reel tapes. But it makes the point.

And while The Anderson Tapes is not a great movie per se — the plan for the caper has way too many holes in it — it is a great watch as an artifact. Pre-Giuliani New York City, characters that are 60’s cool, pre-Godfather mafiosi… and a police captain that anyone who has ever worked “the job” will recognize instantly.

The director is Sydney Lumet, who is up there with Martin Scorcese as directors who really do New York well. Lumet, who would go on to direct other New York classics like Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon, and Prince of the City, gets the tone and the characters right. And sure, some of it feels dated. But that’s what makes it interesting today.

(Dyan Cannon, doing big hair before Dolly and Farrah)

Yes, there is some very un-PC humor, and really, the only female character of note is Cannon’s turn as the girlfriend/escort who helps set the place up. But in an era when most movies have a contrived, antiseptic feel and fit fits firmly into a particular category — the syrupy rom-com, the loud action flick, the umpteeth telling of Jaws with a different monster — The Anderson Tapes has a unglamorous, underbelly feel that garners it an extra star.

(Sean Connery — hopelessly cool, even beside a dumpster)

So if heist or New York-set movies are your thing, this one’s for you.

The Anderson Tapes runs an easy-to-handle 95 minutes or so, and is running free on Amazon Prime right now.

(And stay tuned to the Quincy Jones (RIP) score. Perfect for the era).

And we’ll see you over the weekend for our take on the election…. If what we hear is accurate — big changes coming!

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