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Someone is always watching in this vintage release from director Sidney Lumet starring Sean Connery as a safecracker planning his next big heist.

I didn’t really begin to watch a lot of films until well into my teens, most of the movie viewing had previously consisted of whatever happened to be on television while my parents were watching, and as such, I have missed out on some truly great director’s back catalogs.  Enter Sidney Lumet, a man whose films I’ve been making a concerted effort to track down the past few months, so I was quite excited to give The Anderson Tapes a look.

Released as part of Sony’s Martini Movies line (which looks to be a series of crime films from several different eras released under the same banner with similar packaging), The Anderson Tapes stars Sean Connery as Duke Anderson, a recently paroled safe cracker who hooks back up with his girlfriend Ingrid (Dyan Cannon). She lives in a swank apartment building courtesy of Werner (Robert B. Schull), a sugar daddy we’ll meet later in the film.  Duke quickly hatches a plan that he needs the mob to bankroll, so he approaches Pat Angelo (Alan King) for the help he needs to put together a team of thieves and front him the money for supplies.

Duke’s plan is to rob the entire building over Labor Day Weekend while the city is fairly quiet, going from apartment to apartment collecting all the tenants into one room and then ransacking their posh homes.  He enlists fellow cons Pop (Stan Gottlieb), an older con who’s having trouble adjusting to the outside life and The Kid ( A very young Christopher Walken), who will help disarm the alarms and security of the building.

The entire film is overly concerned with technology, as Duke finds himself eyeing cameras at every turn after his 10 year stretch in prison, and that is the main thrust of the film, the inability to adjust to or feel comfortable in this new technology driven world.

The titles are done in a computerized font, the Quincy Jones score is amazingly distracting as discordant bleeps and squeals indicate the tension we’re supposed to feel every time Duke glances at a camera in the upper corner of a building. There’s nothing subtle about the way Lumet tells his story here.  The noise eventually levels off, giving way to a jazzier feel, but then abruptly returns when the robbery is in progress, indicating flashes forward in time to the tenants relating their experiences during the crime.  This is an interesting device that I’ve seen the director use to better effect in later films, and with much less jarring music.

The theme of the film is that virtually everyone is under surveillance by someone, but none of the various organizations are able to piece together exactly what Duke has planned, or they’re unwilling to act on what they know until it effects their own investigation, which allows the criminals to go about their business pretty easily.

The Anderson Tapes is definitely a product of its time, somewhat hamstrung by the choice of score, as the film wouldn’t be quite so dated or corny if there were different music behind it.  Camp at times; this is still a worthwhile watch, if only to get a giggle at the fairly ham-fisted message (spooky technology) and see some interesting cameos that turn up.  Look for Garrett Morris as a police officer, and even Mr. Drummond (Conrad Bain) from Diff’rent Strokes fame as one of the tenants of the building.

The Anderson Tapes features scant few extras save for the original trailer and two ‘Martini Minutes’: How To Play The Leading Man and How To Hold Your Liquor, which are in actuality thinly veiled commercials for the rest of the line of Martini Movies with a drink recipe thrown in at the end.

Worth a look if you’re a fan of the crime genre, but don’t be surprised if you spend more time snickering at the camp feel of the film rather than rooting for the bad guys.

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