MovieChat Forums > The Anderson Tapes (1971) Discussion > I have a few questions...

I have a few questions...

posted 13 years ago by jimbrown257
4 replies | jump to latest

I just watched this movie on TCM and I was left with a few questions.

1) Wouldn't Martin Balsam (the gay designer) have basically led the police right to him by giving the desk guy his information early in the film when he cased out the building. He gave him his actual name and had the guy call his secretary to verify his identity. While it didn't really matter in the end, as he got caught anyways, wouldn't that have been a really dumb thing to do in what was supposedly a well plotted heist? If they had pulled off the robbery successfully, the police would have found out that he had been there a few days earlier to supposedly redecorate the halls. Then they would have found out that the manager never really had hired him and figured out that he must have been in on it.

2) Did Sean Connery really need to get the mafia involved just to get $1,700?? It seems like they could have come up with that on their own; the designer guy had a pretty successful business, he should have had that much.

3) Why would the mafia insist on sending some crazy loose cannon with them just so they could kill him during the heist. If they wanted that guy dead, why wouldn't they just have someone just go to his house and shot him? It seems like sending someone who they want dead because he always messes stuff up along with the group is just asking for a disaster.

4) On that point, did they send that crazy guy along hoping that the plot would go wrong? I mean, did the mafia anticipate that, if the caper went awry, the feds would have to erase the tapes so they wanted things to go wrong? Or was that just a stroke of luck on the mafia's part at the end when all the tapes had to be erased? The main theme of the movie, other than everyone is under surveilence, was that what the scenes made us think was going on was not what was really happening. When that mafia guy went to talk to the head mafia guy, the old guy by the lake, it seemed like he new the group was going to get busted.

Finally, I would like to point out that Sean Connery's opening rant about bank robbers going to jail while the bank owners could steal a thousand times as much and they get rewarded sounded like it was pulled right out of today's op-eds.

[–] 13 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Ironman54 13 years ago

Yep.

[–] hockeyhrs 11 years ago

1) When they case the building, the names Balsam uses for himself and his company were bogus. His secretary had been instructed on how to play the role she was asked to play (she's in on his fake antiques racket). Not sure how they set up a fake phone for the secretary to answer (surely Balsam didn't use the phone associated with his 'real' office, unless turning over new phone lines are a constant part of Balsam's fake antiques scam and that's why there were phone company guys installing something new when Connery first visits him).

The real head-scratcher was why the deskman even cared about calling Balsam's office number, when he should have been interested strictly in phoning his own boss (the building manager or owner) for confirmation of the redecoration project with Balsam's company . . . and if he couldn't get that confirmation, send Balsam away to return another day.

2) $1700 was still real money in 1971.

3 & 4) Alan King clearly got a thrill out of contemplating the robbery, but if the organization (The Mafia) had a position on it, they wanted the job to go bad because they didn't want any more Duke Anderson's to come knocking on their door in the future looking for seed money for more small-time heists that they weren't interested in. Happy accident that the tapes that would incriminate them got erased without them even knowing about them.

[–] Danespina 9 years ago

Worth noting that $1700 is about $10,000 today. But still good point.

My guess is that it's because Sean Connery didn't see the mafia as the mafia. He saw Alan King's character as a friend first and foremost, and someone who he believed owed him a favor.