The Anderson Tapes(Sidney Lumet, 1971) The second of the five films that Sean Connery would ultimately make with Sidney Lumet, an unlikely pairing of the Scots actor and the New York director, but the two obviously enjoyed working together, as Connery's next project with him(The Offence) was one of the "vanity" projects he was allowed to make for returning to the role of James Bond in Diamonds Are Forever, and Lumet was Connery-picked to direct, no doubt in loyalty to the director, as their first project, The Hill, allowed the world to see that the star of the "007" films had a range that extended outside the spy field.
The Anderson Tapes, however, was a different creature, entirely. An extended heist film, in which Connery, Martin Balsam, and (introducing) Christopher Walken participate in what must be the slowest caper in history, the casing of a luxury apartment building in New York City. Connery plays Duke Anderson, a con just released from a ten year stretch in prison, who can't wait to do another score. The inspiration is his girlfriend Ingrid (Dyan Cannon), a high-end call-girl, who has been set up in a luxury apartment by another man.
But, things have changed in the ten years since Anderson was free. Unbeknownst to him, he is under constant surveillance by three different agencies: Ingrid's apartment is bugged by a private detective hired by her "keeper;" the FBI is tracking Black activists, whose headquarters is at a flop where the thieves meet; the IRS is phone-tapping the Mafia Boss (Alan King), who is funding the heist; and the Bureau of Narcotics is keeping tabs on one of the group's members.
All of these groups are keeping a running record of the planning of the break-in...but none of them are coordinated or sharing information, and the surveillance work is so concentrated on their individual subjects, that nothing is put together to prevent it from happening.
It's hard to determine exactly what is being decried here—that our privacies are being invaded to such an extent, or that this intelligence isn't being cross-referenced to prevent actual crimes and thus is working to cross-purposes and is...dumb. One gets the impression that there is no stance being taken, rather that it's to present A Big Irony, that undercuts how events play out, eventually.
But, that was Lumet's specialty—he frequently spaced his flat-out movie drama assignments with "Ironies," (as opposed to "Comedies") that, their point having been made half-way through the movie, wear out their welcome by the often dissatisfying end of the tale. Everybody looks a little stupid here: the agencies, for their tunnel-vision, the crooks for their own utter lack of surveillance as the crime goes about, and the NYPD, whose very elaborate storming of the apartment complex is literally over-the-top.
Lumet was not the best director for comedy as he had a tendency to sledge-hammer things—like Martin Balsam's mincing interior decorator/antiques smuggler (yeah, yeah, "it was the times," I suppose—prejudice always has "a time"), but there are some joys to be had, besides Connery doing something different and Walken's debut: appearances by Max Showalter, Margaret Hamilton (her last role), and "crazy old lady"(their own form of prejudice) Judith Lowry, as well as Ralph Meeker and SNL pioneer Garrett Morris as Gotham police.
Lumet would hit his stride later in the decade (with the sure editorial hand of Dede Allen), but this one is only moderately successful.
"This story is told against a background of political unrest in a city of Northern Ireland. It is not concerned with the struggle between the law and an illegal organisation, but only with the conflict in the hearts of the people when they become unexpectedly involved."
Another film. Another fugitive. Another caveat.
Johnny McQueen (James Mason) is an operative of the IRA (although it has a reputation of "The Group That Must Not Be Named" in the film, referred to only as "The Organization"), newly escaped from prison and gone to ground in the flat of Kathleen Sullivan (Kathleen Ryan) and her gran'. To secure funds for their activities, Johnny has been commissioned to rob a mill payroll, and his crew are an odd lot of motley co-conspirators—Nolan (Daniel O'Herlihy, only his second film), Murphy (Roy Irving) and Pat (Cyril Cusack). Given his fugitive status, Johnny is the most at risk, but deems it necessary to lead the plan he has set up.
After the raid goes fairly successfully, the money stolen, the escape goes awry when Johnny is shot in the shoulder and, in the ensuing struggle, he shoots and kills the guard. Panicking, Pat starts to drive the getaway vehicle away, giving the wounded Johnny a last-second chance to dive through an open window and hang on while the gang speeds away. But, he can't hold on and falls and rolls into the street, leaving the others to argue about what to do. When Johnny hears sirens, he makes the decision for them, running off down an alley to take his chances, while the rest of the gang drive off.
Johnny stumbles into an abandoned air-raid shelter and passes out. He is alone, on the run, shot, bleeding out. Then, things get weird. A wayward ball from street-play bounces its way into the shelter and a little girl follows to retrieve it. But, Johnny doesn't see a little girl—he sees a copper staring mutely and the shelter his former jail-cell. He has been suffering from vertigo since his prison stay, but now, it becomes acute turning into hallucinations and fever-dreams, which he can't be sure of. Johnny's world is now an interior one and, in his predicament, he can't trust the reality of the outside-world.
He shouldn't trust it, anyway. The police are at the top of their game—a guard has been killed and the man who killed him is armed and on the run. Meanwhile, the men on the raid with him are looking out for themselves. They're either looking for Johnny or simply don't care. They're trying to save their own skins with the police on high alert. But, so are the towns-people, two of the gang get shot down in the streets after a tip-off. Johnny is found by another and deflects the attention of the coppers and allows Johnny to escape his trap.
But, anywhere he goes his shelter is only temporary...or downright dangerous. The city is one of conflicts—revolutionaries against police, faith versus politics, the samaritans versus the opportunists—and Johnny is caught up between all of them, even as he is stumbling, careening between life and death. Two women bring them into his home only to cast him out when the man of the house objects. A cab-driver finds him hiding in his hack and heaves him back into the cold. At a pub, he is hidden, but passed off to an obsessed painter (Robert Newton). Another just wants the reward. Kathleen (Kathleen Ryan), in love with Johnny, tries to find him and the local priest (W.G. Fay) just wants to save his soul.
Johnny's situation becomes more desperate and as he weakens, we see the film become more and more surrealistic, the straight lines of the night-time city streets giving way to melting interiors and perspectives that we can't trust, reflecting Johnny's failing faculties and his own sense of desperation.
Odd Man Out is disquieting and beautiful simultaneously. With a stand-out performance by James Mason—it's the film that made him a star—and a script that, for the most part, is stark and unsentimental, it would fit neatly in the noir niche, while careering into an inevitable fatalism that draws you in, slowly and inexorably, until its last dark moments of mercy, which don't feel like mercy at all, but a last resort. Reed's direction has a great deal to do with that, as he turns any space—even the city-streets—into a claustrophobic nightmare ready to suffocate at any time. Credit Robert Krasker for the cinematography making spectacle of alley-ways drenched in long shadows blasted by a single source of light and the cobblestone streets back-lit by luminous puddles that you could imagine their tread underfoot.
Odd Man Out was the first film to receive a BAFTA as "Best Film." And it is the favorite film of Gore Vidal, as well as Roman Polanski—probably as it reminded him of his experiences hiding out from the Nazi's in the Krakow ghetto during WWII, which would inform his film The Pianist.
The Story: This is what they used to call "a clash of the titans."
Except the titans are not titans at all...only in their own minds. And that can only extend to how far you can get away with it.
In one corner is the Ultimate Drama Queen Eve Harrington, and in the other, the bitchiest drama critic, Addison DeWitt.
These "Don't Make a Scene" features were inspired (initially) by a feature that used to run in Premier Magazine (R.I.P.) under the banner "Classic Scene" and this penultimate scene was one of them—but offered in the magazine in a very truncated form (starting with the line "That I should want you at all suddenly strikes me as the height of improbability"). Maybe they didn't want to give away "the secret" of All About Eve (and if so, there's a spoiler banner before the action starts), but it's a long scene—so long that I've been intimidated about doing it for years!
But, there's just not enough of that scene for the last part to play so savagely. And it is savage. Between two killers (not champions), who both have ambition, want power, and don't have any qualms about what lines are crossed to meet their ends. So, you get the whole knock-down/claws-out spitting match pairing theater critic and theater-climber) with no holds barred and no rocks left un-turned. The two are at their strongest and their most vulnerable. And each one gets a little dose of reality shoved in their face.
It's a delicious meal of a scene.
Eve and Addison are both smart, power-hungry, conspiratorial...and impossibly deluded. Eve lives in her fantasy world where she controls everyone and everything and Addison thinks his pen is mightier than a sword to stab in the back. Now, Eve anticipates the height of her fame and keeping it by planning to seduce her playwright, and Addison assumes he'll be rewarded by his efforts with a relationship beyond professional. When the two confess their heart's desires it goes against each other's scenarios. Eve's plan is met with the usual reptilian skepticism and when Eve laughs at his presumptions, Addison, for once out of words, is reduced to impotent violence. Even in 1950, #metoo doesn't play unless repercussions are feared.
At the end, both combatants are wounded but there is no knockout.
Except for the scene itself.
The Set-Up: Overture! Curtain lights. This is it. The night of nights. The play, "Footsteps on the Ceiling" is opening in its out of town tryouts in New Haven, and the air is so electric, you could get a shock without sticking your tongue in a socket.
It will be the acting debut of Eve Carrington (Anne Baxter), witnessed and orchestrated by critic Addison DeWitt (George Sanders), who has taken Eve from backstage admirer to personal assistant for Margo Channing (Bette Davis) to center stage. But, there is a price to fame and Addison is ready to deliver the bill.
Action.
EXT. SHUBERT THEATER - NEW HAVEN - DAY
The theater is but a few doors from the TAFT HOTEL. The marquee announces a new play by Lloyd Richards, presented by Max Fabian, opening tonight.
Addison and Eve stand before the theater admiring her photo on a lobby display. None of the actors are starred.
ADDISON'S VOICE
To the Theater world - New Haven,
Connecticut, is a short stretch of
sidewalk between the Shubert
Theater and the Taft Hotel,surrounded by what looks very much
like a small city.
ADDISON'S VOICE
It is here that
managers have what are called out
of-town openings - which are
openings for New Yorkers who want...
ADDISON'S VOICE
...to go out of town...
They start for the hotel - Eve's arm through Addison's.
EVE
What a day - what a heavenly day...
ADDISON
D-day.
EVE
Just like it.
ADDISON
And tomorrow morning you will have
won your beachhead on the shores of
Immortality...
EVE
(grins)
Stop rehearsing your column...
Isn't it strange, Addison?
I thought I'd be panic-stricken,
want to run away or something.
Instead, I can't wait for tonight
to come. To come and go...
ADDISON
Are you that sure of tomorrow?
EVE
Aren't you?
ADDISON
Frankly - yes.
They've arrived in front of the hotel.
EVE
It'll be a night to remember. It'll
bring to me everything I've ever
wanted. The end of an old road -
and the beginning of a new one...
ADDISON
All paved with diamonds and gold?
EVE
You know me better than that.
ADDISON
Paved with what, then?
EVE
Stars.
She goes in. Addison follows her.
INT. CORRIDOR - TAFT HOTEL - DAY
Addison accompanies Eve along the corridor to her door.
EVE
What time?
ADDISON
Almost four.
EVE
Plenty of time for a nice long nap -
we rehearsed most of last night...
ADDISON
You could sleep, too, couldn't you?
EVE
Why not?
They've arrived at her door. She opens it.
ADDISON
The mark of a true killer.
(he holds out his hand)
Sleep tight, rest easy - and come
out fighting...
EVE
Why'd you call me a killer?
ADDISON
Did I say killer? I meant champion.
I get my boxing terms mixed.
He turns to go. After a few steps-
EVE
(calling)
Addison-
(he pauses)
- come on in for just a minute,
won't you? There's... I've got
something to tell you.
Addison turns curiously, and enters behind her.
INT. EVE'S SUITE - TAFT HOTEL - DAY
Old-fashioned, dreary and small. The action starts in the
living room and continues to the bedroom.
Addison closes the door, crosses to a comfortable chair.
ADDISON
Suites are for expense accounts.
Aren't you being extravagant?
EVE
Max is paying for it. He and Lloyd
had a terrific row but Lloyd
insisted... well. Can I fix you a
drink?
She indicates a table elaborately stocked with liquor,
glasses, etc. Addison's eyebrows lift.
ADDISON
Also with the reluctant compliments
of Max Fabian.
EVE
Lloyd. I never have any, and he
likes a couple of drinks after we
finish - so he sent it up...
ADDISON
Some plain soda.
(Eve starts to fix it)
Lloyd must be expecting a record
run in New Haven...
EVE
That's for tonight. You're invited.
We're having everyone up after the
performance.
ADDISON
We're?
EVE
Lloyd and I.
She carries the soda to him, sits on an ottoman at his feet.
ADDISON
I find it odd that Karen isn't here
for the opening, don't you?
He sips his soda and puts away, carefully avoiding a look at
Eve. As he looks back-
EVE
Addison...
ADDISON
(blandly)
She's always been so fantastically
devoted to Lloyd. I would imagine
that only death or destruction
could keep her-
EVE
(breaks in)
Addison, just a few minutes ago.
When I told you this would be a
night to remember - that it would
bring me everything I wanted-
ADDISON
(nods)
- something about an old road
ending and a new one starting -
paved with stars...
EVE
I didn't mean just the Theater.
ADDISON
What else?
Eve gets up, crosses to look out over the Common.
EVE
(her back to him)
Lloyd Richards.
EVE He's going to leave
Karen. We're going to be married.
For just a flash, Addison's eyes narrow coldly, viciously.
Then they crinkle into a bland smile.
ADDISON
So that's it. Lloyd. Still just the
Theater, after all...
EVE
(turns; shocked)
It's nothing of the kind! Lloyd
loves me, I love him!
ADDISON
I know nothing about Lloyd and his
loves - I leave those to Louisa May
Alcott. But I do know you.
EVE
I'm in love with Lloyd!
ADDISON
Lloyd Richards is commercially the
most successful playwright in
America-
EVE
You have no right to say such
things!
ADDISON
- and artistically, the most
promising! Eve dear, this is
Addison.
Eve drops her shocked manner like a cape. Her face lights up -
she crosses back to the ottoman.
EVE
Addison, won't it be just perfect?
Lloyd and I - there's no telling
how far we can go... he'll write
great plays for me, I'll make them
be great!
(as she sits)
You're the only one I've told, the
only one that knows except Lloyd
and me...
ADDISON
... and Karen. EVE
She doesn't know.
ADDISON She knows enough not to be here.
EVE
But not all of it - not that Lloyd
and I are going to be married.
ADDISON
(thoughtfully)
I see.
ADDISON: And when was this unholy
alliance joined?
EVE
We decided the night before last,
before we came up here...
ADDISON
(increasingly tense)
Was the setting properly romantic -
the lights on dimmers, gypsy
violins off stage?
EVE
The setting wasn't romantic, but
Lloyd was.
EVE He woke me up at three
in the morning, banging on my door -
he couldn't sleep, he told me -
he's left Karen,
EVE ...he couldn't go on
with the play or anything else
until I promised to marry him... we
sat and talked until it was light.
He never went home...
ADDISON
You sat and talked until it was
light...
EVE
(meaningly)
We sat and talked, Addison. I want
a run of the play contract.
ADDISON
(quietly)
There never was, there'll never be
another like you.
EVE(happily)
Well, say something - anything!
Congratulations, skol - good work,
Eve!
Addison rises slowly, to his full height.
As Eve watches him,
as her eyes go up to his, her smile fades-
ADDISON
What do you take me for?
EVE
(cautiously)
I don't know what I take you for
anything...
ADDISON
(moving away)
It is possible - even conceivable -
that you've confused me with that
gang of backward children you've
been playing tricks on - that you
have the same contempt for me that
you have for them?
EVE
I'm sure you mean something by
that, Addison, but I don't know
what...
ADDISON
Look closely, Eve, it's time you
did.
ADDISON I am Addison deWitt. I'm
nobody's fool. Least of all -
yours.
EVE
I never intended you to be.
ADDISON
Yes, you did. You still do.
Eve gets up, now.
EVE
I still don't know what you're
getting at.
EVE Right now I want to
take my nap. It's important that I-
ADDISON
(breaks in)
- it's important right now that we
talk. Killer to killer.
EVE
(wisely)
Champion to champion.
ADDISON
Not with me, you're no champion.
You're stepping way up in class.
EVE
Addison, will you please say what
you have to say plainly and
distinctly - and then get out so I
can take my nap!
ADDISON
Very well, plainly and distinctly.
Although I consider it unnecessary -
because you know as well as I, what
I am about to say.
(they are now facing each
other)
ADDISON Lloyd may leave Karen, but he will
not leave Karen for you.
EVE
What do you mean by that?
ADDISON
More plainly and more distinctly?
ADDISON I
Have not come to New Haven to see
the play, discuss your dreams, or
to pull the ivy from the walls of
Yale! I have come to tell you that
you will not marry Lloyd - or
anyone else - because I will not
permit it.
EVE
What have you got to do with it?
ADDISON
Everything.
ADDISON Because after tonight,
you will belong to me.
EVE
"Belong...""To you?" I can't believe my ears...
EVE
Belong - to you? That sounds
medieval - something out of an old
melodrama...
ADDISON
So does the history of the world
for the past twenty years.
ADDISON I don't
enjoy putting it as bluntly as
this, frankly I had hoped that you
would, somehow, have known - have
taken it for granted that you and
I...
EVE
... taken it for granted? That you
and I...
She smiles. Then she chuckles, then laughs. A mistake.
Addison slaps her sharply across the face.
ADDISON
(quietly)
Now, remember as long as you live, never
to laugh at me. At anything or
anyone else - but never at me.
Eve eyes him coldly, goes to the door, throws it open.
EVE
Then if you won't get out, I'll
have you thrown out.
She goes to the phone.
ADDISON
Don't pick it up! Don't even put
your hand on it...
She doesn't. Her back is to him. Addison smiles.
ADDISON
Something told you to do as I say,
didn't it? That instinct is worth
millions, you can't buy it, cherish
it, Eve. When that alarm goes off,
go to your battle stations...
He comes up behind her. Eve is tense and wary.
ADDISON
Your name is not Eve Harrington. It
is Gertrude Slescynski.
EVE
What of it?
ADDISON
It is true that your parents were
poor. They still are. And they
would like to know how you are -
and where. They haven't heard from
you for three years...
EVE
(curtly)
What of it?
She walks away. Addison eyes her keenly.
ADDISON
A matter of opinion. Granted.
ADDISON It is
also true that you worked in a
brewery.
ADDISON But life in the brewery
was apparently not as dull as you
pictured it.
ADDISON As a matter of fact,
it got less and less dull -
ADDISON - until
you boss's wife had your boss
followed by detectives!
EVE
(whirls on him)
She never proved anything, not a
thing!
ADDISON
But the $500 you got to get out of
town brought you straight to New
York - didn't it?
Eve turns and runs into the bedroom, slamming the door.
Addison opens it, follows close after her... he can be seen
in the bedroom, shouting at Eve who is offscene.
ADDISON
That $500 brought you straight to
New York - didn't it?
INT. BEDROOM - DAY
Eve, trapped, in a corner of the room.
EVE
She was a liar, she was a liar!
ADDISON
Answer my question! Weren't you
paid to get out of town?
Eve throws herself on the bed, face down, bursts in tears.
Addison, merciless, moves closer.
ADDISON
Fourth. There was no Eddie - no
pilot - and you've never been
married!
ADDISON That was not only a lie,
but an insult to dead heroes and to
the women who loved them...
(Eve, sobbing, puts her
hands over her ears;
Addison, closer, pulls
them away)
...
ADDISON Fifth. San Francisco has no
Shubert Theater and North Shore,
you've never been to San Francisco!
That was a stupid lie, easy to
expose, not worthy of you...
Eve twists to look up at him, her eyes streaming.
EVE
I had to get in, to meet Margo! I
had to say something, be somebody,
make her like me!
ADDISON She did like you,
ADDISON ...she helped and
trusted you! You paid her back by
trying to take Bill away!
EVE
That's not true!
ADDISON
I was there, I saw you...
ADDISON ...and heard
you through the dressing room door!
Eve turns face down again, sobbing miserably.
ADDISON
You used my name and my column to
blackmail Karen into getting you
the part of "Cora" - and you lied
to me about it!
EVE
(into the bed)
No-no-no...
ADDISON
I had lunch with Karen not three
hours ago. As always with women who
want to find out things, she told...
ADDISON ...more than she learned...
(he lets go of her hands)
...
ADDISON Do you want to change your
story about Lloyd beating at your
door the other night?
Eve covers her face with her hands.
EVE
Please... please...
Addison get off the bed, looks down at her.
ADDISON
That I should want you at all
suddenly strikes me as the height
of improbability.
ADDISON But that, in
itself, is probably the reason.
ADDISON You're an improbable person, Eve,
and so am I. We have that in
common. Also a contempt for
humanity, an inability to love or
be loved, insatiable ambition - and
talent. We deserve each other. Are
you listening to me?
Eve lies listlessly now, her tear-stained cheek against the
coverlet.
She nods.
ADDISON
Then say so.
EVE
Yes, Addison.
ADDISON
And you realize - you agree how
completely you belong to me?
EVE
Yes, Addison.
ADDISON
Then take your nap, now. And good luck
for tonight.
He starts out.
EVE
(tonelessly)
I won't play tonight.
(Addison pauses)
EVE I couldn't. Not possibly. I
couldn't go on...
ADDISON
(smiles)
Couldn't go on?
ADDISON You'll give the
performance of your life.
He goes out.
The CAMERA REMAINS on Eve's forlorn, tear stained face.
, 1971) The second of the five films that Sean Connery would ultimately make with Sidney Lumet, an unlikely pairing of the Scots actor and the New York director, but the two obviously enjoyed working together, as Connery's next project with him (The Offence) was one of the "vanity" projects he was allowed to make for returning to the role of James Bond in Diamonds Are Forever, and Lumet was Connery-picked to direct, no doubt in loyalty to the director, as their first project, The Hill, allowed the world to see that the star of the "007" films had a range that extended outside the spy field.
, 1971) The second of the five films that Sean Connery would ultimately make with Sidney Lumet, an unlikely pairing of the Scots actor and the New York director, but the two obviously enjoyed working together, as Connery's next project with him (The Offence) was one of the "vanity" projects he was allowed to make for returning to the role of James Bond in Diamonds Are Forever, and Lumet was Connery-picked to direct, no doubt in loyalty to the director, as their first project, The Hill, allowed the world to see that the star of the "007" films had a range that extended outside the spy field.
But, things have changed in the ten years since Anderson was free. Unbeknownst to him, he is under constant surveillance by three different agencies: Ingrid's apartment is bugged by a private detective hired by her "keeper;" the FBI is tracking Black activists, whose headquarters is at a flop where the thieves meet; the IRS is phone-tapping the Mafia Boss (Alan King), who is funding the heist; and the Bureau of Narcotics is keeping tabs on one of the group's members. 
