Days of Paranoia: The Anderson Tapes (by Sidney Lumet)

Posted on April 15, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 1971’s The Anderson Tapes, Sean Connery stars as Duke Anderson.

Duke is a career criminal, a safecracker who has just spent ten years in prison. He’s released, alongside Pops (Stan Gottlieb), who spent so much time behind bars that he missed two wars and the Great Depression, and the quirky Kid (Christopher Walken, making his film debut). Duke immediately hooks up with his former girlfriend, Ingrid (Dyan Cannon), and decides to rob the luxury apartment building where Ingrid is now living.

Of course, Duke will have to put together a crew. It’s not a heist film without a quirky crew, is it? Duke recruits the Kid and Pops. (The Kid is happy to be in the game but he’s not a fan of violence. Pops, meanwhile, has none of the skills necessary for living in the “modern” world and would much rather return to prison.) Duke also brings in the flamboyant Tommy Haskins (an overacting Martin Balsam) and driver Edward Spencer (Dick Anthony Williams). Duke goes to the mob for backing and Pat Angelo (Alan King) gives it to him on the condition that he take along a sociopathic racist named Socks (Val Avery) and that Duke kills Socks at some point. Duke reluctantly agrees.

So far, this probably sounds like a conventional heist film. Director Sidney Lumet mixes comedy and drama with uneven results but, overall, he does a good job of ratcheting up the tension and The Anderson Tapes is a good example of one of my favorite mini-genres, the “New Yorkers will be rude to anyone” genre. At first glance, Sean Connery seems to be playing yet another super smooth operator, a confident criminal with a plan that cannot fail. Duke seems like a criminal version of James Bond, However, as the film progresses, we start to suspect that things might be getting away from Duke. When Duke has to go the Mafia for support and is told that killing Socks is now a part of the job, we see that Duke isn’t as in-control of the situation as we originally assumed. This is the rare Sean Connery film where he has someone pushing him around.

(Apparently, Connery took this role as a part of his effort to escape being typecast as Bond. Perhaps that explains why Duke seems like almost a deconstruction of the James Bond archetype.)

Of course, what really lets us know that Duke isn’t as in-charge as he assumes is the fact that four different law enforcement agencies are following his every move. From the minute he gets out of prison, Duke is being watched. The apartment is bugged. Security cameras records his every move. Once the heist begins, we’re treated to flash forwards of breathless news reports. The Anderson Tapes is less a heist film and more a portrait of the early days of the modern Surveillance State. Of course, none of the agencies make any moves to stop Duke because doing so would reveal their own existence. The film really does become a portrait of a government that has gotten so big and intrusive that it’s also lost the ability to actually do anything.

The Anderson Tapes is entertaining, even if it’s not really one of Lumet’s best. Connery is, as always, a fascinating screen presence and it’s always entertaining to see a young Christopher Walken, showing early sings of the quirkiness that would become his signature style. The Anderson Tapes is a portrait of a world where you never know who might be listening.

Caddyshack II (1988, directed by Allan Arkush)

Posted on January 31, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

Welcome back to Bushwood Country Club! The Gopher is still stealing balls and burrowing through the course. Ty Webb (Chevy Chase) is still the majority shareholder of the club, even though he now only plays golf inside of his mansion. And that’s it!

Only the Gopher and Chevy Chase returned for Caddyshack II. Ted Knight died before the movie went into production. Bill Murray didn’t want to recreate his role from the first movie. Rodney Dangerfield was involved in developing the movie but then dropped out after two million had already been spent in pre-production. Chevy Chase was paid seven figures to return and he later called it one of the biggest mistakes of his career. Only the Gopher didn’t complain.

With hardly anyone from the first film willing to come back for a second round, Caddyshack II features comedian Jackie Mason as Jack Hartounian, a real estate developer whose daughter, Kate (Jessica Lundy), wants to be a part of the WASPy Bushwood social set. When Chandler Young (Robert Stack) keeps the plain-spoken Jack from being given a membership, Jack teams up with his old friend Ty and buys Bushwood. He turns Bushwood into an amusement park called Jackie’s Wacky Golf. Kate tells Jack that he’s ruined everything and turned Bushwood into Coney Island. Chandler hires survivalist Tom Everett (Dan Aykroyd) to kill Jack and then agrees to play Jack in a round of golf. The winner wins Bushwood.

A bust with both audiences and critics, Caddyshack II is one of the worst sequels ever made. Why would you do a sequel to Caddyshack that features almost nothing that made the first film so entertaining? Jackie Mason was a great comedian and writer but he wasn’t much of an actor and he makes a poor replacement for Rodney Dangerfield. The film really loses me when Chandler Young literally pays money to have Jackie murdered. It’s just a step too far. Not even Ted Knight tried to kill Rodney Dangerfield and Dangerfield was a lot more obnoxious than Jackie Mason ever was. Not even the dancing Gopher can generate much laughs and Kate’s right. Jackie’s Wacky Golf really is a terrible place.

There are some interesting actors and actresses in the supporting cast. The lovely Dyan Cannon plays Jack’s love interest and is one of the few good things about the movie, despite having no chemistry with Mason. Randy Quaid gives a manic performance as Jack’s lawyer, a role that was originally meant for Sam Kinison. Jonathan Silverman is the good caddy who falls for Jack’s daughter while Chynna Phillips is Chandler’s snobby daughter who befriends Kate and tells her she should change her last name to Hart. Dan Aykroyd delivers all of his lines in a high-pitched voice that isn’t funny but which becomes very annoying.

The slobs win again. The snobs are defeated and the Gopher dances with noticeably less enthusiasm. There has never been a Caddyshack 3.

Film Review: The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond (1960, directed by Budd Boetticher)

Posted on February 5, 2016 by Jedadiah Leland

TheRiseFallofLegsDiamond It’s the 1920s. Prohibition is the law of the land and gangsters control the streets of New York City. Jack Diamond (Ray Danton) and his tubercular brother, Eddie (Warren Oates), arrives in town. Jack and Eddie are small-time jewel thieves but Jack has ambitions to be something more. He works with his girlfriend, Alice (Karen Steele), as a dance instructor but he dreams of being the most powerful mobster in the world. His first step is to get a job working as a bodyguard for New York crime lord (and fixer of the 1919 World Series), Arnold Rothstein (Robert Lowery). Though Rothstein never trusts him, Jack works his way into his inner circle and even gets a nickname. Because he is a dancer, he is renamed “Legs” Diamond.

From the minute that he starts working with Rothstein, Legs Diamond’s cocky personality and ruthless ambition make him enemies. When he is shot three times, Legs shocks everyone by surviving and announces that he is invulnerable and cannot be killed. After Rothstein is mysteriously gunned down, Diamond goes to war against Leo “Butcher” Bremer (Jesse White, better known as the original Maytag repairman) for control of the New York underworld.

The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond was directed by the legendary Budd Boetticher, a bullfighter-turned-director who is best known for directing a series of low-budget westerns in the 1950s. The violent and hard-boiled The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond was Boetticher’s only gangster film and it’s a good one. The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond is tightly-written, fast-paced, and Lucien Ballard’s black-and-white cinematography ranks with the best of film noir.

The role of Legs Diamond was originally offered to future producer Robert Evans (of The Kid Stays In The Picture fame) but when Evans turned it down, the role was given to Ray Danton. Though he is occasionally a little stiff, Danton still gives a good and tough performance as Diamond but it is still hard not to wonder what Evans would have been like in the role. The rest of the cast is full of recognizable B-movie actors, all of whom do a good job. Actress Dyan Cannon made her film debut in Legs Diamond, playing one of Diamond’s girlfriends. Meanwhile, in only his third film role, Warren Oates is memorable and sympathetic as the sickly Eddie. Though Oates does not get to do much in the film, his performance still shows why he went on to become one of the most popular and well-respected character actors of all time.

Though hardly historically accurate (in real life, Arnold Rothstein never knew Jack Diamond and Diamond received his nickname not because he was a dancer but because of the speed with which he ran away from the police), The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond is an exciting and entertaining Depression-era gangster film.

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