When Jim Hougan published *Spooks, his seminal study of a growing, almost unholy Post-World War II relationship of private eyes with business and government, he was confirming what Francis Ford Coppola had discerned, in probably the best single film the master director ever made: THE CONVERSATION (1974). Coppola's natural interest in electronic developments led him into a relationship with Hal Lipset, whose San Francisco private investigation firm was deploying and utilizing a dizzying array of what was then innovative surveillance equipment.

[Lipset himself would become a technical advisor for the production.]

Internalizing the relatively new idea that Movies were essentially a form of Voyeurism, Coppola pondered the implications of these new investigative audio and video devices for American Society, and the people who (like himself) used the equipment for other purposes. While still working on *THE GODFATHER, he planned, produced and wrote THE CONVERSATION as a personal picture, on a tiny budget of 1.6 million dollars. Coppola gathered a cast of largely unknown players. He selected technical people who had, or would gain, legendary status: Cinematographer Bill Butler (JAWS, 1975), Film Editor Walter Chew (STAR WARS, 1977), and Sound Editor Walter Murch (THE GODFATHER, II (1974), Composer David Shire (FAREWELL, MY LOVELY, 1975). For many of these artists, THE CONVERSATION was their first significant film.

Coppola masterfully directed his players in a fashion that emphasized an increasing tendency among us Americans to intrude on the privacy of others (while coveting our own), but concentrated in the character of Harry Caul. Using locations like Embarcadero One, Alta Vista Park and the Jack Tarr Hotel, in addition to Union Square, Cinematographer Butler marshaleded his cameras, charged with muted film stock, in swooping, peering, poking, tracking and panning movements which mimic the surveillance devices (appearing just then, widely for the first time). Film Editor Chew cut the film, often in medium long shots, suggesting the audience was observing the events of the film secretively. Sound Editor Murch (especially in post production work) superbly evoked contrasts in sound quality out-of-doors; in echoing industrial buildings; within small spaces such as apartments, hotel rooms, or bathrooms; and on the new multitrack magnetic tape recordings which were becoming standard. And David Shire came up with a jazzy, insinuating, haunting piano score, which for all its simplicity, accentuated a threatening and damning evolvement of the main character's deepening mood of despair.

THE CONVERSATION begins with a brilliant series of overhead tracking shots in San Francisco's central Union Square at Christmas time. The score comes up, interrupted by walkie-talkie radio transmissions of varying quality. The camera follows a clown-like mime (Robert Shields -- first film, soon in the "Shields and Yarnell" TV Series) toward a young couple walking around the square.

Cut to a fellow surreptitiously photographing the action with a newsreel camera. [Buzz -- Splatt-t-t.] Cut to the couple. We hear a bit of their conversation. [-- ook. What? (Buzz-z) Everytime I see -- ] She looks at an old man with a shopping bag drowsing on a park bench. [-- think the same thing. What?] Zoom shot to a man hidden in the superstructure of the old City of Paris department store sign, six storeys up. [Buzz --Splat!] He is sighting a rifle-microphone through a telescopic sight. He puts the couple in his cross-hairs, calling up horrific memories, at the time, of recent assassinations. [Buzz-Buzz-z.] Cut to a medium close-up tracking shot of the couple on a TV monitor. Within a van, two men are listening and watching the pair from many sources. [I always think (buzz) he was once somebody's little baby boy!] The old man rouses himself in the background, rises and begins to follow the couple. [The sound quality of the transmission changes.]

Thus, in a couple of minutes of film, the major characters are introduced; the mood established; the audio and visual style marked; the conflict suggested; the philosophical, political and emotional themes of THE CONVERSATION made manifest. Few important films since *CITIZEN KANE have faded in with all that so economically.

Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) in his gadget, device packed van is the best private investigator of the new breed on the West Coast. He works painstakingly with his assistant Stan (John Casale), and a collection of old cops and gumshoes, to wiretap, bug, debug, photograph and record the actions of individuals for businesses or citizens who can afford his services.

Harry, despite his intrusive profession, is an intensely private, even shy person. He lives in a sound-proofed apartment, secured by half a dozen locks of different kinds. (He is therefore mortified when he discovers that his landlady has somehow entered his place in his absence and left him a birthday card!) His passion is playing saxophone by himself to classic jazz recordings. He furtively visits his mistress-girlfriend, Amy (Teri Garr), at her apartment a couple of times a week. They never go out. The suggestion is that they meet only for sex.

When Harry sits down with Stan the next day, they begin to run their audio and visual tracks to develop a transcript and report for their client. One line in the tapes eventually begins to bother Harry. "He'd kill us if he got the chance." The problem is that part of the transmission is garbled and it takes on a different significance on alternate tracks. (We will hear the tracks a number of times during THE CONVERSATION, each time with a somewhat changed meaning.) Harry, as we shall learn, had a bad experience in Chicago years ago. He will not knowingly deal officially with law enforcement, etc., but neither will he seriously break the law. As he tells a character, as a reflection of his disturbance, "I'm not afraid of death, but I am afraid of murder."

The subjects of his investigation, whom we all know only as Mark (Frederick Forrest) and Amy (Cindy Williams), appear to be in some danger. The more Harry refines his tapes, the more danger they seem to be in.

Harry attempts to withhold the report and tapes from his client, to stall his own process. In the Totalitarian Modern building which is his client's place of business, he asks to speak personally with "The Director" (Robert Duvall), but he is stymied, first by a receptionist (Mark Wheeler), and then by Martin Stett (Harrison Ford), the Director's executive assistant.

Increasingly nervous, Harry begins to put together the scenario of a crime-in-the-making. He suffers dreams about Ann -- Freudian nightmares. He launches his own personal investigation. In the midst of increasing pressure from his client's people, he must play host to Bernie Moran (Allen Garfield), an intensely competitive colleague from back east, who has come to San Francisco to attend a convention of wiretappers. Irritated by Bernie's boastful digs, Harry breaks a prime rule and holds a party for some people from the convention [including Meredith (Elizabeth MacRae), an attractive model] at his industrial-loft-headquarters, so that he can dissipate his tension with some boasting of his own. It is here that THE CONVERSATION rises to its climax, when it develops that Bernie knows Harry's secret.

THE CONVERSATION was a lucky harbinger for many of the cast. Robert Shields (The Mimic] was actually a hippie performer in Union Square when he was tapped for his role; he became a TV star. (When the renovated Union Square was shown to the public this year, he came back to perform at the celebration.) He continues to appear in concert shows and on TV.

For Mark Wheeler (the receptionist), THE CONVERSATION was the beginning of a modest career as a character actor, which probably reached its peak when he played an older Neal Armstrong in APOLLO 13 (Howard, 1995).

A year after her appearance as Ann, Cindy Williams became Shirley of "Laverne and Shirley" on TV.

Frederick Forrest (Mark) went on to become a Coppola regular, most memorably as the wheelman of the patrol boat in APOCALYPSE NOW (1979).

A year following THE CONVERSATION, Teri Garr (Amy), starred in Mel Brooks' classic comic movie, YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN, and the year after that, she took a featured role on TV's "Sonny and Cher Show" -- the beginning of a long career in both mediums.

Following a relatively minor role as Fredo in THE GODFATHER (1972), John Casale [once engaged to Meryl Streep], the same year he played Stan in THE CONVERSATION, saw Fredo, Michael Corleone's weak brother, become the emotionally crucial figure in *THE GODFATHER II. Fredo was perhaps the high point of Casale's tragically short career, for he was dead of cancer four years later, at the age of 43.

Robert Duvall, who became almost a household name after being the Consigliere in THE GODFATHER, played his part of The Director uncredited.

And of course, as everyone seems to remark, Harrison Ford's small but important role of Martin Stett, was one of several for Coppola before he made his breakthrough as Hans Solo in George Lucas's STAR WARS (1977).

Gene Hackman, after some years as a minor character actor, started toward stardom as Buck Barrow in BONNIE AND CLYDE (1967), but he is on record that Harry Caul in THE CONVERSATION is, in his opinion, his best work.

[As readers of Hougan's SPOOKS: The Haunting of America -- The Private Use of Secret Agents, Bantam Books, 1979, will learn, the model for Harry Caul was probably the legendary Bernard Spindel, Bugger Extrordinaire. Spindel was quoted as saying that he would not work for Law Enforcement, but he would do nothing of a serious criminal nature. Nevertheless, among many sensational cases in which he was involved, it was he who worked for Jimmy Hoffa's Teamsters in their War against the Kennedy's. He reputedly had hours and hours of tapes made in Marilyn Monroe's various boudoirs, recording intimate and political conversations of Monroe with John and Robert Kennedy (especially the latter), plus those of many other lovers. Spindel was found brutally murdered some years later, his offices ransacked. The reputed tapes never surfaced, but rumors persist that somewhere copies still survive. Spindel was not so modest as Harry Caul, of course -- he had a profile in Life Magazine -- and he did not seem to have much of a real conscience, but the nature of his death at least puts him in a category similar to Harry.]

My personal connection to THE CONVERSATION is a distant one. In the early years of the Hal Lipset agency, I was involved in a case, which required their services. David Fechheimer, who would go on to be a truly legendary private eye for Lipset and others, picked me up at my house one night and took me shot-gun, to track down and vet various witnesses we needed for my case. His amazing resourcefulness and skill, in just a couple of hours, turned up several of them. He told me that reading The Maltese Falcon by Dashiel Hammett while washing shirts in an all-night laundry encouraged him to become a private eye. I gave him a bottle of wine in gratitude, and shall always remember him for his work.

THE CONVERSATION is a still relevant in American Society, for unless I miss my guess, the same people who brought us the political paranoia of the 1970's -- or their proteges -- are back in power, back at work.

Burn your computer after you read this review.

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This Review is part of Simply Crispy's Write-Off to present a review of a movie that contains a performance of an actor or actress who later had an important career. I don't know any movie, except CITIZEN KANE, which introduced more important talent to the American public than THE CONVERSATION.

Please read the other reviews in this Write-Off:

arjita
artbyjude - "Hackers" "Wild Wild West" "Mazes And Monsters"
BigJack - "The Taking Of Beverly Hills"
brodieman
d_fienberg - "Losin' It"
jankp - "Endless Love"
lemon_lime
Lynus - "Coming To America"
mfunk75 - "Rudy"
MrsNormanMaine
Simply_Crispy (host) - "Return Of The Killer Tomatoes" "Anaconda" "Tigerland"
skbreese - "Moon Over Parador"
susidee34 - "Son Of Lassie"
tjmackey
Vormancian - "Journey Of Natty Gann"
Weirdo_87
xxxxer

Links may be found to the complete list on Simply Crispy's Profile Page:

http://www.epinions.com/user-simply_crispy

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My reviews of two other classic films which advanced careers in their time may be found at the follow URL's:

*THE GODFATHER --

http://www.epinions.com/mvie-review-570B-191D3A8-392EF5B2-prod5

*THE GODFATHER II --

http://www.epinions.com/mvie-review-701E-296F98E-39319238-prod5

*CITIZEN KANE --

http://www.epinions.com/mvie-review-4874-81FD18C-38741497-bd4
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Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older