Title: The Conversation
Release Date: April 7, 1974
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Production Company: The Directors Company
Summary/Review:
Gene Hackman portrays Harry Caul, a surveillance expert for hire in San Francisco. The movie begins with his team recording the conversation of a young couple, Ann (Cindy Williams) and Mark (Frederic Forrest) as they stroll through Union Square during lunch hour. They talk as if they have something to hide but their actual conversation appears innocuous. As Caul edits and replays the conversation he starts to hear different things (not unlike Blowup where enlarging a photograph reveals tantalizing details). Caul faces a moral quandary when he believes that if he delivers the recording to his client it could lead to the Ann and Mark’s murder.
Coppola made this movie as a personal project in-between The Godfather and The Godfather, Part II. The story reflects the increasing mistrust of government and Big Business the grew in the turbulent late 60s and early 70s, and inadvertently reflected the Watergate scandal that unfolded in 1974. There are some great scenes of Caul and other surveillance experts at a trade show and party that show the surprisingly sophisticated technology of the era. Harrison Ford has a good small part as a snarky assistant to Caul’s client. The movie is a slow-burn thriller with a fair amount of ambiguity and a surprising twist.
Rating: ***
Panorama of the Mountains 