Handlung

After ten years in prison to protect a mafia family, Duke Anderson is released and he cashes in a debt of honor with the mob to bankroll a caper.

A thief (Duke Anderson) just released from ten years in jail, takes up with his old girlfriend (Ingrid) in her posh apartment. He makes plans to rob the entire building. What he doesn't know is that his every move is recorded on audio and video tape, although he is not the subject of any surveillance.—Zeke M. Towson <matajame@cwis.isu.edu>

Convicted safe-cracker Duke Anderson is released after serving ten years in prison. Upon visiting his old girlfriend, Ingrid Everleigh, at her upscale apartment in New York City, Anderson comes up with his next get rich scheme: rob all six apartments in the building. It will be a complex scheme, with numerous ex-con friends and acquaintances part of the plot. Anderson realizes that life has changed in the ten years he has been in prison, where surveillance cameras are now part of everyday life. The cameras are just one more aspect that he has to consider in the scheme. What he doesn't realize is that some of his associates are also under individual electronic surveillance by various organizations, each for a different reason. Some of these taps are legal and some not so legal. Will anyone doing the surveillance work be able to piece together the plot, and even if they do will they care if it does not relate to their prime subject?—Huggo

Burglar John "Duke" Anderson (Sean Connery) is released after ten years in prison. Anderson believes that the entire system is rigged in favor of the rich people. The rich can get away with robbing a bank, but the poor people are put in prison for just trying to survive from one day to the next. Anderson is released along with 2 more inmates namely Pop and The Kid. Pop was in for so long that he was now actually afraid to be a free man. Pop was imprisoned in 1931 for killing a cop and the last he heard from was his sister, who sent him an Easter Card in 1948.

He renews his relationship with his old girlfriend, Ingrid (Dyan Cannon). While Anderson was away in prison, Ingrid has been "kept" by a wealthy man named Werner (Richard Shull), who put her up in an Upper East Side apartment block in Manhattan. When Anderson enters the building for the first time, he carefully studies the security features of the same. Anderson decides to stay with Ingrid. Ingrid calls Werner and tells him that her ex-boyfriend has come back to stay and so he cannot visit her anymore and she would come to visit him once a week at his place.

Anderson, almost instantly, decides to burgle the entire building in a single sweep - filling a furniture van with the proceeds. He gains financing from a nostalgic Mafia boss Pat Angelo (Alan King), by redeeming a favor owed him, and gathers his four-man crew. Anderson convinces Pat to give him a stake in the final take. Pat agrees because of the prior favor and as he knows that Anderson is a dependable person and runs his job with military precision.

Also included is an old ex-con drunk, William "Pop" Meyerhoff (Stan Gottlieb) whom Anderson met in jail, and who is to play concierge while the real one is bound and gagged in the cellar. Pop was released from prison the same day as Anderson, and Kurt Spencer aka "The Kid" (Christopher Walken).

Less welcome is a man the Mafia foists onto Anderson - the thuggish Rocco "Socks" Parelli (Val Avery). Socks is a psychopath who has become a liability to the mob and, as part of the deal, Anderson must kill him in the course of the robbery. Anderson is not keen on this, since the operation is complicated enough, but is forced to go along.

Anderson has unwittingly entered a world of pervasive surveillance - the agents, cameras, bugs, and tracking devices of numerous public and private agencies see almost the entire operation from the earliest planning to the execution. As Anderson advances the scheme, he moves from the surveillance of one group to another as locations or individuals change.

These include a private detective hired to eavesdrop on Anderson's girlfriend who is also the mistress of a wealthy man, the BNDD / Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs who are checking over a released drug dealer, The FBI, investigating African American activists and the interstate smuggling of antiques, and the IRS, which is after the mob boss who is financing the operation. Yet, because the various federal, state and city agencies performing the surveillance are all after different goals, none of them is able to "connect the dots" and anticipate the robbery.

Anderson taps crooked antique dealer Tommy Haskins (Martin Balsam) to go through the apartment building, identifying valuables, and assess the potential loot. Unknown the anyone, Tommy was also under observation by the FBI for his role in the interstate smuggling of antiques. Anderson pays Tommy $500 for the job.

Anderson brings in Edward Spencer (Dick Anthony Williams) to drive the getaway truck. "The Kid" will take care of burglar alarms and telephone lines. The Kid was under observation by the BNDD. Edward and Anderson had spent time together in prison and knew each other even though they had no worked together before. Anderson offers to pay Edward a flat $2000, but Edward says that he wants a percentage of the take. He tells "Pop", who calls to ask if he can move in with Anderson, to stand by for a "job".

Edward distracts the concierge at the Ingrid building, allowing the Kid to get into the basement and understand the entire alarm system and telephone system that had been put in place.

The operation proceeds over a Labor Day weekend. Disguised as a Mayflower moving and storage crew, the crooks cut telephone and alarm wires and move up through the building, gathering the residents as they go and robbing each apartment. The scenes of the residents being seized, and in some cases assaulted, are shown in contrast to them giving statements to the police after the robbery, which appears to indicate that it succeeded.

However, Jerry Bingham (Scott Jacoby) the son of two of the residents is a paraplegic and asthmatic who is left behind in his air-conditioned room. Using his amateur radio equipment, he calls up other radio amateurs, based in Hawaii, Portland, Maine and Wichita Falls, who contact the police. The alarm is thus raised, after some problems as to which side (callers or emergency services) should take the phone bill. As the oblivious criminals' work, the police array enormous forces outside to prevent their escape and send a team in via a neighboring rooftop.

In the shootout that follows, Anderson kills Socks but is himself shot by the police. The other robbers are killed, injured or captured, but none gets away with it. Pop gives himself up after letting the police believe that he is the real concierge for a while. Having never adapted to life on the outside, he looks forward to going back to prison.

In the course of searching the building, the police discover some audio listening equipment left behind by the private detective who was hired to check up on Ingrid. While organizing the robbery, Anderson met various people who were under similar surveillance for other reasons by various government agencies. To avoid embarrassment over the failing to realize what was going on and that some of the recordings were illegal, the agencies order the tapes to be erased.