A paranoid, secretive surveillance expert has a crisis of conscience when he suspects that the couple he is spying on will be murdered.A paranoid, secretive surveillance expert has a crisis of conscience when he suspects that the couple he is spying on will be murdered.A paranoid, secretive surveillance expert has a crisis of conscience when he suspects that the couple he is spying on will be murdered.
- Nominated for 3 Oscars
- 14 wins & 17 nominations total
Elizabeth MacRae
- Meredith
- (as Elizabeth Mac Rae)
Ramon Bieri
- Man at Party
- (uncredited)
Gian-Carlo Coppola
- Boy in Church
- (uncredited)
George Dusheck
- TV Anchor
- (uncredited)
Robert Duvall
- The Director
- (uncredited)
Richard Hackman
- Confessional Priest
- (uncredited)
- …
George Meyer
- Salesman
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe blue Mercedes limousine that Cindy Williams is sitting in near the end of the film was won by Francis Ford Coppola on a bet with Paramount Pictures. Coppola had complained about the station wagon he shared with five other passengers during the filming of The Godfather (1972). Studio executives told him that if The Godfather had grossed a certain amount, they would spring for a new car. After The Godfather became the highest grossing film of all time, Coppola and George Lucas went to a dealer and picked out the Mercedes, telling the salesman to bill Paramount Pictures.
- GoofsWhen Caul is in Stett's office alone, he walks over to the desk and picks up one of Stett's wife's cookies. He smells it and puts it back in the dish and then looks through the telescope. When Stett returns, he hands Caul the money and takes the tapes. When the film cuts to a shot of Caul thinking about the arrangement, the cookie reappears. Caul puts this cookie back in the dish, too.
- ConnectionsEdited into The Green Fog (2017)
Featured review
Enigmatic, frustrating, confusing, intelligent and overall extremely brilliant work by writer/director Francis Ford Coppola (Oscar-nominated for his screenplay) has surveillance expert Gene Hackman recording a conversation between Cindy Williams and Frederic Forrest. It immediately appears that the duo are having an affair behind Williams' very wealthy husband's (a cameo by Robert Duvall) back. However nothing is quite as cut and dry as it seems. Hackman, a devout Catholic, has a bout of conscience as he worries that Duvall might have deviant plans for his wife and her apparent lover. Apparently Hackman's work had meant the lives of some he had spied on many years earlier in New York and he is shown as a quiet man who has some loud personal demons within his soul. The suspense builds when Hackman is followed by Duvall's shady employee (Harrison Ford) and eventually the heat rises to a boil as all the very loose ends are tied together in a wickedly twisted final act. "The Conversation" was Coppola's other film from 1974 (remember Best Picture Oscar winner "The Godfather, Part II"?). With this movie, Coppola created arguably the two best films of that dominant cinematic campaign (of course Roman Polanski's "Chinatown" would have something to say about that). Hackman delivers a deceptively difficult and dark performance as a man who seems to be self-destructing slowly on the inside out. By the end "The Conversation" is a thought-provoking product that will chill you to the bone with its cold elements. 5 stars out of 5.
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Language
- Also known as
- La conversación
- Filming locations
- American Roofing Co. Building - 1616 16th Street, Potrero Hill, San Francisco, California, USA(Interior and exterior of Harry's workshop)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $1,600,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $4,830,780
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $5,494
- Jan 16, 2022
- Gross worldwide
- $4,864,950
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