The Conversation

By VARIETY STAFF

Paramount. Director Francis Coppola; Producer Francis Coppola, Fred Roos; Screenplay Francis Coppola; Camera Bill Butler; Editor Walter Murch, Richard Chew; Music David Shire;; Art Director Dean Tavoularis
 
Gene Hackman
John Cazale
Allen Garfield
Frederic Forrest
Cindy Williams
Harrison Ford
 

Francis Coppola's The Conversation stars Gene Hackman as a professional surveillance expert whose resurgent conscience involves him in murder and leads to self-destruction.

He is introduced in SF's Union Square at midday, teamed with John Cazale and Michael Higgins in tracking the movements and voices of Frederic Forrest and Cindy Williams. The cleaned-up sound tapes, along with photographs, are to be delivered to a mysterious businessman, played in an unbilled part by Robert Duvall. What appears to be a simple case of marital infidelity suddenly shifts to a possible murder plot.

A major artistic asset to the film - besides script, direction and the top performances - is supervising editor Walter Murch's sound collage and re-recording. Voices come in and out of aural focus in a superb tease.

1974: Nominations: Best Picture, Original Screenplay, Sound

(Color) Available on VHS, DVD. Extract of a review from 1974. Running time: 113 MIN.