Word: alibis
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...caper picture, The Anderson Tapes displays a slick criminal shrewdness: its paraphernalia and plans are always chillingly plausible. Had the film restricted itself to its own Rififiefdom, it would have remained as airtight as a legit alibi. But Director Sidney Lumet (The Pawnbroker, The Group), who has never shown a scintilla of genuine wit, aims for nothing less than political satire. Since Duke's parole, it seems, he has had no secrets that the cops do not know instantly. When he consults a black driver who lives above a Panther storefront, Duke's schemes are electronically processed...
...riot troopers, who fought them off. Once alone Chinese attacked the troopers with karate blows. One Chinese bit a C.R.S. officer. Finally, the French decided to take the man in an ambulance to a Paris hospital. As he was led away, Chang, who perhaps sought to establish an alibi that the French were abducting him, just in case he should decide to go home after all, pretended to protest violently. Once out of sight of his countrymen, he calmed down and chatted pleasantly with a Chinese-speaking French intelligence officer...
Over the telephone, as well as in the courtroom, alibis often tend to fall apart. A phone call to the wife pleading late work at the office, for example, is less than convincing with the noisy hilarity of a swinging singles bar audible in the background. Similarly, the hospital-visit-to-an-ailing-aunt ploy is apt to prove a dud with a boss whose receiver is also picking up the strains of a jukebox or the cries of a ballpark hot dog vendor. To prevent such pretexts from collapsing, help is finally at hand: alibi tapes...
...idea that led to alibi tapes came to Leisure Data President Steve Lichtenstein when he saw the movie The Owl and the Pussycat. "George Segal had this tape of a barking dog," he remembers, "and I suddenly saw the possibilities. The whole country is paranoid, especially city apartment dwellers. So I got an attack dog and taped him trying to chew me up. It began selling 1,000 copies a week all over the country, just so people could switch it on when the doorbell rang." Soon Lichtenstein's out-of-work friends asked him to tape a selection...
...Alibi Cartridges. There are different reels for different deals. One businessman, according to Lichtenstein, established a reputation as a highly mobile go-getter and "destroyed his competitor by calling an account from five different cities in the space of one day." The wild-party tape has its advocates. "A guy wanted this girl to come over to his place," Lichtenstein fondly recalls. "She thought there was a party, but when she got there, there were only the two of them." A major liquor distiller has ordered 500 sets of alibi cartridges and tape players to be installed in bars throughout...