MovieChat Forums > The Conversation (1974) Discussion > Worst murder plot ever.

Worst murder plot ever.

posted 10 years ago by drdeaton_2000-1
13 replies | jump to latest

Han Solo and Shirley's plan stinks:

1) Why would you plot to commit a murder in such a public place? Hard to cover it up with all the mess and the noise and the people milling about. If the whole point of setting up the Director is to make his death look like self-defense, why stage a car crash also? Why not lure him out somewhere quiet and kill him there and then stage the accident? Why would you introduce a rogue element (Harry Caul) into the equation?

2) Why would you flush the bloody rags down the toilet instead of taking them out of the hotel the same way you took the body out? Why was the bloody toilet not investigated by the hotel?

In the end I'm left to conclude that Harry imagined the murder, the bloody toilet, and the phone call. Otherwise the story doesn't hold up.

[–] GuyOnTheLeft 10 years ago

Yes, he clearly imagined those things. I don't know why anyone thinks otherwise.

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[–] dyahrmarkt 9 years ago

Haha, years later and you're still here peddling your "imagination only" line? If you can't imagine why anyone would think otherwise, you have a very limited perspective, or simply haven't read what people write on here.

Please nest your IMDB page, and respond to the correct person -

[–] GuyOnTheLeft 9 years ago

"Still here"? You're responding to a post that's over a year old. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but "still here" is a strange way to reply to it.

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[–] Stratego (30578) a year ago

YES! He finds no bugging device at the end. It's pretty clear there never was any murder plot and he just imagined everything. I mean, really, the plan to murder Duvall was just absurd.

[–] HSauer 10 years ago

Bear in mind that The Director is the person who hired Harry Caul, and The Assistant is brazenly interfering in his boss's plans for his own personal gain.

[–] CalvinJarrett 9 years ago

Why isn't it possible that the Director only hired Caul, only thought to have his wife followed and wiretapped at the behest of his assistant, Stett (Ford)? OR more likely, it was the Director's idea to hire a wiretapper (Caul), but Stett, as liason, was the first person to receive the telltale tape with the 'he'd kill us' admission on it. He edits it for the Director's ears so that the Director never hears the damning inflection os 'us,' vs. 'kill.' Perhaps he was not supposed to listen to them at all and that is why the Director is angry with him. In any event, Stett convinces him that it is a case of infidelity, not murder. He lets the Director go to the hotel at the appointed hour where he knows full well what will happen. After the death, he blackmails Mark and Ann to reap the inheritance or a higher position in the company.

[–] dyahrmarkt 9 years ago

1) Well, at the end of the movie, they hadn't been caught....so isn't this the benchmark of a "successful" murder plot? Their reasons clearly were their hidden own. Harry was introduced, as the best surveillance guy around, to lend objectivity to the situation. The director was given a recording by someone with no purported interest in what's going on.

2) The blood in the toilet I think we can safely say was a hallucination. But just because Harry is seeing things or having paranoid visions does NOT mean a murder didn't take place. Or the phone call didn't take place. By the end we don't know what's really real and what's not, because Coppola keeps the film styled in that "realistic" fashion - no clues from our director.

Please nest your IMDB page, and respond to the correct person -

[–] 9 years ago

[deleted]

[–] noveltylibrary 8 years ago

Han Solo didn't plan the murder in the park.

[–] mmaggiano 8 years ago

I am forced to agree with the OP, here. Whatever the murder plot is, it's something incredibly stupid.
If it's all hallucinations, that's even stupider.

If it's hallucinations starting after he drops off the tapes, then why all the shady stuff beforehand? Stett and Meredith certainly didn't need all that intrigue.

I like this movie for style and tone but the plot has feet of clay and I don't think it's quite intended to be a cinematic freak-out. I think the plot is supposed to matter in an actual sense, and it just stinks.

[–] ficoce 8 years ago

Ok, I'll help break it down for you. The whole thing was a setup right from the start; the affair, the meeting at the park, the hotel rendezvous - the whole thing was set up to get the director to the hotel, so he could be killed and Cindy Williams' character could take control of the company. They hired Caul, since he was the best and they needed his reputation to pull it off. The plan hinged around Caul getting that tape to the assistant director and having the director learn about the fake affair and hear the time and place of the hotel meeting. Caul did imagine things, but only what they wanted him to, until he finally figured it out at the end when he saw Williams in the limo. If he hadn't figured it out at the end and went to the police, the "victims" could have claimed self defence and Caul would have played right into it. Instead, he figured it out and they bugged him to help keep him quiet. His recording got someone killed, just not who he thought it would be.

[–] Stratego (30578) a year ago

Kill him at the hotel and then stage a car wreck? How is that even possible? And why couldn't he just be killed at home? Get real, it makes no sense whatsoever.

[–] DaveBowman2001 (518) 2 years ago

9 years ago, maybe you'll come back? lol

I think maybe the whole "conversation" was to enrage and lure Robert Duvall into his car and die of a planned "accident". Kinda like Lady Di and Michael Hastings. The masses never question their scripted reality if you make it believable enough.

and maybe the questionable ludicrous hallucinations of Harry are strictly there to make you question if they actually happened or not. If they were going to asphyxiate him, then why so much blood? Maybe it went wrong, but there are literally hundreds of cleaner, less suspicious means to end someone.