Just watched this excellent movie tonight. I noticed, in the scene where everyone is asking Mr. Abbott for things, that Carl asked for NSA Agent Mary's phone number. Normally when actors give phone numbers the first 3 digits, after the area code, are always 555. Not in that scene. I'm just wondering if she may have given a real phone number by mistake?
Doctor Who fan
i don't recall but if the area code was 311, that explains it,
in the trivia it discusses how none of the numberes are the classical 555 because the area code is always 311. the phone companies created the generic number so if you tried to dial it, it would go nowhere. just like they reserved 411 for information and so forth.
if you've never seen an elephant ski, then you've never been on acid.
Thanks for the info!
Doctor Who fan
The phone number is something 326-7415(or something like) and she follows with "area code 415". That was an actual number with a san francisco area code. During the film's run, if you dialed that number, it gave you a promo recording for the movie. Don't know what it does now.
shareOh, cool, thank you! I doubt that phone number does that anymore, but that's cool that it worked like that when the movie was in theaters.
Doctor Who fan
[deleted]
It originally took you to a promo recording, but either shortly before or shortly after the film was released in theaters, SF added new telephone area codes and old area codes were shifted to new geographic locations. The area code in Sneakers had been reassigned to a private household and if you called the number as given, you were greeted with an answering machine message of a furious guy yelling at us to '*beep* off and quit calling'.
Naturally, we found it incredibly funny and called over and over.
I never got the chance to call it! I never really thought to do it. My best friend and I wondered if it was "Mary" answering.
That've been cool.
"Hello you've reached Mary. I'm not home right now, but leave a message and I'll return it soon....and if this is Carl I had a wonderful time last night and I'm really worn out. See you Saturday."
Apperently, some guys on a Phone Phreaking board started a thread on this...
.
http://www.binrev.com/forums/index.php/topic/3891-sneakers-easter-egg/
Only 2-entries since 2003.
Enjoy.
- This is not an IMDB signature -
I confirm the number she gives him is:
(415) 273-9164
There is another number earlier on, when Gregor hands out his business card, just after Martin and Liz attend the cyber-security conference and Gregor goes and greets Liz then makes small talk and hands them the business card. The number on the card is
(415) 707-1221
Gregor also wrote a time and day down in pen ink:
7:30 Thurs
Liz then makes a remark about the New World Order.
I like to think that if you called this number at 7:30 on a Thursday back in the day, you'd have spoken with someone that Phil Alden Robinson knew or someone the cast disliked/wanted to joke with, et etc.
This was before the 555 practice started.
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