The tap is the MORAN S15 Harmonica tap, don't you see it?!
Why do you think they show a whole scene of the guy demonstrating this thing? Setup and Payoff!
Caul's phone is being turned into a room microphone. He won't find anything in his phone since it's a special dial-tone entered on the other end of the call.
Simple as that. Case closed.
yes, but it could also be in the saxophone.
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didnt the gadget have to be in the phone then you activated it by dialling it up from anywhere as opposed to needing to be wired into the line? doesn't the guy say during the demonstration that it can be installed in under 2 minutes? I think the kit simply makes the receiver work when it should have no power and be switched off.
francis ford coppola himself said he has no idea where the mic is meant to be, he suggested the saxophone or that there is no bug and caul has been driven mad by paranoia, that he imagined the phone call and being watched, he was already paranoid about privacy and now knows some very powerful people are concerned about him so imagines he is always going to be followed and listened to forever.
francis ford coppola himself said he has no idea where the mic is meant to be, he suggested the saxophone or that there is no bug and caul has been driven mad by paranoia, that he imagined the phone call and being watched, he was already paranoid about privacy and now knows some very powerful people are concerned about him so imagines he is always going to be followed and listened to forever.
that was my first thought too.
shareThey keep showing Cindy Williams touching Frederic Forrest's glasses--and the nefarious shady-lady from the tech show removes Caul's glasses before they fool around (in close-up)--which lead me to believe the bug was on his glasses.
shareI thought the same exact thing. They cut to a shot of Ann touching Mark's glasses right before they show Hackman playing his sax at the very end.
shareHow would the bug be powered?
R G B
yeah my immediate thought too.
shareI like the idea that the bug is in Harry's glasses, as other people also replied. And I think the idea of the plant is Moran's.
When Moran is faced with the problem of bugging the couple in Union Square, one of his first suggestions is to put a bug in their clothes. Someone raises the objection, how would anyone know what they were going to wear that day? Ah yes - but what if it was something they wear *every* day?
And, as was also mentioned, there is a close up of Ann touching Mark's glasses cut into the montage of Harry tearing his apartment apart.
The glasses are the first thing I thought of after they saw us Ann touch Mark glasses.
And this scene make that theory even stronger:
"When Moran is faced with the problem of bugging the couple in Union Square, one of his first suggestions is to put a bug in their clothes. Someone raises the objection, how would anyone know what they were going to wear that day? Ah yes - but what if it was something they wear *every* day?"
On other hand, I wondering if it isn't too small device for a tap. After all this's 1970s.
The "bug in the glasses" speculation is interesting, but I agree with the original poster - the tap was the device William P. Moran demonstrated at the expo. This makes complete sense both logistically and metaphorically:
*Logistically because 1) Martin Stent (Harrison Ford) could have purchased it when he visited the expo, and 2) it's the easiest to use - no breaking-and-entering to plant a bug.
*Metaphorically because it limns Harry Caul's primary failing - his vanity. He was arrogant about his own skills to the point of being dismissive of others ("since when is William P. Moran of Detroit, Michigan preeminent in the field"), a fatal flaw that cost him in the end when he failed to recognize that he had been bugged by a device he previously dismissed as "junk".
I've listened to the commentary track as well, and it frankly shocked me that Coppola didn't suggest the bug was the Moran S15.
Maybe it's in both? One can only speculate.
Hey there, Johnny Boy, I hope you fry!
No, the Moran device still has to be planted on the phone. The harmonica simply activates the bug.
Please nest your IMDB page, and respond to the correct person -
Also he takes the phone apart if i remeber correctly, he would have seen it in the phone
shareHe takes *everything* apart. It's unlikely he missed a bug, too, since he was the best in the biz. My guess is that there wasn't really even a bug there and the phone call was just a threat to keep him in line. Who would bug his apartment? He lives alone and practices jazz saxophone. They wouldn't hear anything, anyway.
The point of the call is to intimidate Caul into silence. But the point of the scene is to show Caul's paranoia bubbling over. In story terms, it doesn't really matter if there's a bug or not.