6
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Please help me identify this movie. Thanks!

I have a vague memory of one scene from American movie made in the 60's or 70's. The movie had a claustrophobic & paranoid style similar to "Three Days of the Condor". The scene I can recall involves an older "bad guy" double agent who runs a small shop. The shop might appear to be accounting, bookkeeping ... it might even be a tailor or a shoe maker shop. I don't remember. Anyway, the "good guys" (Americans, maybe?) are spying on him from a building a few doors down the street. They have a spy camera, and possibly a microphone, hidden in the overhead light fixture.

The light goes out or there's an electrical problem, so the "bad guy" calls an electrician. The electrician climbs up on a ladder, takes apart the light fixture and finds the spy camera (but doesn't know what it is). I remember him pulling it out like a long cable and looking confused.

The "bad guy" immediately knows what it is, gasps, grabs a few things, and runs out.

1 Answer 1

8
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I remember that exact scene occurring in the 1992 film Patriot Games. It is hard to find that level of detail in a movie summary, though.

Dennis Cooley is an Irish bookstore owner who is sympathetic to the ultra-violent faction of the IRA led by Kevin O'Donnell. He uses his bookstore to filter information for Kevin and his second-in-command, Sean Miller. Midway through the film, Dennis realises that his store is being watched by Sergeant Owens and his men, as part of the joint-CIA and English operation to hunt down O'Donnell and Miller for the attempt on Jack Ryan and his family.

Dennis promptly hightails it out of England before Owens can stop him, and with the help of Lord Holmes' assistant (and fellow IRA sympathizer) Jeffrey Watkins manages to make it to the IRA's training camp in North Africa.

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  • Yeah I think that's it! Funny how in my mind it was 1960's or 1970's. Oct 2, 2014 at 18:09

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