# Movies: Who has the memos? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 19, 2017, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-who-has-the-memos/786977 "2017-05-19T01:40:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/channing_idaho_banks/32/250_2.png) [@Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Channing_Idaho_Banks)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2017, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-who-has-the-memos/786977/1 "2017-05-19T01:40:47Z")
In honor of James Comey, prodigious taker of private memos, can you suggest a movie where a main character took and still has “the notes” the hero needs? One example I can think of is The Untouchables (1987) with Kevin Costner. The accountant has Al Capones’ ledger notes. A movie that wouldn’t count would be something like Murder at 1600 With Wesley Snipes. Snipes has the evidence (the VCR tape), but he didn’t record it. Likewise, in Enemy of the State, Will Smith has the video, but he didn’t record it, so that doesn’t count. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2017, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-who-has-the-memos/786977/2 "2017-05-19T01:46:06Z")
If you wanna include bank notes, Potter still has Jimmy Stewart’s money. Yeah, it’s a pretty desperate answer. Snark away. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2017, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-who-has-the-memos/786977/3 "2017-05-19T02:18:17Z")
In the classic comedy **Midnight Run** (1988), the Bounty hunter played by Robert De Niro has to get a hold of a former mafia accountant Jonathan “The Duke” Mardukas (Charles Grodin) The big mafia guy still wanted revenge against the accountant for stealing millions from him, but also that the accountant needed to be killed for what he knew. A plot point comes when De Niro tells the mafia henchmen that there were computer disks that he got from the accountant with data that would sink the empire of the mafia don if they did not return his mark. Even though the computer disks the bounty hunter used to try to entrap the mafia boss were empty, the mafioso was willing to risk a lot to get them. ---
**Author:** ![cormac262](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f14d63/32.png) [@cormac262](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cormac262)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2017, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-who-has-the-memos/786977/4 "2017-05-19T14:30:17Z")
In “Silver Streak” the hero is helping the heroine get a hold of the “Rembrandt letters” which will discredit the bad guy (Patrick McGoohan). ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Draper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2017, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-who-has-the-memos/786977/5 "2017-05-19T14:43:34Z")
The Parallax View ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2017, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-who-has-the-memos/786977/6 "2017-05-19T15:23:48Z")
_The Thirty-Nine Steps_, though Mr. Memory memorized the notes. But the hero definitely needed them. ---
**Author:** ![Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/channing_idaho_banks/32/250_2.png) [@Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Channing_Idaho_Banks)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2017, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-who-has-the-memos/786977/7 "2017-05-19T15:36:59Z")
> [@cormac262](#): > > In “Silver Streak” the hero is helping the heroine get a hold of the “Rembrandt letters” which will discredit the bad guy (Patrick McGoohan). Love Silver Streak, but the notes are not connected to a character who recorded them. As far as I am aware, the Rembrandt letters were discovered by an art historian. The letters are important, but the writer (Rembrandt) is not even in the movie. ---
**Author:** ![cormac262](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f14d63/32.png) [@cormac262](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cormac262)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2017, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-who-has-the-memos/786977/8 "2017-05-19T15:41:57Z")
> [@Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](#): > > Love Silver Streak, but the notes are not connected to a character who recorded them. As far as I am aware, the Rembrandt letters were discovered by an art historian. The letters are important, but the writer (Rembrandt) is not even in the movie. I may have misinterpreted what you meant by “took”. I think you meant “took” as in “authored”/wrote. Whereas I was thinking “took” meant “obtained” (stole). ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2017, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-who-has-the-memos/786977/9 "2017-05-19T15:42:21Z")
In “Adventures in Babysitting” the heroes (accidentally) took the notes that will convict the villain. ---
**Author:** ![xizor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xizor/32/102_2.png) [@xizor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xizor)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2017, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-who-has-the-memos/786977/10 "2017-05-19T15:48:20Z")
Without spoiling the movie, _The Book of Eli_, the hero IS the one with the notes (book) In one of the _Lethal Weapons_ movies, didn’t Joe Pesci play an accountant who had ledgers on a mob boss? ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2017, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-who-has-the-memos/786977/11 "2017-05-19T15:48:34Z")
Well, here’s a stretch: in _The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes_, Kurt Russell “took” the incriminating evidence from [del]the Joker’s[/del] crime boss Cesar Romero’s computer and has it in his head. I loved that movie when I was a kid. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2017, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-who-has-the-memos/786977/12 "2017-05-19T16:00:00Z")
In the Shawshank redemption Andy takes the evidence of the warden’s corruption with him when he escapes and sends it to the press. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2017, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-who-has-the-memos/786977/13 "2017-05-19T16:05:30Z")
Paul Newman has no realistic shot at getting the win in THE VERDICT – right up until James Mason makes one itty-bitty mistake during cross-examination, by asking how this stammering witness, who he clearly thinks is a perjurer, can be so sure after so many years that the document presented in court got altered after she signed it. _“Because I kept a copy,”_ she replies; _“I have it right here.”_ Mason of course reacts like a man who just now broke his hand on Clark Kent’s jaw. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2017, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-who-has-the-memos/786977/14 "2017-05-19T16:10:52Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > _“Because I kept a copy,”_ she replies; _“I have it right here.”_ > > Mason of course reacts like a man who just now broke his hand on Clark Kent’s jaw. And IIRC, the court throws out the copy because the (edited) original is “the better version,” but it leads to the breakdown of the case. Fantastic movie, even if the Irish nurse is played by an actress who can only play sniveling, sobbing, distraught Irish women. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Don\_Draper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Don\_Draper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_Draper)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2017, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-who-has-the-memos/786977/15 "2017-05-19T17:00:33Z")
Not sure if this fits the OP’s conditions, but the movie “In the Name of the Father”: Daniel Day-Lewis is sent to prison for an IRA bombing he had nothing to do with. His defense council Emma Thompson ultimately gets his conviction overturned when she gets access to a crucial document the police with-held from his original lawyer. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2017, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-who-has-the-memos/786977/16 "2017-05-19T17:03:07Z")
QUIZ SHOW: yeah, if you’re _looking_ for it, you can see how various televised reaction shots only really make sense if they happened right when a contestant was expected to take a dive – but that’s still not much in the way of evidence, if you’re hoping to prove that a wild-eyed accuser is telling the truth. That is, until our hero interviews one contestant who’d kept a list of the answers from an episode he’d appeared on – which, sure, would _also_ prove nothing, except they’re in this here sealed envelope that he mailed to himself before taping the show. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2017, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-who-has-the-memos/786977/17 "2017-05-19T17:32:41Z")
Arguably, Michael York’s d’Artagnon pulls this off by presenting Cardinal Richelieu (Charlton Heston) with the death warrant that Richeliu himself wrote at the conclusion of **The Four Musketeers** (1974), the sequel to **the Three Musketeers**. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2017, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-who-has-the-memos/786977/18 "2017-05-19T17:46:47Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Arguably, Michael York’s d’Artagnon pulls this off by presenting Cardinal Richelieu (Charlton Heston) with the death warrant that Richeliu himself wrote at the conclusion of **The Four Musketeers** (1974), the sequel to **the Three Musketeers**. I have to go to an assignment, so I can’t search, IIRC it was not a death warrant, but a “license to kill and do whatever was needed in a mission” signed by Richelieu himself that allowed the musketeer to continue in his mission to give the jeweled pendant to the queen. He had to kill one of the men of the Cardinal close to the end. In the book the Cardinal was actually not mad but impressed by the cunning and daring of d’Artagnon. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2017, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-who-has-the-memos/786977/19 "2017-05-19T18:10:48Z")
> [@GIGObuster](#): > > I have to go to an assignment, so I can’t search, IIRC it was not a death warrant, but a “license to kill and do whatever was needed in a mission” signed by Richelieu himself that allowed the musketeer to continue in his mission to give the jeweled pendant to the queen. He had to kill one of the men of the Cardinal close to the end. In the book the Cardinal was actually not mad but impressed by the cunning and daring of d’Artagnon. A “license to kill…etc” isn’t a Death Warrant? ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2017, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-who-has-the-memos/786977/20 "2017-05-19T18:51:21Z")
In season two of **24,** Jack Bauer makes contact with a Green Beret who claims to have evidence embedded on a microchip which proves that a certain phone conversation (which the President’s advisors are using as _casus belli_ to declare war on the Middle East) was fabricated. The twist? Turns out the chip is _surgically embedded inside him._ :eek: [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-who-has-the-memos/786977.md?page=2)