Purely for fun I though I'd start a discussion of how Hollywood treats safes & vaults. Sometimes it's quite ridiculous, sometimes it's interesting. What are your favorites?

- James Bond, I forget which movie, used a credit-card-sized X-ray viewer to open a wall safe by viewing the wheels. Very difficult to do unless the X-ray source is on the other side, and even then quite unlikely. Nevertheless the lock industry has long offered "radiation resistant" wheel packs and other countermeasures. What impressed me was the image looked like a real X-ray view of a real safe lock. And the wonderful product-placement choice of "Sharper Image" on the imaging card.

- Ocean's 13 used a similar idea in the opening, this time to view the locks and boltwork of a massive vault door. The image looked plausible though the device was pure baloney.

- Goldfinger. Quite silly representation of a vault, and it seemed that everybody knew the combination. But it sure was impressive-looking, and the door was moderately realistic.

- Bond, On Her Majesty's Secret Service (I think). Over a lunch hour, he uses a suitcase-sized auto-dialer to open a safe. A clever idea, and portrayed more realistically than most gadgets and techniques. Today they are somewhat common; did they exist in 1969?

- Ocean's 11, my favorite scene is near the beginning when the vault/explosives expert "blows" what looks like a real York door (US patent 929,907, dated 1909). It looks to me like they even got the boltwork right (easy if it's a real door) and the mechanism is even shown in the "locked" position as the door is opening. Just ignore the utter silliness of shaped charges cutting through the door and slicing through the bolts :-)

Any thoughts on the above, or addition?

Jim