robbery – The Magnificent 60s

Highly entertaining woefully underrated heist picture with an impish James Coburn (Hard Contract, 1967), Swedish Camilla Sparv (Downhill Racer, 1969) in a sparkling debut and at the end an outrageous twist you won’t see coming in a million years. This is the antithesis of capers of the Topkapi (1964) variety. Not only is it an all-professional job, it takes a good while before you even realise the final focus is robbery or even the actual location. There are hints about the that event and glimpses in passing of material that may be used, and although the theft is planned to intricate detail, none of that planning is revealed to the audience.

The paroled Eli Kotch (James Coburn), who has seduced the prison psychiatrist, immediately skips town and starts fleecing any woman who falls for his charms. He changes personality at the drop of a hat, fitting into the likes of the mark, and in turn is burglar, art thief, car hijacker, in order to raise the loot required to buy a set of bank plans, and yet not above taking on ordinary jobs like shoe salesman to meet the ladies and coffin escort to get free travel across the country. So adept at the minutiae of the con he even manages to impersonate a hotel guest in order to get free phone calls.

He enrols girlfriend Inger (Camilla Sparv) to act as an amateur photographer working on a “poetic essay on transient populations” to get an idea of sites he means to access. He manages to have the head of a Secret Service detail blamed for a leak. Everything is micro-managed and his final masquerade is an Australian cop with a prisoner to extradite which provides him with an excuse to linger in a police station, privy to what is going on at crucial points.

If I tell you any more I’m going to give away too much of the plot and deprive you of delight at its cleverness. The original posters did their best not to give away too much but you can rely on critics on Imdb to spoil everything.

This is just so much fun, with the slick confident Eli as a very engaging con man, the supreme manipulator, and almost in cahoots with writer-director Bernard Girardin (The Mad Room, 1969) in manipulating the audience. There are plenty films full of obfuscation just for the hell of it, or because plots are so complex there’s no room for simplification, or simply at directorial whim. But this has so much going on and Kotch so entertaining to watch that you hardly realize the tension that has been building up, not just looking forward to what exactly is the heist but also how are they going to pull it off, what other clever tricks does Kotch have up his sleeve for any eventuality, and of course, for the denouement, are they going to get away with it, or fall at the last hurdle. There is a great twist before the brilliant twist but I’m not going to tell you about that either.

There’s plenty Swinging Sixties in the background, the permissive society that Kotch is able to exploit, and yet the film has some unexpected depths. You wonder if the memories Kotch draws upon to win the sympathy of his female admirers have their basis in his own life. You are tempted to think not since he is after all a con man, but the detail is so specific it has you thinking maybe this is where his inability to trust anyone originates.

Bernard Giradin was not a name known to me I have to confess, since he was more of a television director than a big screen purveyor – prior to this he had made A Public Affair (1962) with the unheard-off Myron McCormick – and Coburn was the only big star he ever had the privilege to direct. But there are some nice directorial touches. The movie opens with a wall of shadows, there are some striking images of winter, a twist on bedroom footsie, and jabbering translators. But most of all he has the courage to stick to his guns, not feeling obliged to have Kotch spill out everything to a colleague or girl, either to boast of his brilliance, or to reveal innermost nerves, or, worse, to fulfil audience need. There’s an almost documentary feel to the whole enterprise.

James Coburn is superb. Sure, we get the teeth, the wide grin, but I sometimes felt all the smiling was unnecessary, almost a short cut to winning audience favour, and this portrayal, with the smile less in evidence, feels more intimate, more seductive. This may well be his best, most winning, performance. Camilla Sparv is something of a surprise, nothing like the ice queen of future movies, very much an ordinary girl delighted to be falling in love, and with a writer of all the things, the man of her dreams.

The excellent supporting cast includes Marian McCargo (The Undefeated, 1969), Aldo Ray (The Power, 1968), Robert Webber (The Dirty Dozen, 1967), Todd Armstrong (Jason and the Argonauts, 1963) and of course a blink-and-you-miss-it appearance of Harrison Ford as the only bellboy (that’s a clue) in the picture. You might also spot showbiz legend Rose Marie (The Jazz Singer, 1927).

Employs Hitchcock’s trick of having you rooting for the bad guy. The caper picture remade. Steve McQueen (Nevada Smith, 1966) reinvented. Faye Dunaway (The Extraordinary Seaman, 1969) making the most stunning entrance this side of Ursula Andress in Dr No (1962). The technological dream of the split screen. Film noir filmed in bright sunshine with a femme fatale on the right side, only just, of the law.

Takes the insurance agent of Psycho (1960) and switches the gender. Nabs the Hitchcock crown (Notorious, 1942) for the longest screen kiss. Steals from Ingmar Bergman (The Seventh Seal, 1957) the title of best chess scene.

Female sleuth at a time when I don’t think the idea of a female detective crossed anyone’s minds in Hollywood. And one so sexy, stylish and uber-confident that she attracts not one sexist remark. Not dumb enough either like Lila in Psycho to walk into a trap.

And, incredibly, given wealth has been a movie trope since day one, luxuriates in a lifestyle – gliders, dune buggies, polo – never seen before. Not just a mesmerising song (“The Windmills of Your Mind”) but an absolutely outstanding score from Michel Legrand (Play Dirty, 1968). Almost works as a visual greatest hits collection, one memorable scene after another, a cat-and-mouse scenario, twists aplenty and smart, smart dialog.

Ignores back story and dark hidden secrets. Dispenses with the usual robbery cliches of planning the heist and the robbers irritating the hell out of each other. Theft here is carried out with mathematical precision, the crew members never meeting, mastermind Thomas Crown (Steve McQueen) hidden from view at initial interview behind a bank of blinding lights. But the investigation is clever, too, donkey work – tracking everyone who flew to Geneva (where the stolen cash is banked) – coupled with instinct, insurance agent Vicki (Faye Dunaway) choosing Crown as the most likely criminal from his photograph, and a piece of inspiration, offering a huge reward for anyone noticing their spouse had been in Boston on the day of the robbery and been behaving oddly.

Crown is a fabulous invention, savvy businessman, bursting with competitive instinct, unable to prevent himself crowing, his opening line – “you overpaid” – puncturing the triumph of businessmen who believed they bettered him in a deal. But he’s bored, riches and all the toys that brings including sexy girlfriend Gwen (Astrid Heeren) not enough, and he seeks to test himself against the law.

But he’s always testing himself, regardless of how high or how low the stakes. He’s the kind of guy who just bets for the thrill. The only reversal in the whole movie is a golf match where he employs the old sucker punch, double-or-quits routine, to be able to repeat an unexpectedly successful shot. When he loses spouts another brilliant line, “What else can we do on Sunday?”

But he’s up against as steely a competitor. Has any character ever delivered such an immortal line with such panache – “I’m immoral” – as Vicki who has no qualms about invading Crown’s house on a flimsy pretext or kidnapping the son of one of the gang. “You won that round,” she tells Crown after bringing gang member Erwin (Jack Weston) in for questioning and stationing him in the same room as Crown, hoping to elicit recognition.

You’d hardly be surprised to discover she’s more than capable of using her body as a weapon, but you’d be hard put to work out who is seducing who. For both, part of the attraction must be danger, being up close (and very personal) with your rival. It wouldn’t take much to imagine this is a reversal, that Vicki is being hunted, that in the throes of romance she will give away too much. Or that the arrogant Crown believes he can have his cake and eat it. He doesn’t need the money, he can give it back, avoid arrest and sail off into the sunset with a woman his match in style and intellect.

If there’s one flaw in the spellbinding narrative, it’s here. We all know insurance exists outside the law. Retrieving money for clients is the sole aim, justice not on the agenda. No bank chief executive wants to suffer the embarrassment of being hauled into a courtroom to explain just how fallible their security systems are. Hand back the money, bury the publicity and all’s well. I’m not entirely sure why Vicki had to seek the approval of detective Eddy (Paul Burke), leading the police side of the investigation, when she could as easily have bypassed him and picked up her ten per cent of the money as reward and sailed off into the sunset.

Unless, of course, it’s not a flaw. And that for Vicki, as resolute a competitor as Crown, she requires official recognition of victory and to prove her superiority over the criminal by allowing him to be set free, giving her if you like the upper hand in the relationship.

Director Norman Jewison was on a box office roll after turning conspiracy upside down with The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming (1966), and exploring racism with In the Heat of the Night (1967). Where most critics prefer directors who reveal thematic consistency, Jewison seemed to be headed every which way – although in the cat-and-mouse stakes you could look at The Cincinnati Kid (1965) – with elan his ace in the hole.

And if you ever sat in a movie theater and thought you could do better than the drivel you were watching, then screenwriter Alan R. Trustman would be your patron saint. A lawyer by profession, he wrote The Thomas Crown Affair in a couple of weeks and, hardly surprising, given its audacity, it found its way to an agent. He went on to write Bullitt (1969), Lady Ice (1973) – almost a remake of Thomas Crown – and The Next Man (1974) for Sean Connery.

The best fun crime movie since Hitchcock paired Cary Grant and Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief (1955) and never bettered since.

Dazzling.

Tag: robbery

Dead Heat on a Merry Go Round (1966) ****

The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) *****