Friday Minute
No. 126 | June 25, 2010

The Art of the Heist

Our theme this week
Heist films

Featured this week (theme introduction)
Monday         —   The Thomas Crown Affair (1968, 1999)
Tuesday         —   Rififi (1955)
Wednesday    —   The Asphalt Jungle (1950)
Thursday        —   Sexy Beast (2000)

The Italian Job (1969, 2003)

Heist films generally fall into two groups.  The first are the dark, dramatic stories, some of them film noir, with roots that go back to early gangster films.  Later came the lighter tales, clever and stylish, aiming mostly to entertain, and often with a comic tone.  Like Monday’s featured films (both original and remake), today’s belong to the latter category.

The original Italian Job is a beloved favorite of film buffs and car buffs, as famous for its cliffhanger ending (see below) as it is for giving the Mini Cooper a virtual starring role.  The real stars are two icons of British cinema, a young Michael Caine, as Charlie Croker, the gangster who organizes the caper, and Noël Coward, in his final screen appearance, as Mr. Bridger, the kingpin who runs his criminal empire from a jail cell.  The plot involves an audacious plan to create massive traffic gridlock in Turin, Italy, while Croker’s gang robs a $4 million shipment of gold bullion from an armored car.  The Minis are crucial since they can carry off the gold using routes unavailable to larger vehicles—over stairways, on rooftops, and through city sewers.  The crooks transfer the loot to a 36-foot Harrington Legionnaire, which takes them into the Alps for their final getaway.  Well, almost.

The unresolved end works like a charm, and Paramount, to its credit, never made a sequel.  Thirty-four years later, though, it released the remake.  Same title, same showcase for Minis, same sort of armored car robbery during a traffic jam, but a different story.  The Italian job of the title is set in Venice and is only the prologue to the main plot.  A successful heist and aquatic getaway is spoiled when one of the crooks double-crosses the others.  A year later, in Philadelphia, the team reassembles, then travels to California with plans to recover the gold they had rightfully stolen.  Bring on the armored car, the Minis, and—hard as it is to imagine in Los Angeles—a traffic jam, and one more heist later, the gold is the hands of the crooks who deserve it.  A hit film, though not the landmark of the 1960s original, The Italian Job remake stars Mark Wahlberg as Charlie Croker, Donald Sutherland as John Bridger, Charlize Theron as Bridger’s daughter, Stella, and Edward Norton as Steve, the inside man.  Others rounding out the team of thieves are Jason Stratham, Mos Def, and Seth Green.

The two films make for an interesting comparison of how the times, and Hollywood, have changed.  For the remake, the budget, the effects, the action have all grown bigger.  The characters, not so much.  Still, it’s not a bad piece of entertainment, though not nearly as memorable as the original.

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The Italian Job (1969)
Peter Collinson, director
Trailer

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The Italian Job (1969)
Peter Collinson, director

Interested in how that cliffhanger ending might be resolved?  Brit scientists are on it.

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The Italian Job (2003)
F. Gary Gray, director
Trailer

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The Italian Job (2003)
Heist in Venice

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Quote of Note
“Just remember this—in this country they drive on the wrong side of the road.”
—Charlie Croker (Michael Caine), The Italian Job (1969)

“Handsome Rob.  Premier wheel man.  Once drove all the way from Los Angeles just so he could set the record for longest freeway chase.  You know he got 110 love letters sent to his jail cell from women who saw him on the news?”
—Charlie Croker (Mark Wahlberg), The Italian Job (2003)

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Final Friday Five, the monthly mini-quiz

1.  Virgil Thomson is the only composer to win a Pulitzer Prize for Music for a film score.  What was the film?

2.  Dennis Hopper never won an Oscar but he was nominated twice.  Name the two films for which he earned his nominations.

Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
Cool Hand Luke (1967)
Easy Rider (1969)
The American Friend (1977)
Apocalypse Now (1979)
Blue Velvet (1986)
Hoosiers (1986)
Red Rock West (1993)

3.  John Wayne starred in five films directed by Howard Hawks.  Name the one film of Wayne’s from the list below that was not directed by Hawks.

Red River (1948)
Rio Grande (1950)
Rio Bravo (1959)
Hatari! (1962)
El Dorado (1966)
Rio Lobo (1970)

4.  Three about Toy Story 3! 

a.  When his toy friends reset his mode at Sunnyside Daycare, Buzz Lightyear begins speaking …Russian?  …Spanish?  …Hindi?
b.  Lotso assigns Buzz and his friends to …the Butterfly Room?  …the Silkworm Room?  …the Caterpillar Room?
c.  The animated short film playing in theaters before Toy Story 3 is called …Black and White?  …Day and Night?  …Merry and Bright?

5.  The promotional artwork (below) for a picture opening this week fails to show the faces of the two megastars appearing in the movie.  That’s odd, to say the least, considering the many millions of dollars the producers spent on casting those two so they’d attract people to theaters.  Name the movie and the two stars.

Answers here.

…58…59…60.

Tuesday Minute
No. 83 | April 27, 2010

Deal Me In

Our theme this week
Card games at the movies

Featured this week (theme introduction)
Monday         —   The Cincinnati Kid (1965)

Rounders (1998)

Rounders has nothing to do with that game from the early days of baseball.  Rounders are people who make a living playing cards.

Matt Damon is a law school student who loses big and walks away from the game—for good, so he tells his girlfriend (Gretchen Mol).  But it’s not easy staying out of the action when his buddy, played by Edward Norton, is released from prison.

Damon and Norton both give impressive performances, and their too-smart-for-the-room dialogue helps make it a memorable film.  John Malkovich, in a performance that can only be called Malkovichian, plays a Russian mobster known as Teddy KGB.

Though it did modest business at the box office, Rounders drew a loyal following and was in part responsible for the recent popularity of Texas hold ‘em and for the glut of televised poker during the past decade.

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Rounders
John Dahl, director
Matt Damon et al.

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Rounders
Matt Damon, John Malkovich

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Quote of Note
“Eddie.  The guys and I were talking, we want to invite you to our card game on Friday night.  Would you like that?  Only thing is, you can’t cut!”
—George (Biff Yeager), Edward Scissorhands (1990)

…58…59…60.