Released: 1966
Director: William Wyler
Starring: Audrey Hepburn & Peter O'Toole
Grade: A
How to Steal
a Million belongs in the
rare category of films that manage to combine comedy, suspense, and romance into
one seamless package (the other one that springs to mind is 1963's Charade.) A somewhat neurotic Audrey Hepburn and
an oh-so-charming Peter O’Toole join forces to steal a fake work of art, all
while drenched in mod style. It’s one part heist movie and one part romance,
the kind of movie I could easily see men and women enjoying equally (which is a
rare thing among rom coms.)
“I don’t sell
them to poor people, I only sell them to millionaires and they get great
paintings like this one.” That’s the central argument of Charles Bonnet, master
art forger and father to Audrey’s Nicole. Art forgery runs in the Bonnet-blood,
Nicole’s grandfather carved his own Cellini’s Venus (modeled after Nicole’s
grandmother). Charles’ forgeries have gone undetected for ages and he’s grown
cocky. So cocky in fact, he lends his prized Venus for display at a Paris
museum. The only problem is the museum makes it a policy to run tests on all of
its art. One quick examination would be enough to reveal the forgery and put
Charles in prison for life. To save her father the fate of prison (and herself
the fate of exile in America), Nicole decides to steal the unstealable Venus.
To do so she enlists Simon Dermott (O’Toole), an art thief she accidentally
shot in the arm one night in her house.
Peter O’Toole,
with his bright blue eyes and equally dazzling smile, is perfectly cast as the
assumed-art-thief. He’s charming and flirtatious with just a little bit of
goofiness thrown in. O’Toole’s malleable face perfectly registers how
flabbergasted he is at just about everything Nicole does. “I’m a society
burglar, I don’t expect people to rush around shooting me.”
Hepburn is also
great, playing a wealth woman always on the verge of a nervous breakdown due to
her father’s felonious hobby. Nicole asks Simon to meet her for drinks to
enlist his help on the Venus heist. Her normally chipper persona is replaced
with a femme-fatal one. Dressed head-to-toe in black lace, Nicole attempts to
put on the cool exterior of a woman accustomed to a life of crime. Only Simon’s
facial reactions (and his occasional faux-noir-speak) let us in on the joke-
that he thinks Nicole is being just as ridiculous as the audience does. It’s a
brilliant scene that establishes how far Nicole will go to save her father, and how out of touch with the crime world she is, all while trusting the audience to get the joke without having to spell it
out. It’s the kind of scene that makes you sigh and say, “they just don’t make
films like this anymore.”
Most of the film
focuses on the heist itself. Simon doesn’t fill Nicole in on his full plan so
she serves as an audience stand-in, discovering the details only as
they’re set in motion. And boy, is it a great plan. Using only a magnet,
boomerang, costume change and a few tools, Simon manages to pull off the crime
of the century. The best thing about the plan is the way Simon relies on human
psychology as the lynchpin of it all. The machine guarding the Venus may be
infallible, but the humans controlling that machine are perfectly capable of
making mistakes. One false alarm is annoying. Two false alarms are enough to
make anyone turn off the alarm system. After that, it’s as easy as plucking a
flower from someone else’s garden
This was one of
my favorite movies as a kid and one I would always sit down and watch when it
came on TCM (I know, I was a weird kid). Heist films hold up surprisingly well
on multiple viewings. I suppose it’s because the thrill doesn’t come from
whether or not they will pull off the heist (they almost always do), it comes
from seeing the details fall perfectly into place. It’s one of the reasons I can
watch Ocean’s Eleven every
time it comes on TV. The criminals make it look so easy, but in a way you can
only spot after the fact (“Oh, why didn’t I think of that?”) I’m impressed
every single time I watch the magnet-key-rope scene in How to Steal a Million.
Sure you need a very
specific kind of door to make it work, but it’s still a brilliant idea that
makes you wonder what kind of seedy-past the screenwriters had.
It’s also fun to
think about how much easier it must have been for criminals before the advent
of constant camera surveillance. In fact, art forgery must have been a lot
easier too, before the computer advances of today. I’m impressed anyone still
manages to pull off forgeries. By comparison to our CSI-obsessed world, it
seems practically easy to be a criminal in the swingin’ sixties.
The era is a
huge part of this film. Nicole’s wardrobe is practically a fashion show of mod
couture and the constant drinking, kissing, and getting engaged add a wild
sixties energy to the whole proceedings. There’s also a lot of forced kisses
played for laughs that started to make me uncomfortable and reminded me that
for all of the style the sixties got right, there were a lot of politics the
era got wrong.
We’ve covered
the heist, now how about the romance? O’Toole and Hepburn are fabulous together
which is a good thing considering that they spend so much time locked in a tiny
closet. Her grace and his charm help shape a feisty yet sweet romance between
the two. In a nice twist (the film has several), it turns out Simon knew the
statue was a worthless fake and agreed to steal it simply because he liked
Nicole. In any other movie I could quibble with the quickness of his
affections, but, c’mon, it’s Audrey Hepburn. Anyone call fall in love with her
in five minutes.
For those not
accustomed to the pacing of old movies, How to Steal a Million might feel a bit slow. I think the pacing
works beautifully, however, pulling us into the tension of that tiny little
closet and building suspense as each phase of the plan is set in motion. So
much of the comedy in this film (and I would call it laugh-out-loud-funny)
comes not from the lines, but from the reaction shots. It’s a film full of
people with large eyes who know how to widen them just enough to get a laugh.
The film occasionally slows down to allow us to revel in a great reaction, and
I’m only too happy to follow along.
How to Steal
a Million is a near
perfect movie with wit, charm, and some good ole fashion robbery to boot. It’s a
film that celebrates forgery, yet feels fresh upon every viewing. It’s also a
film in which romance, though ultimately crucial to the plot, feels secondary
to just how much fun everyone onscreen is having.
Reality factor: Art
forgeries, high stakes robberies, and hidden identities. It might not be
realistic, but it’s real good. [1 out of 5]
Eye-candy factor:
Peter O’Toole is the epitome of the suave sixties swinger. He’s an authentic
Don Draper with a little less moral ambiguity and the world's bluest eyes.
[4 out of 5]
[4 out of 5]
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