Review

HOW TO STEAL A MILLION

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]

Aww factor: Only Audrey Hepburn and Peter O’Toole can make breaking-and-entering utterly romantic. I’d give it a higher score if it weren’t for all of those uncomfortably aggressive kisses. [3 out of 5]

Review #3

HIS GIRL FRIDAY  
Released: 1940
Director: Howard Hawks
Starring: Rosalind Russell & Cary Grant

Grade: B+

For years I’ve had friends (and one friend in particular) tell me how much I would love this movie. I had it recommended so many times that I purchased it before I’d ever seen it, something I very rarely do. (It was on sale for $5 so the investment was pretty minor.) I finally got around to watching it this afternoon and I can see why it came so highly recommended. I’ve always been a huge fan of old movies. Growing up, my dad and I would watch TCM for hours on end, with him filling in details on which actors and actresses he loved as a kid. I don’t know if it’s unusual for someone of my generation to have such an affinity for black and white movies. I certainly have plenty of friends who prefer Cary Grant to George Clooney, but I’m not sure whether that represents the majority of millennials (I’m still not sold on the name millennials, by the way). Because of my TCM-education, I fell easily into the rhythms of His Girl Friday.

His Girl Friday is a classic screwball comedy in the vein of The Philadelphia Story, Bringing Up Baby or Arsenic and Old Lace (to name a few of my other favorites). If you’re not familiar with the genre, Saturday Night Live did a great send-up of the screwball comedy (and this film in particular) on their Zooey Deschanel episode. (I like to imagine Kristen Wiig using this voice in the writer’s room until they finally agreed to write this sketch.) The Independent also wrote an article back in March explaining the origins and appeal of the screwball comedy. In order to battle strict censors who forbid sex onscreen, the screwball comedy had its central couple engage in a verbal relationship rather than a physical one. The screwball comedy was known for it’s high-speed, overlapping dialogue. Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell reached a speed of up to 240 words a minute in this film. (According to Wikipedia, 150-160 words per minute is the most comfortable range for speaking). What really sets the screwball comedy apart for me is its use of deadpan. Hardly any joke is marked as such; instead they are delivered with utter conviction. It’s pretty much the exact opposite of the self-conscious awkwardness I mentioned in my review of No Strings Attached. No matter what ridiculous thing comes out of their mouths, none of these characters reveal for even a moment they are not deadly serious.

The plot is convoluted at best, but at its heart His Girl Friday centers around ace-reporter Hildy Johnson (Rosland Russell) and her ex-husband Walter Burns (Cary Grant), an editor who will do anything for a front page scoop. Hildy is all set to quit the newspaper business and settle down with her fiancé Bruce, a milquetoast insurance salesman who wants to provide her with the home and family Walter never did. There’s also a high profile murder case, lots of corrupt politicians and a handful of goofy reporter types running around. The script is adapted from a play called The Front Page and roughly follows the same plot. The film’s big twist was turning the play’s male Hildy into a female one. It’s a smart change that gives the movie a battle-of-the-sexes angle and creates a truly fantastic female heroine. Grant is superb and his knack for playing deadpan suits him beautifully here, but Russell really steals the show, giving a tour de force verbal and physical performance.

What surprised me most is how unfeminine Hildy is allowed to be. Of course she looks fantastic in pinstripe dresses and immaculate make-up, but it’s incredible how little her gender plays a role in defining her. When she needs to talk her way into an exclusive interview, I thought for sure Hildy would flirt her way past the guard. Instead she pulls out a $20 and bribes him, just like any male reporter might do. She even chases down and tackles a fleeing eyewitness, proving that she’s pretty much an all-around badass. Since it is 1940, there’s still talk of her “woman’s touch,” and the central conflict revolves around whether or not Hildy will quit her job to set up a home. Still, there’s never any doubt that she’s good at what she does. If she ends up quitting it’s because she wants to, not because she’s being forced out. In fact, Walter spends most of the movie trying to get her to stay with the paper. It’s easy to think back on the past as a time that generally sucked for women and it’s refreshing to see the kind of female characters that actually appeared on screen in the 1940s.

The film is best when it just lets its two leads riff off each other. Grant and Russell have such a clear connection that it’s impossible not to root for them. It’s a great example of showing rather than telling. We know Walter and Hildy are meant for each because of the natural way they communicate, bouncing zingers and one-liners off each other at record speeds. While fiancée Bruce is delightfully endearing, he can barely keep up with the conversation. I feel like most modern movies would give Bruce some sort of flaw that makes it crystal-clear why he’s wrong for Hildy. Instead we get to see that although he loves her deeply, he’s just not her intellectual equal.

As with the play, I think some of the script’s darker material clashes with the overall zany-vibe it’s going for. (There’s a scene where a prostitute throws herself out of a window and nearly dies.) Overall the plot is convoluted in a way that’s tiresome rather than thrilling. But when Russell and Grant are onscreen together, it’s truly a joy to watch.

Reality factor: Other than the chemistry of its two leads, there’s little reality in this zany comedy. [1 out of 5]

Eye-candy factor: Cary Grant’s usual charm is colored with the harsh edge of a hardnosed editor. [3 out of 5]

Aww factor: This film could be defined by its anti-sentimentality. Hildy and Walter show their love by fighting rather than smooching, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. 
[1 out of 5]

**Here’s a bit of trivia for you. Apparently the film has been in the public domain since 1968 due to a failure to renew the copyright registration. (The play, which was written in 1928, is under copyright until 2024.) So if you’ve been dying to make a frame-by-frame remake with your friends, go right ahead.