BY FRED BLOSSER
A
particular kind of film was popular in, and almost unique to, the 1970s. I would call them “A-minus†movies. Not quite “A†because they didn’t feature
trendy mega-stars like Newman, Redford, McQueen, Eastwood, Streisand, or
Beatty, but not quite “B†either. Typically, they were international packages that starred a mix of
American actors who, although past the peak of their popularity, still retained
some marquee appeal for older moviegoers, and European actors who would draw
overseas audiences. They usually were
built around B-movie crime, spy, and thriller stories, but bigger-budgeted and
more sophisticated than the standard “B,†and filmed on European locations, not
a studio backlot in Culver City.
Henri
Verneuil’s “Le Casse†(1971),†released in the States by Columbia Pictures in
1972 as “The Burglars,†exemplifies the genre -- French director; on-location
filming in Greece; score by Ennio Morricone; the names of Jean-Paul Belmondo,
Omar Sharif, and Dyan Cannon above the title; an able supporting cast of Robert
Hossein (“Les Uns et Les Autresâ€), Renato Salvatori (“Lunaâ€), and Nicole Calfan
(“Borsalinoâ€); and a script by Verneuil and Vahé Katcha based on David
Goodis’ 1953 paperback crime noir, “The Burglar.â€
Verneuil
had recently aced a big hit in Europe and a modest hit in the U.S. with “Le
Clan des Siciliens†(1969), also known as “The Sicilian Clan.†“The Sicilian Clan†is relatively easy to
find in a sharp print on home video and TV (there was a 2007 Region 2 DVD, a
2014 Region 2 Blu-ray, and periodic airings on Fox Movie Channel). Unfortunately for A-minus aficionados, “The
Burglars†is more elusive in a really good, English-language video print.
Professional
thief Azad (Belmondo) and his partners (Hossein, Salvatori, and Calfan) have
cased a villa in Athens whose jet-setting owners are away on vacation. A safe in the house holds a million dollars
in emeralds. The thieves break into the
house, crack the safe, and make off with the jewels, but two glitches
arise. First, a police detective,
Zacharias (Sharif), spots the burglars’ car in front of the villa. Azad chats with the detective and spins a
cover story of being a salesman with engine trouble. Zacharias leaves, but it seems like too easy
an out for the thieves.
Next,
the plan to flee Greece immediately on a merchant ship falls through. The gang arrives at the dock and finds the
ship undergoing repairs: “Storm damage. It will be ready to sail in five days.†They stash the money, split up, and agree to
wait out the delay. Zacharias reappears,
playing cat-and-mouse with the burglars. He’s found the opportunity to cash out big. Offered a meager reward by the billionaire
owner of the jewels and “10 percent of the value†by the insurance company, he
decides he’ll do better by finding and keeping the emeralds himself. In the meantime, Azad meets and romances
Lena, a vacationing centerfold model (Cannon), whose role in the story turns
out to be more relevant than it first seems.
Goodis’
novel was filmed once before as “The Burglar†(1957), a modestly budgeted,
black-and-white programmer with Dan Duryea, Jayne Mansfield, and Martha
Vickers, directed by Paul Wendkos. The
script by Goodis himself, the photography in gritty Philadelphia and Atlantic
City, Duryea’s hangdog performance, and Mansfield’s surprisingly vulnerable
acting faithfully captured the bleak spirit of the novel.
Retooling
the story as a shinier A-minus, Verneuil made significant changes. Duryea’s character, Nat Harbin, runs ragged
trying to keep his fractious gang together and protect his ward Gladden, the
young female member of the team, whose father had been Harbin’s own
mentor. Verneuil tailors the
corresponding character Azad to Belmondo’s exuberant, athletic personality and
changes the dynamic between Azad and Helene, Calfan’s character. Where Gladden is brooding and troubled,
Helene seems to be well-adjusted if somewhat flighty. When Nat realizes that he loves Gladden, it
comes too late to save their doomed relationship. Azad and Helene find a happier
resolution. The opportunistic cop in the
novel and earlier movie, Charley, has little interaction with Harbin, but
Belmondo and Sharif share ample screen time and charm as the two equally wily
antagonists. Their final showdown in a
grain-storage warehouse brings to mind, of all classic movie references, the
climactic scene in Carl Dreyer’s “Vampyr†(1932).
Updating
the technical details of the story, Verneuil turns the safecracking into a
lengthy scene in which Azad uses a high-tech, punch-card gizmo to visually scan
the scan the safe’s inner workings and manufacture a key that will open
it. Roger Greenspun’s June 15, 1972,
review in “The New York Times†took a dim view of Verneuil’s meticulous,
step-by-step depiction: “Such a machine might excite the envy of James Bond's
armorer, or the delight of Rube Goldberg. But what it does for Henri Verneuil is to fill up a great deal of film
time with a device rather than with an action.†In fact, Verneuil was simply paying homage to similar, documentarian
scenes in John Huston’s “The Asphalt Jungle†(1949) and Jules Dassin’s “Rififiâ€
(1955) -- incidentally, one of Robert Hossein’s early films -- and at the same
time avoiding repetition by employing the kind of Space Age gadget that
fascinated 007 fans in the early ‘70s.
Greenspun
also objected to “an endless (and pointless) car chase,†but the chase,
choreographed by Rémy Julienne, isn’t exactly pointless: it adds an overlay of
menace to the second, verbally cordial meeting of Azad and Zacharias. Besides, in the era of “Bullitt†(1968) and “The French Connectionâ€
(1971), a car chase in a crime film was good box office, as Verneuil certainly
knew. The chase isn’t shot and edited as
electrically as the ones staged by Bill Hickman for Peter Yates and William
Friedkin, but it’s easily as entertaining as Julienne’s stunts for the Bond
films.
Ennio
Morricone’s eclectic score includes a jazzy, Europop-inflected title tune;
dreamy easy-listening background music in the hotel cafe where Azad and Lena
meet cute; sultry music in a sex club where Morricone seems to be channeling
Mancini and Bachrach; and airy, Manos Hatzidakis-style string music in a Greek
restaurant where Azad and Zacharias meet. It’s an inventive score, but not as well known as some of Morricone’s
others, perhaps because it borrows so freely (with an affectionate wink and a
nod) from his contemporaries.
There
are a couple of versions of “The Burglars†as the French-language “Le Casse†on
YouTube, only one of them letterboxed, and neither with English subtitles. Web sources indicate that Sony released the
German-language version of the film, “Der Coup,†for the German DVD market in
2011; some say it includes English subtitles, others say it doesn’t. There was a letterboxed Alfa Digital edition
of “The Burglars†in 2007 for the collectors’ market, and a letterboxed print
occasionally runs on Turner Classic Movies. Those are probably the best bets for an English-track, properly
widescreen (2:35-1) print, although in both cases the colors are muddy, dulling
the bright cinematography by Claude Renoir that I remember seeing on the big
screen in 1972.
Belmondo,
Sharif, and Cannon probably have little name recognition among younger viewers
today, and a scene in which Azad slaps Lena around, activating a clapper that
cuts the lights in Lena’s apartment and then turns them back on with each slap,
would never be included in a modern film. On the other hand, the mixture of crime, car chase, and romance might
pique the interest of today’s “Fast & Furious†fans. In fact, with some rewriting (and further
separation from Goodis’ noir universe), it could easily be remade as a future
installment in the franchise, with Belmondo’s Azad repositioned as Vin Diesel’s Dom Toretto, and Sharif’s
Zacharias rewritten and softened as Dwayne Johnson’s Agent Luke Hobbs.
It’s
heartening that Sony Pictures Home Entertainment has begun to move older
Columbia genre releases from its vaults to DVD and cable TV, often in
first-rate condition. For example, a
pristine print of “Thunder on the Border†(1966) ran recently on GetTV, Sony’s
cable outlet for the Columbia vault. As
another example, “Hurricane Island†(1951) has aired on Turner Classic Movies
in perfectly transferred or restored Supercinecolor. It would be nice to see Sony offer a
comparably refurbished print of “The Burglars†on American Blu-ray. If nothing else, the movie’s 45th Anniversary
is only a year and a half away.