Seven Thieves (1960)

Try as I might, I still don't understand why Joan Collins ever made it in Hollywood. She has all the natural acting talent of a lettuce, and here she struggles to even manage that. Luckily, however, there are better actors on hand for this quirky heist drama and they manage to deliver something just a bit different. Former professor 'Wilkins' (Edward G. Robinson) has invited the recently released 'Paul' (Rod Steiger) to Monte Carlo. Their meeting au bord de la mer quickly establishes that they have some sort of past and that neither have a franc to their name. 'Wilkins' has a daring plan to rectify that, and so with the help of a fairly disparate gang including 'Melanie' (Collins), 'Raymond' (Alexander Scourby), safe-man 'Dante' (Louis Antonizzi) and the erascible 'Poncho' (Eli Wallach) they plan to infiltrate the Casino and relieve it of the equivalent of $4 millions. Their plan isn't without risks - especially for 'Poncho', but with all of them in need of the cash they embark on quite a complex attack on the place without, hopefully, having to use any weapons or violence and by leaving in.. an ambulance! Of course, as with most films about robberies, it's never the planning that goes wrong, but what chance the execution and their subsequent escape can happen without casualty? For me, it's Robinson who steals the show here as his characterisation of the elderly and disgraced scientist has you firmly in his corner - even if we never quite discover what he did to earn his derision, and I thought he worked well with both a Steiger who quite tautly underplays his role and from the on-form Wallach whose depiction of the permanently anxious 'Poncho' is really quite effective. The entertainingly fitting conclusion comes from a left-field that I certainly wasn't expecting, and this benefits from it's stylish and classy monochrome photography as the tension mounts and the nerves start to tingle.