How to Steal a Million (1966)

Best movie of this year hands down!

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

I enjoy Audrey Hepburn movies. Fun film action. I noticed on my DVD that John Williams is credited as Johnny Williams. I did not know he use to go by Johnny. I noticed your page said he was uncredited. Does this mean his name was added later?

NOTES: Originally, producer/director Wyler cast George C. Scott opposite Miss Hepburn, but after a falling out between the two men, Wyler replaced Scott with Peter O'Toole. The movie was Number 10 on Kate Cameron's list of the Ten Best Films of the Year for the "New York Daily News". Also number 10 on the trade paper, "The Film Daily" list. And with a rentals gross of $4.4 million, one of the top thirty box-office successes of 1966 in the domestic market.COMMENT: Harry Kurnitz's script has some clever plot ideas and some witty lines buried in a somewhat over-long, over-talkative and too sluggishly paced caper, which the normally reliable William Wyler has directed with far too heavy a hand. True, it has its amusing moments and the caper itself is quite funny. It's also nice to see Fernand Gravet (looking sadly aged); and Charles Boyer (bearing up well — alas, he has only two scenes); and that delightfully comic pantomimist Moustache as one of the guards.Drastic trimming is needed. It's too heavy a champagne, too much of a good thing. Nice photography and sets; O'Toole tries hard; Miss Hepburn is Miss Hepburn to the "T" (and not always too flatteringly photographed); and Hugh Griffith flusters magnificently. But the film would be twice as enjoyable at three-quarters the length. This sort of comedy is definitely not Wyler's forte. His approach is too stolid, too wearisomely slow for tongue-in-cheek shenanigans of the debonair crime caper school. This is Ealing territory. Despite its Parisian locations and the re-union of Wyler and Hepburn, HTSAM is definitely no "Roman Holiday".As I said, the movie is very slow to get off the ground. In fact, the first half-hour is better missed. After that, there is an incredible improvement in dialogue and situations and even William Wyler's stodgy direction perks up considerably. Unfortunately, there is no improvement in Charles Lang's photography — easily the worst I have ever seen in a major movie. Or maybe we critics were shown a rough cut?

Why would anyone want to steal a priceless statue, the Cellini Venus, from a Paris art museum IF you had been the one to loan it to the museum in the first place? Therein lies the riddle that makes up the story of this movie. When you first look at the cast of this William Wyler movie, it looks like there are three—maybe four--Oscar winners. Well, that is true and not true: Audrey Hepburn and Hugh Griffith won performance Oscars, but Peter O'Toole and Charles Boyer—while receiving several nominations each —ended up with only Honorary Oscars. Once you have seen a few art heist movies, you know what pains that a museum or bank goes through to protect the priceless objet d'art in their possession. There all sorts of bells and whistles, secret codes, and infrared sensors around the art, not to mention the 24/7 personnel used to respond to this plethora of mechanical-electrical gimmicks.The fun of the movie is watching O'Toole help Hepburn try to steal the statue. This is a bit like watching an episode of the old Mission Impossible TV show.

A rather conventional caper where Peter O'Toole, a detective, masquerades as a burglar to get more information on art forger Hugh Griffith. He meets Griffith's daughter, Audrey Hepburn, during a burglary attempt and the two quickly fall for each other.Complications arise when Griffith signs for one of his prize statues to be insured, but that signature requires a thorough examination of the piece that will certainly prove that the latter is not authentic.O'Toole aids Hepburn in the heist so as to protect her father from prison.Kudos to Griffith, who Director William Wyler obviously remembered from "Ben-Hur" for a much better performance here as quite a colorful character. O'Toole is debonair. Hepburn acts like she is back in "Roman Holiday," and Charles Boyer appears all too briefly.The film becomes rather inane once the burglary has taken place.