The Big Caper (1957)

You won't be disappointed!

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Crappy film

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

A heist gang is assembled from character types to knock over a million-dollar bank. But first, the gang must establish credentials in town by pretending that two of their number are a married couple that buy a gas station. But will the diverse types be able to carry out the scheme, especially in the midst of an all-American community.Well-made thick ear. Despite the title, the heist part is pretty ordinary. The movie's real appeal is in colorful characters and human interest. Robert H. Harris has to be the biggest bundle of pathetic sweat in movie annals. When he isn't setting off diversionary explosions, he's in near orgasmic delight over the fires he sets. It's a thankless role, he brings off to the proverbial T. Then there's Corey Allen's demented hipster Roy, and a long way from his commanding role in Rebel Without a Cause (1955). With his blond crew-cut, I almost didn't recognize him. But in my view, the movie really belongs to James Gregory's mastermind, Flood. He brings real authority to the role, making much of the movie more credible than it is. No wonder he had a long run on TV.The various little conflicts make up most of the story, and except for some cheap sets, they're compelling enough to hold interest. However, suspense doesn't really kick in until the final 20-minutes, while some threads are left hanging; that is, unless I missed something. Anyway, Calhoun and Costa make an attractive couple, with a good look at that 50's suburban ritual, the backyard bar-be-cue. And despite a couple of plot stretches, the production remains on the whole an entertaining little package.

Not too bad for this type B noirish thriller (except the criminals don't get away with it darn it--but this is 1957--no body got away with any thing.)The plot: Frank (Rory Calhoun) enlists Flood (James Gregory) to help him steal 1 million dollars that is deposited every payday in a small town bank near Camp Pendleton for the military payroll. The plan is to have Kay-Flood's girlfriend (Mary Costa) pretend to be married to Frank and go to the small town where the bank is located 6 months before the heist and blend into the local community by buying a gas station and a house (far too nice and expensive for a tiny gas station owner by the way)---Hollywood never had much reality in these type of details. Somehow by living there this will make the caper work I guess by supplying a safe house where no one will think to look for the money---because neither Kay nor Frank are critical to the robbery itself. It is OK to pass some time since you know in the beginning this caper will fail and there is nothing particularly suspenseful about any of it. It is competently acted and filmed...gets a 5 or 6.RECOMMEND

This is a 1.5 hour train wreck. Scene one we know RC (star Rory Calhoun) is determined to rob a bank so we immediately know happily ever after ain't gonna happen. He enlists an old ex-con pal to plan the caper.Normally you would blow into town unknown, pull off the job and split but instead RC buys a gas station and a house, befriends the the community, joins the Country Club to get everyone to know an love him and his fake wife for six months and THEN pull off the bank job and stick around for another month and then split town. Brilliant plan, right? I don't see it that way myself but his old pal is a criminal master mind so what do I know? Half the flick revolves around the fake life of our fake schmaltzy couple until the various characters involved in the caper show up in town to plan and carry out the caper....and boy, do I mean Characters with a capital "C". First the pyromaniac gin addicted torch man, the spooky masochistic body builder looney toon, a floozy dame whose name is Doll, the businesslike safe cracker and a harmless watch-out. As this gang of idiots play out the train wreck really takes place and naturally ends in the inevitable pile up with our rehabilitated fake couple promising to hook up no matter what. The End. Nice old DeSoto's tho.

Adapted, like Stanley Kubrick's more celebrated 1956 crime movie THE KILLING, from a novel by underrated thriller writer Lionel White, THE BIG CAPER is an economical, pacy minor 50s crime movie which, unfortunately, somewhat loses its grip and falls away on the home strait to deliver less than it initially promises. Trapped in an ever-increasing spiral of gambling losses, Frank (Rory Calhoun, taking a welcome break from the saddle) sells his now semi-respectable gangster boss Flood (James Gregory) the idea of bankrolling a 'big caper'. The sleepy Californian coastal town of San Felipe is home to a bank which holds the substantial payroll for a nearby army base, and appears just ripe for the pickings for a team of professional hoods. Flood stakes the plan, and, after buying up the local gas station (an ideal stakeout locale for the bank located across the street), Frank sets up home with Flood's moll Kay (Mary Costa), aiming to win the trust of the local populace based on a seemingly legitimate veneer of domestic normality. Biding their time, Frank and Kay ingratiate themselves with the local 'square' population as they await the arrival of Flood's specialist team. But when this outfit includes an alcoholic pyromaniac, an inveterate womaniser, a psychotically loyal bodyguard and a kingpin who is beginning, rightfully, to suspect that his girl wants out from her previous lifestyle, the seemingly perfect caper begins to look fatally flawed. Swift and punchy, and betraying the best of its paperback origins in swift, sharp characterisation and abrupt narrative gear changes, this benefits from a nicely embittered change-of-pace lead performance from Calhoun (who, in forsaking his cowboy boots and spurs here, suggests he would have made an effectively downbeat noir actor) and a surprising sense of well-oiled coiled-spring menace from the underrated Gregory. Although a tad schematic in its paralleling of the Eisenhower-era nuclear family with Flood's dysfunctional criminal one, and running out of steam on the way to a regrettably contrived ending which involves a Damascene conversion which doesn't quite convince (a more cynical remake would probably put that right, though), this is a diverting slice of 50s criminality which seems, like much of the quirky crime roster from this period, to have slipped off the generic radar in recent years. Worth a look, even if it can't hold a candle to Kubrick's more celebrated Lionel White adaptation from the same period.