A Slight Case of Larceny (1953)

Strong and Moving!

One of my all time favorites.

Memorable, crazy movie

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Despite its very disappointing conclusion, this is one of Mickey Rooney's most appealing "B" vehicles. In fact, he makes a first-rate con-man, while Eddie Bracken provides the ideal foil for Rooney's "gas". And although she's neither costumed nor photographed very attractively, I also really liked Elaine Stewart's seductive heroine. Another plus is that some of my favorite character players, including Charles Halton, Dabbs Greer, Douglas Fowley and Ida Moore can be glimpsed momentarily in support cameos. For once, Don Weis's direction is unusually capable, while the film editing of all the 2nd unit, stunt and studio shots is nothing if not remarkably smooth. And there's at least one stand-out comedy sequence with a runaway van that features Rooney mugging away most delightfully.

I saw this film in 1954 and have not seen it since. Why it still sticks in my mind after all this time is a bit of a mystery, but 2 scenes stick out in my memory. The first previously described in an earlier comment was the scene where the main characters are drilling into the gas line with sparks flying around, the second where the motorcycle cop pulls them over in their open topped gas laden truck and lights up a smoke. The look of panic on our heroes' faces nearly made me wet myself! This film was released in the U.S. on VHS some years ago. I bid for it on ebay but was skittled in the rush. I'd love to see it again, if only to see if I could still laugh as much. I live in Australia where we call gas petrol.Bill.

Anyone who is a fan of mickey rooney will love this film. He is great in it! It's one of his funnist 1950's roles. In my opinion Mickey Rooney should have been #1 in the 50's too. The man was sizzeling with talent. He truly is one of the best actors that has ever lived, if not the best. This movie is great! The story is slight, but the acting of Mickey Rooney is worth a watch. Eddie Bracken is not the greatest actor and Mickey Rooney far outshines him. Mickey Rooney's love interest is typical of a girl he would have loved in real life. Tall and pretty! I would highly recommend this film to Rooney fans and to fans of cute, clean comedies of the 1950s! Enjoy!

'A Slight Case of Larceny' came out in 1953, about the time my dad and I, a 7-year-old, began to take weekend trips to New Orleans, the Gulf Coast, and Houston. I remember those high gasoline prices of 20 to 30 cents a gallon. So, here in this movie, where the posted 'discount' was 5, 6 cents a gallon, all the way up to 11 cents, was really a big percentage discount. But where were the lines of cars, waiting to fill up at those low prices? It was set in Galveston, but it was obviously filmed on back lots and on California highways. Galveston does not have hills and rocky roadside cliffs. The beach scenes looked a lot like Galveston did back in the 1950s, but could have been southern California beaches. Both main characters wore WWII leather flight jackets, just like the jacket I wear every winter, and that was fun to see.Mickey Rooney stars as Augustus 'Geechy' Cheevers, a born schemer. Operating "Cheevers and Clopp's Gasoline and Oil Station", along with Frederick Clopp (Eddie Bracken). Meanwhile, a wealthy owner of 15 stations puts up his own right across the street, and begins to undercut their prices to try to put them out of business. So Geechy Cheevers has to figure out a scheme to counteract that. SPOILERS are contained in the rest of my comments, you may want to quit reading now if you have not seen the movie. Geechy's scheme is to dig a tunnel from his station, under the road, to his competitor's gasoline pipeline, tap in, and use the "free" gasoline as a way to undercut prices and stay in business. He does, and after a long price war, causes the other station to close down. But a robbery results in a cigarette spark that burns down the station. Afraid they will be exposed they get on Geechy's motorcycle and run away, eventually turning themselves in because of guilt. They were not being sought, but tried anyway after the confession, found guilty of petty larceny and sentenced to 6 months plus repay all the stolen gasoline. Last scene, working for their women, who refuse to let them drink beer during the day, we see that Geechy has tapped into the draft beer "pipeline" to get his free beer!Rooney was 33 here, and in fine form. Already a veteran of movies, even today in 2004 he has roles in three more. As of this count his 259th movie, although many of them were B&W film shorts back in the silent days.