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The Italian Job

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Daisyabigael (talk | contribs) at 16:21, 2 October 2012 (removed advertising plug. No real or official connection to the film. OR at best.). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

For the 2003 film, see The Italian Job (2003 film). For other uses, see The Italian Job (disambiguation).
The Italian Job
UK 1999 Theatrical re-release poster
Directed byPeter Collinson
Written byTroy Kennedy Martin
Produced byMichael Deeley
StarringMichael Caine
Noël Coward
Benny Hill
Raf Vallone
Tony Beckley
Maggie Blye
Rossano Brazzi
CinematographyDouglas Slocombe
Edited byJohn Trumper
Music byQuincy Jones
Production
company
Distributed byParamount Pictures
Release date
  • 2 June 1969 (1969-06-02)
Running time
95 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish (featuring Italian scenes)

The Italian Job is a 1969 British caper film, written by Troy Kennedy Martin, produced by Michael Deeley and directed by Peter Collinson. Subsequent television showings and releases on video have established it as an institution in the United Kingdom.

Its soundtrack was composed by Quincy Jones, and includes "On Days Like These" sung by Matt Monro over the opening credits, and "Getta Bloomin' Move On" (usually referred to as "The Self Preservation Society", after its chorus) during the climactic car chase. Lead actor Michael Caine is among its singers.[1]

In November 2004, Total Film named The Italian Job the 27th greatest British film of all time.[2] The line "You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!" by Caine was voted favourite film one-liner in a 2003 poll of 1,000 film fans.[3] The popularity of the film has led to parodies and allusions in other films and productions.[4][5][6]

Plot

A Lamborghini Miura drives through the Italian Alps and enters a tunnel, where it loses control, crashes and explodes, killing the driver. A bulldozer pulls the remains from the tunnel and dumps them down a steep alpine gorge.

Some time later, dapper mobster Charlie Croker (Michael Caine) is released from prison. He soon meets with the widow (Lelia Goldoni) of his friend and fellow thief Roger Beckermann (Brazzi), victim of the Miura crash. She gives Croker her husband's plans for the robbery that attracted the attention of the Italian Mafia. The plans outline a way to rob the payroll of Turin-based automaker Fiat, and spirit it out of Italy.

Croker decides to continue the plan despite the risks, but needs a large, well-equipped gang. He breaks into jail to meet Mr Bridger (Noël Coward), a criminal who runs a gangland empire from prison. Croker explains "the Italian Job" but Bridger dismisses the plan out of hand, and indeed orders Croker be given "a good going-over" for disturbing his privacy.

Bridger changes his mind shortly after, when it is announced that China is delivering a consignment of gold to Turin, as down-payment to Fiat for the building of a car factory. With this backing, Croker assembles a group including computer expert Professor Peach (Benny Hill), electronics handler Birkinshaw (Emney) and several getaway drivers. The plan calls for Peach to infect Turin's computerised traffic control to create a paralysing traffic jam that will prevent the police from recapturing the gold. Three Mini Cooper S, able to navigate the gridlock in unconventional ways, will follow Beckermann's route through Turin to evacuate the gold.

After planning and training, Croker and crew set out for Turin. Mafia boss Altabani (Raf Vallone) is waiting at an Alpine pass with a front-end loader. It damages their two Jaguar E-Types and flips Croker's Aston Martin DB4 into the gorge, but Croker talks their way out of being killed by promising the Italian community in Britain will suffer reprisals if anything happens to them. He gathers the gang and has Peach load his guerrilla software into the traffic control computer the night before the heist. The next day Birkinshaw jams the closed circuit television that monitors traffic, just before Peach's software goes off and the city comes to a horn-honking standstill. The gang converge on the gold convoy, overpower the guards, pull the armoured car into the entrance hall of the Museo Egizio, and lock the doors.

Inside, the gang transfer the gold to the Minis. Mafioso Altabani recognises that "If they planned this [traffic] jam, then they must have planned a way out of it." The three Minis race through the shopping arcades of the Via Roma, up the sail-like roof of the Palazzo a Vela, around the rooftop test track of the Fiat Lingotto factory and down the steps of the Gran Madre di Dio church while a wedding is in progress. The gang escapes by driving through large sewer pipes, throwing off the police. The gang make their final getaway on a six-wheeled Harrington Legionnaire-bodied Bedford VAL coach, driving up a ramp on the back while the coach is travelling. Once the gold has been unloaded, the gang push the Minis out of the coach as it negotiates hairpin bends in the Alps.

Charlie and the Mini crews meet the rest of the gang, who had sneaked out of the city disguised as English football fans in a minivan. On their way to Switzerland on a winding mountain road, the celebration grows raucous as beer flows. When driver Big William sends the coach into a skid, the back of the bus is left teetering over a cliff and the gold slides towards the rear doors. As Croker attempts to reach the gold, it slips further, and the audience is left not knowing whether the coach, its contents, or its occupants survive—a literal cliffhanger. Croker's last line is "Hang on a minute, lads, I've got a great idea! Err... Err" The camera zooms out, still showing the bus on the edge of the cliff as the credits roll.

Cast

Noël Coward, who played Bridger, was godfather of the director, Peter Collinson. Bridger's fellow convict and confidant, Keats, was played by Graham Payn, Coward's long-time partner. Lana Gatto was the nom de crédit of Hazel Collinson, a.k.a. Mrs. Peter Collinson. Michael Caine's brother Stanley Caine also appears as one of Croker's gang. The gang also included Robert Powell, in his first film role. American distributors Paramount wanted Robert Redford to play the lead.

Ending

According to a "Making Of" documentary,[7] producer Deeley was unsatisfied with the four endings written and conceived the current ending as a (literal) cliffhanger appropriate to an action film which left an opportunity for a sequel. The documentary describes how helicopters would save the bus seen on the cliff at the end of the first film. The grateful gang would soon discover that it is the Mafia that has saved them, and the sequel would have been about stealing the gold bullion back from them.

In interviews in 2003 and 2008, Michael Caine revealed that the ending would have had Croker "crawl up, switch on the engine and stay there for four hours until all the petrol runs out... The van bounces back up so we can all get out, but then the gold goes over."[8] The bus containing the gold would crash at the bottom of the hill where the Mafia would pick it up. The sequel would then have Croker and his men trying to get it back.

In 2008, the Royal Society of Chemistry held a competition for a solution that had a basis in science, was to take not more than 30 minutes and not use a helicopter.[9] The idea was to promote greater understanding of science, and to highlight the 100th anniversary of the periodic table, of which gold is one of the 117 elements.[8]

The winning entry, by John Godwin of Surrey, was to: Break and remove two large side windows just aft of the pivot point and let the glass fall outside to lose its weight. Break two windows over the two front axles; keep the broken glass on board to keep its weight for balance. Let a man out on a rope through the front broken windows (not to rest his weight on the ground) and he deflates all the bus's front tires, to reduce the bus's rocking movement about its pivot point. Drain the fuel tank, which was aft of the pivot point; that changes the balance enough to let a man get out and gather heavy rocks to load the front of the bus. Unload the bus. Wait until a suitable vehicle passes on the road, and hijack it and carry the gold away in it.[10]

Locations

The chase sequences were filmed in Turin, except for the chase through the sewer tunnel, which was shot in the Sowe Valley Sewer Duplication system in the Stoke Aldermoor district of Coventry in the English Midlands, filmed from the back of a Mini Moke.[7] The person on the far side who closes the gate at the end of sewer tunnel is the director, Peter Collinson. Collinson also appeared in the scene on the highway when the ramps get jettisoned: it is he (on the right) clinging to the back door of the coach as the Minis entered at speed.[7]

The jail that held Bridger was Kilmainham Gaol in Dublin, Ireland. The meeting at the misty funeral was set in Cruagh Cemetery, in the foothills of the Dublin Mountains. The office block that doubled as the Turin traffic control centre was the Hanworth, Middlesex head office of the television rental chain DER.[7]

The training sessions shown for the Mini drivers were at the Crystal Palace race track in Sydenham, South London. The attempt to blow the doors off the bullion van, which led to its destruction and Croker's line, took place at Crystal Palace Sports Centre. The Crystal Palace transmitter can be seen in the background.

A portion of the car chase, a dance between the Minis and police cars, was inside Pier Luigi Nervi's Exhibition Building with a full orchestra playing 'The Blue Danube'.[7] It was cut from the final version and appears as an extra on the DVD.

The final escape from Turin and bus crash was the 'dead end' road from Turin via Ceresole Reale, Lago Agnel and the Colle del Nivolet. The road does not lead to France or Switzerland.

Vehicles

Roger Beckermann's Lamborghini Miura in the opening scene is actually two cars. The first was a Miura P400 that was sold as new afterwards. The car tumbled down the chasm by the Mafia bulldozer was another Miura that had been in a serious accident and was not roadworthy.

According to the director's commentary on the DVD, despite the publicity the film would give to the Mini, the car's maker, BMC, only provided a token fleet of Minis and the production company had to buy the rest at trade price. Fiat offered the production as many super-charged Fiat cars as they needed, several sports cars for the Mafia confrontation scene, plus $50,000, but the producers turned down the offer because it would have meant replacing the Minis with Fiats.

The Minis seen on screen carry registration numbers HMP 729G (Red), GPF 146G (White) and LGW 809G (Blue). As at July 2012, a DVLA query indicates that the first two of these may still be registered.

As Croker walks through the garage where the Minis are being prepared, we hear that "Rozzer's having trouble with his differential" and the back of the red Mini Cooper is jacked up and Rozzer is working. This is an inside joke since the Mini is a front-wheel drive and does not have a rear differential. In the early 1960s, front wheel drive cars were new and asking a car mechanic to repair a Mini's rear differential was a popular snipe hunt.[citation needed]

Gold cost $39 per troy ounce in 1968[11] so four million dollars in gold bars would have weighed about 3200 kg (7000 lb), requiring each of the three Minis to carry about 1070 kg (2300 lb) in addition to the driver and passenger. Since a 1968 Mini only weighs 630 kg (1400 lb),[12] each of these vehicles would have had to carry 1½ times its own weight in gold.

The coach at the end of the film was a 1964 Bedford VAL with Harrington Legionnaire Body, distinctive for its twin front steering axles. Following the filming, the coach had its improvised rear doors welded and was used on a Scottish school bus route until the mid 1980s and was scrapped according to the Legionnaire register.[citation needed]

Charlie Croker picks up his Aston Martin DB4 convertible from a garage after release from prison. The scene was mostly improvised, which caused visible lighting irregularities since the crew didn't know where the actors would be. The original Aston belongs today to a private English collection.

According to several sources,[citation needed] the "Aston" pushed off the cliff was a Vignale Lancia Flaminia mocked up as an Aston. The two E-type Jaguars that suffered from the Mafia's revenge were restored to original condition. The black Fiat Dino coupé of Mafia boss Altabani was bought by Peter Collinson but became so rusty that only its doors remain.

The Italian police cars seen around Turin were Alfa Romeo Giulias.

A Land Rover Series IIa Station Wagon registration BKO 686C was used to get to the convoy before attacking and was modified with window bars and a 'Towbar'.

A Ford Thames 400E van was used for the football fans' decorated van; this was referred to as the Dormobile, the name of a common camper-van conversion coachbuilder.

The "Chinese" plane delivering the gold to Turin is a rare Douglas C-74 Globemaster, of which only 14 were built and only four passed into private ownership. It had been abandoned in Milan by its owners and was moved to Turin for filming. It was destroyed by fire in 1970.[13]

Music

Matt Monro - On Days Like These excerpt
An excerpt from Matt Monro's On Days Like These
Problems playing this file? See media help.

The soundtrack was by jazz specialist and record producer Quincy Jones. The main theme "On Days Like These" was by Matt Monro, and the final theme "Get a Bloomin' Move On" ('The Self Preservation Society') was performed by the cast. The lyrics consist of Cockney Rhyming Slang. Many incidental themes are based on British patriotic songs, such as "Rule, Britannia!", "The British Grenadiers" and the National Anthem.

Reception and legacy

Poster for the American release of the film. The relative lack of success for the film in the United States was blamed partially on what was seen as a unattractive and misleading advertising campaign.

The film has received generally positive reviews, holding an 84% on Rotten Tomatoes and an average of 7.2/10.[14] Most positive reviews focus on the climactic car chase and the acting of both Michael Caine and Noël Coward, complimenting Peter Collinson's directing. It is considered highly evocative of 1960's London and the era in Britain as a whole.[15] In a modern review Nik Higgins of Future Movies claims that the film makes Austin Powers' wardrobe appear 'drab and grey'. He compliments Michael Caine's ability to effectively portray the character of Charlie [16] and also praises the music of Quincy Jones. Higgins particularly highlights how the music 'hops between smooth lounges' like the opener "On Days Like These" and the latter "Get a Bloomin' Move On" ('The Self Preservation Society'), which plays near the film's end.

It has also received some negative reviews, focusing on what is perceived as a predictable chase[17] and a lack of real emotion.[18] Vincent Canby, writing at the time of the film's release, felt that the caper film had been made before and much better as well. He complimented the film's technological sophistication, only criticising what he saw as an 'emotionally retarded' plot. Canby also expressed concern that Coward's appearance in the film, although intended to be kind, 'exploits him in vaguely unpleasant ways' by surrounding his character with images of the royal family, which had not knighted him at the time. A contemporary review in Time felt that the film spent too much time focusing on the film's caper as opposed to building the characters, also criticising the car chases as 'dull and deafening'.[19]

Although it received a Golden Globe nomination for "Best English-Language Foreign Film", the film was not a success in America. Caine blamed its failure on unattractive and misleading advertising.[20] As a result, plans for a sequel were shelved.

The film remains popular, however, and is considered one of the greatest British films in modern polls.[21] James Travers' of Films de France believes that the film's enduring appeal rests in the 'improbable union' of Michael Caine, Noël Coward and Benny Hill, who he considers 'three of the best known [British] performers... in the late 1960s'.[22] He states that the film has a cult status and stands as a 'classic of its genre'.

Since 2000 there have been two remakes of the film. The first was released in 2003 and also called The Italian Job, set in Los Angeles and starring Mark Wahlberg as Charlie Croker. It features Donald Sutherland as John Bridger, played as more of a father figure to Croker. It employs the updated Mini Cooper for a chase towards the end. An official Bollywood remake of the 2003 film, called Players, was released in 2012.,[23]

There is also a video game based on the 1969 film, released for the PlayStation game console in 2001 and Microsoft Windows in 2002 and published by Rockstar Games.

The film was also the subject of a play, "Bill Shakespeare's The Italian Job", written by Malachi Bogdanov, who used lines from Shakespeare plays to tell the story. It was first performed in 2003 at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. .[24]

As part of a celebration of British culture at 2012 Summer Olympics, which were held in Britain, a replica of the bus was made and was exhibited actually balanced on the edge of the roof of The De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-sea.[25] The famous dialogue and car blowing up scene were also played at the closing ceremony.[26]

See also

References

  1. ^ "The Film – Soundtrack". Theitalianjob.com. Retrieved 2007-09-09. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  2. ^ "Total Film magazine, November 2004". Total Film. Retrieved 2006-05-29. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)[dead link]
  3. ^ Michael Paterson (2003-03-10). "Caine takes top billing for the greatest one-liner on screen". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 2009-02-08.
  4. ^ "As If episode 3.12 guide". TV.com. Retrieved 2009-01-04. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  5. ^ "The Italian Bob Trivia and Quotes". TV.com. Retrieved 2009-01-04. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  6. ^ "Thief of Budapest". TV.com. Retrieved 2009-01-04. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  7. ^ a b c d e The Making of The Italian Job' at IMDb Edit this at Wikidata
  8. ^ a b "Caine reveals Italian Job ending". BBC News. 2008-11-29. Retrieved 2009-08-11. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  9. ^ Royal Society of Chemistry press release: "Italian Job" cliff-hanger solution sought
  10. ^ The Daily Telegraph, Friday 23 January 2009, page 3
  11. ^ "DAILY GOLD CHARTS". Kitco.com. Retrieved 2006-05-29. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  12. ^ Reed, Chris. Complete Classic Mini 1959-2000. ISBN 1-899870-60-1.
  13. ^ "USAF Globemaster Serial Number Search." cgibin.rcn.com. Retrieved: 26 November 2010.
  14. ^ "The Italian Job (1969)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2011-10-16. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  15. ^ "The Italian Job (1969)". Films de France. Retrieved 2011-10-16. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  16. ^ http://www.futuremovies.co.uk/review.asp?ID=104
  17. ^ "The Italian Job: Review". TV Guide. Retrieved 2011-10-16. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  18. ^ Canby, Vincent (1969-10-09). "Aces High (1967) Italian Job' and 'Ace High': Double Bill of Imports at Local Theaters". The New York Times. Retrieved 2011-10-16. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  19. ^ "Cinema: Britannia Waives the Rules". TIME Magazine. 1969-09-19. Retrieved 2011-10-16. {{cite news}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  20. ^ "Citizen Caine: Michael Caine in The Italian Job". Citizencaine.org. Retrieved 2006-06-12. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  21. ^ "Michael Caine - The Italian Job Is Britain's Best Film". contactmusic.com. Retrieved 2011-10-16. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  22. ^ http://filmsdefrance.com/FDF_The_Italian_Job_1969_rev.html
  23. ^ "India to Remake 'The Italian Job'". The Hollywood Reporter. 23-November-2010. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  24. ^ http://www.britishtheatreguide.info/otherresources/fringe/fringe03-20.htm
  25. ^ Tom Goodenough (4 July 2012). "Meet the new Olympic coach". Daily Mail. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |acceessdate= ignored (help)
  26. ^ "London 2012 Olympic Games end with a party". Channel 4. 13 August 2012. {{cite web}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help); Missing or empty |url= (help); Text "http://www.channel4.com/news/the-london-2012-olympics-games-ends-with-a-party" ignored (help)

External links

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