The Italian Job (1969)
The Italian Job is a classic British movie, telling the
story of a gold bullion raid by English criminals in Italy. It's a
very British movie. It's as British as sipping tea while watching
the cricket and listening to The Kinks!
Michael Caine features in the role of a lifetime as Charlie
Croker, a recently-released dodgy geezer who inherits a master
plan for the blag from a recently-deceased Italian criminal
mastermind who meets an untimely demise at the hands of the Mafia
whilst out driving his Lamborghini through the Alps during the
opening sequence of the film.
Penned by Z Cars writer Troy Kennedy Martin (and
originally intended for Terence Stamp and Cilla Black) the movie
begins with said rather tasty Orange Lamborghini giving it some
stick around hairpin bends in the Alps. The motor is driven by one
Roger Beckerman, an Italian criminal mastermind.
Unfortunately Beckerman is stopped in his tracks rather
abruptly as he accelerates into a tunnel and smack into a
bulldozer driven by the mafia. The remainder of the film concerns
the execution of the brilliant plan to nick gold bullion from
Turin, Italy.
Memorable characters include genteel criminal mastermind Mr.
Bridger (Noel Coward) and Professor Peach - a computer scientist
fixated on fat women (Benny Hill).
 The
Italian Job's two dazzling trump cards are Michael Caine's
cocksure embodiment of Cool Britannia and the truly breathtaking
getaway sequence.
Here is a rare heist movie that concentrates on the escape
above the crime itself - in which the smallest output of the
British motor industry slaughters the Italian fuzz through Turin
shopping precincts, along crowded pavements, on to the canopy of a
stadium, leaping over rooftops and racing through sewer pipes (the
drain which the Mini Coopers race down is actually the
Birmingham-Coventry Tithebarn Main Sewer, which was under
construction at the time).
The Minis are picked up by a coach - The lettering on the side
of the coach says "Croker Coach Tours" - and disposed of
in the Alps. Charlie and his gang then celebrate their blag as
they race away.
Unfortunately, the coach driver takes one bend too fast and
they end up halfway over a sheer precipice, with the weight of the
gold dragging them toward the edge . . .
"Hang on a minute lads, I've got a great idea". Yeh,
How about a better bus driver?
Above all, this is a film that exuberantly celebrates the fact
that it's ace to be British!
Director Peter Collinson died of cancer on 16 December 1980. He
was just 42 years old.
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