The Burglars (1972)

the leading man is my tpye

Such a frustrating disappointment

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

I have been reading the work of David Goodis, an American writer who wrote dark thrillers in the 1940's and 1950's. After reading the novels, I have been watching (or re-watching) the film adaptations. Goodis's work has been adapted by Francois Truffaut (Shoot the Piano Player), Delmer Daves (Dark Passage), and Samuel Fuller (Street of No Return), among others. Henri Verneuil's film adaptation of Goodis's The Burglar is best watched on its own terms rather than as an adaptation.The Burglars (film) keeps a great deal of the plot from The Burglar (novel). A group of burglars (three men and a young woman) are in the process of robbing emeralds from a house when a policeman (two in the novel) spots their getaway car. The leader of the burglars (Azad in the movie, Harbin in the novel) convinces the policeman/policemen that his car has broken down. The police car leaves and the robbery is finished. Everything appears fine, but then come the complications. A beautiful woman comes out of nowhere and begins to make eyes at Azad/Nat, setting up a love triangle with the female burglar. In addition, the policeman (or one of the policemen in the novel) wants the emeralds for himself, setting up a game of cat and mouse.All of the above summary fits both the movie and the novel. The big difference is in tone. The movie is trying to be a crowd pleaser. The tone is mostly light, giving Jean-Paul Belmondo and Omar Sharif a chance to play off of each other. There is a fun car chase and a funny scene in a restaurant where the policeman insists on ordering the burglar's food. Also, the catchy Ennio Morricone score reflects the film's lighthearted mood (I own the soundtrack). On the downside, The Burglars is a little overlong and mostly wastes Dyan Cannon. In addition, while fun to watch, there is not much to reflect upon when it is over.The novel The Burglar goes into much darker territory. It is a noir story, where the criminal hero finds himself struggling in traps both real and emotional as he balances two very different women and tries to survive the corrupt policeman. This policeman is not the cool, dashing Omar Sharif but an unhinged psychopath with no qualms about resorting to murder.Here is an example of how film and novel handle a similar section. In both, the female burglar is sent away after the job. In both, the hero, Azad/Harbin, has to go and retrieve her. In the film, he resorts to riding around in a clown car, literally a car done up with a giant clown on the front, broadcasting an advertisement for the coming circus. This works in the film because The Burglars is the equivalent of a trip to the circus. However, the novel records its hero's journey with unease dripping from the pages."Then the road sign was past them and in front of them was the black and the booming storm. Harbin had an odd feeling they were a thousand miles away from Atlantic City and a thousand miles away from anywhere. He tried to convince himself the Black Horse Pike was a real thing and in daylight it was just another concrete road. But ahead of him now it looked unreal, like a path arranged for unreal travel, its glimmer unreal, black of it unreal with the wet wild thickness all around it."The Burglars is an enjoyable enough heist picture, but The Burglar is a novel that gut punches the reader.

Henri Verneuil's fast paced thriller stars Jean-Paul Belmondo as a burglar whose seemingly perfect emerald heist is tripped up by crooked cop Omar Sharif. Belmondo and crew are taunted, shot at, and endlessly pursued by the maniacal Sharif. Set in Greece, Verneuil infuses the film with a lot of energy and a number of classic touches: Sharif searching an amusement on horseback; Belmondo's toy factory hide-out; a very odd climax in a grain silo. Sharif & Belmondo have a lot of chemistry in several confrontations and the whole enterprise is enhanced by the presence of Dyan Cannon (as a stripper with a heart of anything BUT gold). Nicole Calfan is very good as a lovelorn teenager smitten with Belmondo and the supporting cast includes Robert Hossein. Great cinematography by Claude Renoir & a dynamite music score by Ennio Morricone. A excellent companion piece to Verneuil's THE SICILIAN CLAN.

Le Casse is an original cop & thieves movie, taking place in an unusual and exotic location (Greece) which adds to its strange atmosphere. Indeed, although the screenplay is a little bit weak at times, it's basically the story of a wide-scale duel between two men who are ready to fight to their last breath for wealth and glory. The duellists use the whole city for their confrontation, and the outstanding score of Ennio Morricone is here to indicate that the base line of the movie is not that far away from that of Sergio Leone's westerns: Le Casse is about human greed, tenacity and, in a certain way, sense of honour.Le Casse also makes me think of "Bullit". They're both slow-paced action movies with occasional explosions of violence. They're both quite silent (Belmondo does not talk more than Mc Queen)and the silence is punctuated by a very smart and eerie music which says more than any dialogue.**SPOILER**A viewer from Mexico made a remark regarding the car chase. He said it had no real connection to the story, because when Sharif finally catches up with Belmondo, they just exchange a few words and drive away. The reason why is that Sharif only wanted to know if Belmondo had the stolen emeralds with him in the car (which was not the case) because he wanted to get them before Belmondo hid them. He lets him go then because he knows where to find him. A few minutes, later, indeed, we see Sharif at the toys' warehouse. Now remember that during the robbery, the night before, Sharif opened the car of Belmondo and saw the toys: we can assume that he knew where they stored.

If there is anything worse than a film with too much style and little substance, it's a film that has neither of those things. "Le Casse" manages to be both boring and insipid, with dialogue scenes that don't mean anything, chase scenes that go on forever without ever becoming exciting (just like the speedboat chases in "Live And Let Die" for example) and characters so unlikable that there is nobody to root for. Only two positive qualities:OK acting and a gorgeous Dyan Cannon. (**)