Mon 13 Jun 2016
ONCE A THIEF. MGM, 1965. Alain Delon, Ann-Margret, Van Heflin, Jack Palance, John Davis Chandler, Jeff Corey. Screenplay: Zekial Marko, based on his novel Scratch A Thief as by John Trinian (Ace Double F-107, 1961; Stark House, 2016). Director: Ralph Nelson.
This better than average crime heist film came along a few years after the height of the noir era, and while truth be told, it doesn’t break any new ground, it’s well-filmed, well-acted and beautifully photographed (in black and white when they knew how to film in black and white).
The thief in question is Alain Delon, who plays Eddie Pedak, a guy who’s done some time but is now married to Ann-Margret and has an honest job down by the San Francisco docks. He’s just made a down payment on his own boat when his nemesis, Inspector Mike Vido (Van Heflin), figures he’s the one who killed a Chinese woman in the process of robbing her small store.
When the woman’s husband can’t identify Eddie as the killer, he’s allowed to go free, but in the meantime he’s lost his job. Ann-Margret gets a job in a local nightspot — this doesn’t go over well — and then along comes his brother Walter (Jack Palance), a hustler and small-time hoodlum with an offer Eddie, desperate for money, can’t refuse.
A heist, in other words, and Walter needs Eddie. (I did mention, didn’t I, that not much in new ground is broken?) Heists never go as planned, but the story’s not really about the robbery. It’s about the characters, and while you can’t believe that Alan Delon and Jack Palance could ever be related, they make their roles ones they seemingly were born to play. Ann-Margret’s histrionics may go over the top a couple of times, but she managed to convince me that any mother whose young daughter is being held by a gang of sadistic thieves would react exactly the same way.
Did I say the heist goes badly? Indeed it does.
June 13th, 2016 at 4:18 am
I as struck by the difference in acting styles: Delon and Margaeet’s callow youth vs. Heflin’s assured maturity and the hammy underplaying of Palance and Chandler.
June 13th, 2016 at 11:39 am
When ONCE A THIEF was made I happened to be working as a 22-year-old warehouseman for P.E. O’Hair, the San Francisco company robbed of a fortune in platinum in the film. At that time P.E. O’Hair was in fact the largest purveyor of plumbing supplies in the Bay Area; the thought that it stored and dispensed platinum makes me smile to this day. The vault that Delon and his cohorts crack was a prop built in the company office. I had the pleasure of watching its construction, and of viewing first hand several of the indoor and outdoor scene set-ups and (from a distance) a little of the shooting of the robbery sequence.
I attended the film’s premier in S.F. and have watched it a number of times since on DVD. I agree with Steve’s criticisms; it would have been much better with a different cast and one highly unpleasant climactic scene altered. All in all, though, it is effectively gritty, late-period noir.
Zekial Marko/John Trinian was the brother of crime novelist, Kenn Davis, incidentally. And every bit as weird a dude as the character he portrays in the film.
June 13th, 2016 at 1:40 pm
The thought that the gang might have been stealing plumbing supplies instead of platinum makes me smile too. That’s quite a story!
June 13th, 2016 at 5:02 pm
Having paid a few plumbers I thought they were using platinum.
Not a bad little film trying to introduce Delon to a broader American audience, which semi worked (Belmondo and Bardot had proved harder to import since neither spoke English worth a damn or seemed to care to learn). Delon was probably the most successful French import to the American screen since Yves Montand.
Delon and Ann-Margret both suffer from being just so damn good looking it is a little hard to buy them as the low down low rent characters they play here, something neither can be faulted for.
Still, it’s a good tough little late noir outing, not at the top of anyone’s list, but not at the bottom either. Whatever else, the mere presence of Heflin elevates the film.