Rating: G | Runtime: 99 minutes
Release Date: July 25th, 1969 (UK) / September 3rd, 1969 (USA)
Studio: Paramount British Pictures / Paramount Pictures
Director(s): Peter Collinson
Writer(s): Troy Kennedy Martin

I hope he likes spaghetti.

This was a lot goofier than I anticipated having remembered the remake as a pretty straightforward heist flick leaning towards drama via its revenge angle. Watching Michael Caine break back into the prison he just left to surprise Noël Coward of all people in his private bathroom (since he runs the joint from his Queen Elizabeth shrine cell) was therefore a big early laugh.

I love that writer Troy Kennedy Martin (who bought the idea from his brother Ian before shifting its setting from London to Italy) and director Peter Collinson just decided to make it as silly as possible with the largest crew of doofuses they could conjure up. Caine becomes more school teacher herding simpleminded cattle than mastermind. Heck, it wasn’t even his plan to begin with.

I think the part I’ll remember most is the cliff full of mafia men with machine guns acting tough despite their boss doing all his damage (again, more gag than menacing) via a slow-moving bulldozer with a smile. Sure, the cliffhanger ending is great too, but, like the extended car chase that proves more about absurd places to drive than suspenseful action, it goes on way too long.

That’s what happens when your script is all robbery and zero backstory. More thought went into solving its disaster-waiting-to-happened ending in 2008 by the Royal Society of Chemistry than cobbling together a semblance of plot to bolster the hijinks. It is a lot of fun, though. “B-I-G” fun.

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Michael Caine, Benny Hill, Margaret Blye, George Innes, Michael Standing, and Raf Vallone in THE ITALIAN JOB.