Sunday, July 20, 2014

"THE BURGLARS" (1972) STARRING JEAN-PAUL BELMONDO, OMAR SHARIF AND DYAN CANNON



Celebrating Films of the 1960s & 1970s

"WE WANT OUR DVD!": "THE BURGLARS" (1972) STARRING JEAN-PAUL BELMONDO, OMAR SHARIF AND DYAN CANNON

3 comments:

Chris said...

I saw this not so long ago, when TCM aired it. It's just as you say--not a brainy film, certainly not anywhere near as faithful as the earlier adaption of the Goodis book (and not pretending to be, either--honestly, why did they even need the Goodis book to tell this story?).

Very entertaining, but what really stands out is Belmondo's stuntwork. Maybe it's not edited as well as Bullitt's car chase, but the chase in this film, for me, is far superior, because it doesn't NEED editing--Belmondo is actually doing the stunts. They deliberately shoot it in the stye of the old silent comedies with Lloyd and Keaton--with minimal cutting, so you can see no stunt doubles are being used. Jackie Chan must have watched this scene avidly, over and over again.

You see this guy sliding down an almost sheer cliff face, heading towards the camera, with boulders rolling down around him, and you think "Man, I hope that stuntman was okay, they're just about to cut to a close-up of Belmondo"--and they don't cut--because as the stuntman gets closer, you see it IS Belmondo!

How on earth did the insurance company covering this film let him get away with that? Never happen today.

That was one tough Frenchman. Still is, I'm sure.

Deb said...

That first paragraph (the description of an A-minus movie) put me in mind of "11 Harrow House," an early-1970s caper with Charles Grodin in a black turtleneck, Candace Bergen as his beautiful girlfriend, and lots of actors--including James Mason and John Guilgud--on the downslope of their careers. Grodin plans the heist of a huge quantity of diamonds from a fictional company based on De Beers. Complications ensue. An entertaining, largely forgotten movie.

Dan said...

What impressed me was the way Belmondo insisted on letting you see he's doing his own stunts. In the scene where he's dumped out of a truck we see him fall from close-up to long-shot, then the camera picks up down below and we see him finish the fall from long-shot to close-up!