HOW TO STEAL A MILLION

US, 1966, 127 minutes, Colour.
Audrey Hepburn, Peter O’ Toole, Eli Wallach, Hugh Griffith, Charles Boyer, Fernande Gravey, Marcel Dalio.
Directed by William Wyler.

While How to Steal a Million is a trifle, it is a very urbane robbery caper. Audrey Hepburn, who had appeared in Charade three years earlier with Cary Grant, gives a similar kind of performance giving an elegance to fashion and robbery. Peter O’ Toole, soon after his impact as Lawrence of Arabia and appearing in such films as Lord Jim and The Night of the Generals, is an urbane hero. There is an enjoyable supporting cast including Hugh Griffith as Audrey Hepburn’s forger father with Eli Wallach and Charles Boyer in supporting roles.

The film was one of the final films by director William Wyler although in the next year he was to direct Funny Girl with Barbra Streisand. Wyler had won many Academy Awards for best direction: Mrs Miniver, The Best Years of Our Lives, Ben Hur. He had directed many actors and actresses to Oscar-winning performances and had a reputation as one of the most effective of the Hollywood directors.

The film is very much of the 60s, colourful, romantic, yet a focus on robberies and capers.

1. The film is considered a very successful comedy-robbery film. Why? The tone of the title, treatment?

2. The film as reflecting the mid-sixties, the robbery genre, comedy, Audrey Hepburn and Peter O 'Toole as stars and their impact, the use of Panavision and colour, Paris, high society and the art world, chic costumes, the atmosphere of wealth? The appeal to the ordinary audience of these ingredients?

3. The strength of the plot and the involvement of audience interest, the characters and their interaction, situations, the wit of the dialogue? The chic style of it all?

4. The importance of the writing? The atmosphere of fakery? Papa and his traditional family faking? His skill, his enjoyment of the auctions, reliving the past, veneration for the Cellini forgery, the Van Gogh forgery? His attitudes towards danger? The fact that he was incorrigible? Hugh Griffith's style for this character, as an artist and and with a criminal mind?

5. The attractiveness of Audrey Hepburn as Nicole? Her high society style? The atmosphere of her work, the character and her style of life being satirized? Her involvement in the art world, her reaction to the burglary and the spoof of her encounter with the burglar and helping him escape? The irony of her hiring him for her own burglary? The humour in the dark glasses style of planning the burglary? Her involvement in the execution of it, her falling in love with Simon? How conventional, how better than conventional?

6. Simon, and Peter O’ Toole's style? As imitative of the Cary Grant style? Suave, aristocrat, his intellectual qualifications and degrees? The initial burglary and the bungling of it and the humour? His involvement in the plan, the build-up for the execution of it? His suave rounding off of the deals, especially with the American?

7. The satire on Americans in their greed, use of art etc.? Wealth, style, greed? The inevitable ending?

8. The portrayal of the art world, security precautions, the artistic society that goes to galleries etc?

9. The contrast with the gallery workers, especially the chief and Mustache?

10. How intricate and interesting was the plan, the build-up of its execution, the narrow escapes, its simplicity?

11. Audience satisfaction with the morality at the ending? The appropriate happy ending for this kind of film?

12. How much did those involved with the making of the film invest it with a quality above the average?