GRAND SLAM (1967)

As generic as its title, this international caper pic rides on the long, powerful wake of Jules Dassin’s RIFIFI/’55, the game-changer that shook up the genre with violence and its ‘real-time’ robbery sequence.  Here, Edward G. Robinson’s retired professor thinks up the plan after teaching for thirty years across the street from Rio de Janiero’s diamond exchange.  His big idea: all those gems, sitting in the building for days rather than hours . . . but only when a delivery coincides with the Rio Carnival.  He’ll need four men to pull it off: a playboy to woo Janet Leigh’s keeper of the key; an acrobat to get around the laser-assisted alarm system; a lock-picker; and a tough guy enforcer.  That last is Klaus Kinski, overdoing it as usual, the other three journeymen actors.  It gives you an opportunity for wishful recasting during the robbery as Ennio Morricone’s Mardi Gras bossa novas play in an endless loop. Wile away the time over this paint-by-the-numbers robbery sequence imagining, say, Roger Moore, David Niven, Charles Bronson and Jack Palance as the four experts.*)  There’s a triple twist ending, but since you’ll guess all three, it’s not much of twist.  Next year, Eddie G. did this all over again, with a comic tilt, to even less effect in THE BIGGEST BUNDLE OF THEM ALL/’68. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-biggest-bundle-of-them-all-1968.html

WATCH THIS NOT THAT/LINK:   Comic-tinged caper a tactic Dassin hit upon three years before this to fine effect in TOPKAPI/’64.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2012/03/topkapi-1964.html  OR: *Blake Edwards begins THE RETURN OF THE PINK PANTHER/’75 in fairly straight caper fashion, but with Christopher Plummer effectively playing all four criminal roles before Peter Sellers even shows up.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/05/return-of-pink-panther-1975.html