Seven Thieves

Three years before Jean Gabin and Alain Delon starred in their own elaborate heist of a casino vault on the French Riviera (Any Number Can Win, 1963), Edward G. Robinson and Rod Steiger did the same in Henry Hathaway’s Seven Thieves, a late heist noir with a distinctly modern flavor thanks in large part to the presence of a young and stunning Joan Collins as singer-stripper Melanie and one of the seven of the title. In the twilight of his career, Robinson plays ringleader Theo Wilkins, an aging ex-con and former professor who wants to take revenge on the system before he dies, so he recruits six others, including professional thief Paul Mason (Steiger), to help him target a Monte Carlo casino. The scheme involves purchasing a limousine and an ambulance, scaling the side of the building, drilling through a safe, playing dead, and one of the seven (Eli Wallach) pretending to be a demanding, wheelchair-bound baron who causes a scene. Blending continental style and criminal ambition, Seven Thieves features abundant suspense and injects unexpected pathos toward the end that solves a mystery of which we weren’t even aware.