Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958): A Heist Comedy of Errors

If you need only one scene to be indicative of everything Big Deal on Madonna Street exemplifies as a caper comedy, the opening scene puts it out on a platter, ready for consumption. A shrimpy man with a mustache waits on the street corner as a lookout while another named Cosimo (Memmo Carotenuto) b... Read full article

Bob Le Flambeur (1956): Melville’s Noir Heist

“Montmartre is both heaven and…hell.” While Melville would continue to cultivate his own unique canvass and pulp sensibilities, Bob Le Flambeur, as a slightly earlier work, shows its deep abiding debt to the American noir cycle. Because it was at this juncture in time where analog... Read full article

Dog Day Afternoon (1975): The Fury of Al Pacino in a Great Heist Film

We usually think of filmmakers like Woody Allen or even Noah Baumbach for their portrayals of New York. There’s no doubt they have left their imprint on the city, so it’s difficult not to envision it without their influences. However, in his own right, Sidney Lumet also deserves to be vi... Read full article

Twelve Shorts for the Shortest Month #10: Pitch Black Heist (2011)

UK / 14 minutes / bw / DMC, UK Film Council, Film4 Dir & Scr: John Maclean Pr: Gerardine O’Flynn Cine: Robbie Ryan Cast: Michael Fassbender, Liam Cunningham, Alex Macqueen Shot in glorious black-and-white—and for a chunk of its running time in just glorious black—this enigmatic UK short w... Read full article

Saturday Double Feature: Hurricane Heist (2018) and…

Another Saturday means another Saturday Double Feature! Okay, let’s start with a quick recap of the “rules”, shall we? The basic idea here is to take a movie that is out in theaters now, and pair it up with another movie from the 1980s or before. Sometimes the connection will be ob... Read full article