I crave, love for heist topics, and with this one, I am served. This typical seventies product is tense, sharp, accurate, with no length at all. The scheme of the robbery is so clever, so brilliant, that I stay breathless, glued to my coach whilst I watch it. I won't communicate any further about it, because I Don't want to spoil the story. But believe me, it's worth.
3 Reviews
One more caper movie
searchanddestroy-127 July 2008
Warning: Spoilers
Every IMDb user who's read all my comments already know that I am the greatest caper movie lover in history.And this feature is really a little gem. I saw it many years ago, on french TV, when I was a kid.
An effective yarn about a bunch of thieves committing the perfect crime, stealing a $10 millions bullion from an aircraft. It reminds me a little : "The Italian Job", shot several years earlier. The Modus Operandi is almost the same. Almost, for the last part of the operation: with the bus.
I guess this TV movie was the pilot for a series. I guess but I am not really sure. It's not indicated in Maltin's dictionary. When I watched the police officers' bunch, with not really a lead one as we usually see in theâtres movies, it "smells" later TV episodes...
I highly recommend it. For those who love heist movies, of course...
An effective yarn about a bunch of thieves committing the perfect crime, stealing a $10 millions bullion from an aircraft. It reminds me a little : "The Italian Job", shot several years earlier. The Modus Operandi is almost the same. Almost, for the last part of the operation: with the bus.
I guess this TV movie was the pilot for a series. I guess but I am not really sure. It's not indicated in Maltin's dictionary. When I watched the police officers' bunch, with not really a lead one as we usually see in theâtres movies, it "smells" later TV episodes...
I highly recommend it. For those who love heist movies, of course...
"Brilliant caper"? I think not.
newslogger449 June 2021
Warning: Spoilers
**Warning: Spoilers**
Ben Hardings (Frank Gorshin) and his wife Terry (Stephanie Powers) trick a county rescue Sheriff helicopter crew into airlifting them from a cliff-climbing mishap, after which they hijack the copter and crew, demand a measly $100,000, and that all nearby aircraft be grounded so they can make their getaway.
This was all a diversion, of course, since meanwhile the Hardings have engaged a team of co-conspirators to take over an air traffic control tower at gunpoint and transfer 10 million dollars worth of gold bricks from a plane onto a disguised Navy bus.
Somehow having managed to hoodwink the Sheriff Captain (Joseph Campanella) and his chatty, down-home-type team for a good hour and a half before they realize what has happened behind their collective backs, Ben, Terry, along with a few other co-conspirators take the bus into a warehouse garage, hose off the fake Navy logo and whitewash paint, and then drive as "inconspicuously" as possible (?) through city streets, traffic jams, and then along practically empty highways (in California yet!), while the Sheriff's crew and the FBI (who are never actually seen participating in the search) engage copters and planes on the lookout for the culprits.
Meanwhile, at a few points along the way, some of Ben and Terry's co-conspirators leave the bus with their share of the heavy loot and are never seen nor mentioned again in the film! Presumably, they have gotten clean away!
Ben, it turns out, is actually a city transit bus driver who has spent a year planning the gold heist despite the fact his adoring wife Terry wasn't too keen on the idea in the first place but, despite Ben's sleazy appearance and intimidating attitude toward her (that same old "gotta love a bad boy" syndrome that too many women fall into). Certainly, gorgeous Terry could have--should have--ended up with someone better than this, right?
Anyway, Ben's "brilliant" idea that a bus can easily elude the authorities on open roads and in broad daylight while, incidentally, also having managed to overpower and abduct an inquisitive motorcycle cop, is clearly stretching the notion of "the suspension of disbelief". I mean, you would think Ben and his crew would have abandoned the bus in that warehouse and then transferred the gold into a van? But no.
In the end, roadblocks and a Sheriff's helicopter crew manage to spot the bus. (Yay!) Ben then desperately attempts to use the motorcycle cop as a hostage and make his escape on foot (really?) while Terry finally comes to the realization that the caper was all for naught.
The movie closes with the Sheriff's team joking in their headquarter's office. All in a days work? Yee haw!
Somehow, I can't imagine Joseph Campanella wanting to play the lead in a possible series following this would-be pilot film, but what do I know? Maybe he needed the money.
Frank Gorshin should have kept his REAL job as a stand-up comic and not as a movie heavy).
As for beautiful Stephanie Powers? Glad she moved up to better things with Robert Wagner in Hart to Hart.
Ben Hardings (Frank Gorshin) and his wife Terry (Stephanie Powers) trick a county rescue Sheriff helicopter crew into airlifting them from a cliff-climbing mishap, after which they hijack the copter and crew, demand a measly $100,000, and that all nearby aircraft be grounded so they can make their getaway.
This was all a diversion, of course, since meanwhile the Hardings have engaged a team of co-conspirators to take over an air traffic control tower at gunpoint and transfer 10 million dollars worth of gold bricks from a plane onto a disguised Navy bus.
Somehow having managed to hoodwink the Sheriff Captain (Joseph Campanella) and his chatty, down-home-type team for a good hour and a half before they realize what has happened behind their collective backs, Ben, Terry, along with a few other co-conspirators take the bus into a warehouse garage, hose off the fake Navy logo and whitewash paint, and then drive as "inconspicuously" as possible (?) through city streets, traffic jams, and then along practically empty highways (in California yet!), while the Sheriff's crew and the FBI (who are never actually seen participating in the search) engage copters and planes on the lookout for the culprits.
Meanwhile, at a few points along the way, some of Ben and Terry's co-conspirators leave the bus with their share of the heavy loot and are never seen nor mentioned again in the film! Presumably, they have gotten clean away!
Ben, it turns out, is actually a city transit bus driver who has spent a year planning the gold heist despite the fact his adoring wife Terry wasn't too keen on the idea in the first place but, despite Ben's sleazy appearance and intimidating attitude toward her (that same old "gotta love a bad boy" syndrome that too many women fall into). Certainly, gorgeous Terry could have--should have--ended up with someone better than this, right?
Anyway, Ben's "brilliant" idea that a bus can easily elude the authorities on open roads and in broad daylight while, incidentally, also having managed to overpower and abduct an inquisitive motorcycle cop, is clearly stretching the notion of "the suspension of disbelief". I mean, you would think Ben and his crew would have abandoned the bus in that warehouse and then transferred the gold into a van? But no.
In the end, roadblocks and a Sheriff's helicopter crew manage to spot the bus. (Yay!) Ben then desperately attempts to use the motorcycle cop as a hostage and make his escape on foot (really?) while Terry finally comes to the realization that the caper was all for naught.
The movie closes with the Sheriff's team joking in their headquarter's office. All in a days work? Yee haw!
Somehow, I can't imagine Joseph Campanella wanting to play the lead in a possible series following this would-be pilot film, but what do I know? Maybe he needed the money.
Frank Gorshin should have kept his REAL job as a stand-up comic and not as a movie heavy).
As for beautiful Stephanie Powers? Glad she moved up to better things with Robert Wagner in Hart to Hart.
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