Years before, Vido was shot during a heist that led to Eddie spending a few years in the slammer, and he has a score to settle with the ex-con, who he believes was the guy who pulled the trigger on him. A murder in Chinatown committed by a man in a sheepskin jacket driving a model-A roadster catches the attention of hard-bitten detective Vido (Van Heflin), who immediately links the crime to reformed thief Eddie Pedak (Delon), known model-A driver and sheepskin coat-wearer. Sadly, the rest of Once a Thief never quite regains the energy of that opening scene, but as a showcase for the very hot (in all senses of the word) Alain Delon and Ann-Margret, the movie is a serviceable crime thriller. In the general direction of the blonde next to him, he slurs, “If you don’t cool this lickety-split talk-talk jazz, you’re gonna get my paranoid going, you dig?” Brother, you better believe we dig. The only real people I know are dead, pushed into nut houses, lobotomy, junk, suicide, or really cooling it and saying nothing to nobody.” Elsewhere, zonked-out Luke (Zekial Marko, who also wrote the book the film is based on) has had just about enough. A brunette, bored and French, drawls, “There aren’t very many real people left. Within a smoky jazz club, a drummer (Russell Lee) goes to town on a solo, the rolling thunder of his sticks interrupted by random conversations among beatniks in the crowd, a veritable Greek chorus of hipsters. The opening of Once a Thief is a literal hoot and a holler that catapults us back to San Francisco of the mid-sixties.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |