Pete: I'm Pete Wright.
Andy: And I'm Andy Nelson.
Pete: Welcome to the next reel. When the movie ends,
Andy: our conversation begins. Grand slam is over.
Pete: Is it true that you're involved in many activities from paid murder to high finance?
Trailer: Rio de Janeiro. Carnival time. Three carefree colorful days and nights of parades, fun making, and dancing in the streets. Hundreds of thousands of people flock to Rio for carnival time. Most of them to enjoy themselves.
On this particular occasion, however, 4 men take advantage of the festivities to carry out one of the most sensational robberies of the century. Grand Slam. The job was planned in New York. Every move worked out in minute detail. Men with nerves of steel, each an expert in his own field are brought together to create a team that will stop at nothing to crack the most carefully guarded vault in the world.
At stake, diamonds worth 1,000,000 of dollars. With nothing left to chance, there was only one thing that could not be allowed for. The reaction of a girl who held the key to success and who stood to lose everything, even her life, if the diamonds were stolen.
Pete: I'm just gonna I'm gonna lay it out. I enjoyed my time with this movie immensely. I really did. And I have been reading some reviews of people who did not enjoy their time with this movie immensely. And a lot of it is because of the last of the last scene in the movie, which damages the movie's reputation, I think, for a lot of people.
Andy: Which is funny. Right? And I wonder I wonder how that plays through time. In the sixties, obviously, you know, heist films were really kind of in their heyday in the first, I don't know, decade or so of the movies, little over a decade kind of being made in in ways that you were getting some interesting robbery stories and everything. And then, also, as we've discussed dealing some with the production code, like, can your thieves get away with it?
Are they allowed to, or do they need to get caught per production code? This particular story, it's I I think, especially at the time, likely played like a lot of those sorts of stories where the burglars steal something and they get away well, there's twists and turns. Inevitably, what happens at the end is somebody else comes along and steals out from under the burglars, which is kind of funny. And for me, it really worked. Like, that was a it was a fun little twist that we threw in right at the end.
But I wonder if it worked better in the sixties and then over time because, you know, with films like this, Rafiki, The Killing, these were the films that were kind of setting up what heist films would become. And by now, we've kind of seen the evolution of that. And so when you go back to something like this, it ends up feeling, like an older, unnecessary twist or something. I don't know.
Pete: Okay. Two points on that. I I think your the words unnecessary twist are important here because the it is a final twist on a movie that has twists in it. It is a twisty, twisty movie near in that 3rd act, and the expectation is immediately that that's another twist because Edward g Robinson so they're sitting at the table, Edward g Robinson and his former nun, accomplice. She has the diamonds in her purses sitting on the table, and, they look away and a bike thief comes along and takes the purse.
And Edward g Robinson tells her, no. Sit down. Sit down. Like, don't make a big scene. And my thinking is, oh, is that Edward g Robinson, the subdued English teacher who's getting away with yet another twist on top of a twist?
But it's not. The movie ends. And that makes the tonal shift from a taught, like, team based heist thriller to a sad trombone punchline ending. And I think that tonal shift didn't work for a lot of people.
Andy: Yeah. I don't think it does because they enjoyed the first twist. I mean, you know, we're already spoiling it. But if you haven't seen this, you really should watch it before you listen to this because we're really spoiling it from top to bottom. But you get the whole setup of this heist that Robinson sets into motion, the 4 thieves that are actually pulling it off for him, but then the fact that he actually has created this plan to subvert their robbery, bust all of them, and make off with Janet Lee's character.
And then it's just the 2 of them. I and I'm assuming it's just because now it's just a split between 2 as opposed to 5 or 6 if you're if he if he ends up having to pay. I think he's probably also paying his buddy who helps him find the people. So they're walking away with more money. But, yeah, and to then throw in another twist on top of that, I suppose it can feel like, well, that's a total bummer.
Pete: Yeah. A hat on a hat.
Andy: But in the story about heist and thievery, like, that's why that worked for me. Like, I enjoyed the fact that they themselves end up getting played. And, you know, I I wasn't even looking at the possibility that you could read it like this was yet another possible setup that he had to take it from her. I guess my issue with that is then he's also then having to he he'll end up having to split it no matter what. And in that case, with more people because there were 2 people on that bike.
So now it's a split between 3 as opposed to split between 2. So I think his reaction was just the fact that what are we gonna do? What are we gonna tell the cops? We can't say anything for them to get that back to us because we're just gonna get busted. Right.
And, yeah, it was very sad trombone.
Pete: It is a sad trombone, but it is the it it's the thing that these guys, they're they're criminals. Even though he's a retired professor, he's a criminal, and there is he is completely trapped. He there's nothing he can do to make his case. And I think that is that's the vibe where this movie ends that I think really, really works. So now let's jump to the beginning and the whole setup.
Yeah. Because it really starts with him meeting his buddy, his rich murder buddy.
Andy: Well, it starts with perhaps too long of a goodbye sequence of of the professor as he's leaving and, you know, retiring. All the kids are singing him a song, and we're getting a sense of this world that he's leaving down in Brazil. And then, yes, he goes and meets up with his, his friend, Adolfocelli, playing Mark, his old school friend. I don't know. It made me laugh because I'm like, what young friend of mine from middle school have I been tracking and going, oh, they're a thief.
Pete: And a murderer.
Andy: And a and a criminal. Right. In all sorts of different ways. Like, how can I put that to my advantage later in life
Pete: when I
Andy: decide to retire?
Pete: There's no way. Facebook. You can't track that.
Andy: I mean, I guess if somebody's involved in crime, they're probably gonna end up in the paper more often. And so it's like, you know, if you if you go to school with Vito Corleone, you're gonna see that name perhaps pop up in the paper more than some other random student that
Pete: you work
Andy: to school with.
Pete: Little Jeffrey Dahmer. What are his latest hijinks?
Andy: So I think that's it was it was kind of fun. It played in an interesting way, this professor who has tracked this friend long enough to have an understanding of what he does and how he can put it to his advantage. So I thought it played pretty well.
Pete: And let's just say, this may be the highlight of their relationship, maybe of the entire movie, in a movie that has a lot of highlights for me. The reason he goes to meet Mark is because he needs contacts, and he thinks Mark is connected. And a lot of people, I I think that probably more people than we anticipate, have little black books. Right? They have contact lists of people that they can of of their people.
Right? You know, their pool guy, their plumber guy, their, you know, espionage guy, and everybody needs a guy, a book of guys. And this mark has a wall, a hidden shelf of the coolest card catalog of his guys that I've ever seen. And it is full like, precomputers, this is the coolest thing you could do. This is, like, peak
Andy: cool. It was pretty wild.
Pete: Yeah. And all of them are, we assume, meticulously researched. They all have clean records, and they're ready to do the crimes anytime, anywhere. And so Mark just hands out the 3 we this is like he says, well, I need a guy to crack the safe, and I need I need a guy to get stuff, whatever. And I also oh, I need a playboy.
Andy: Yeah. Right.
Pete: I mean, that's that's innovation in the heist genre.
Andy: I know. It was fantastic. Well, it's just funny listening to him go through all those things. Like, cause we get a moment of him just reading through the list, and it's everything from things you'd expect, like explosive experts to military to, what was it, syndicate killers to homosexuals, like, oh, you need a homosexual. Here's one.
To the Vatican. The Vatican? God. He's just like, hey.
Pete: Remember when there were so few homosexuals, you could put them all in a card catalog. Well, those those were the days, I guess. What a movie.
Andy: It was very funny. And it's also I thought that was funny because I mean, I I guess Mark had a sense as to what the heist was going to be by that point, but Yeah. He would just kind of flip through, and he knew instantly who to pull out. Like, he just walked through, oh, this is the one. Like, yeah, this is the guy.
This is the guy for you to build this team. And it was it was funny to watch him do that especially because, you know, our professor doesn't really question it. He's just like, okay. Sure. Yeah.
This is my team and just goes along with it.
Pete: I know I haven't talked to you in years, but I have been reading your clippings, and that's enough information for me to trust every one of these cards. They're contract criminals that you're handing me right now. And that's all he does. He just hands them the cards and says, go to town. And that's what Edward g does.
He travels the world to reach out to these guys and build the team, and then he disappears.
Andy: Yeah. He did. Yeah. He'll he'll come back, but which was fine. I I I liked the idea of a guy who had set up this crime and then not be involved in it.
Because often, you'll see the guy who sets up the crime is very heavily involved in that. I mean, we've talked about that. Even just going back to a couple films from, this current series, the league of gentlemen, that's exactly what, Hodge does. So here, we have, him setting up this this crime. I enjoy the bit where he travels the world to meet everybody because we get a strange blend of real footage of Edward g Robinson in, London and New York and Italy and, I can't remember where else he goes, Germany.
But also some not so well put together blue screen footage of of him in some of those same locations. I'm like, okay. So did they go there and film for real and then also get some crappy blue screen while they were there? It was weird.
Pete: It's a questionable strategy. Par when wasn't he in Paris? Wasn't that the 4th one? London, Germany, France, Italy. Right.
Those are the 4. And and you're right. It there it's some stuff that looks very, very strange. Some of it I wrote off to, like, there there was one that was just bad rear projection in a car, right, as he was having that conversation. But but some of it was just very questionable screening even though he was on the street.
So I absolutely agree. And yet I still I felt like his meeting with all those 4, as long as their goodbye was when he left his school, it was a very efficient building the team sequence. Right? His conversations with each of those guys were very compelling because the guys bought in and they were in it.
Andy: Right. It was very quick. Well and, you know, when you come at it with, it's $10,000,000 worth of diamonds that we're going to be stealing, which, what is that? Let me look at an inflation calculator to see what, what that would be in today's dollars. So 1967 to today, we're looking at $10,000,000.
In 2024, that's that would be, almost a $100,000,000. So 90 almost just under 95,000,000.
Pete: So between these, let's say, 6 people Yeah. That's not a bad split.
Andy: Yeah. No. Right. That's that's quite handsome. Yeah.
So it's like, what, 15, 16,000,000 each. And so you can see why they're ready to jump because I think, let's see. Greg is the butler. I love that setup because you don't know what he's doing. He just seems like a really well off guy who's just kind of, like, doing stuff around his house, and then you realize, oh, it's because he's bottling.
He's bottling.
Pete: Yes. And he's the safe he ends up being the safecracker.
Andy: He's the safecracker, and he's he seems pretty interested in it right away. Agostino, I think, is the one the Italian who is not so sure about it until he hears how much it's gonna be. And he's the one who if anyone takes longer to convince it's him, but even then, it's just 10,000,000.
Pete: Oh, okay. Yeah. It's the mechanics. He's the mechanics guy, the electronics expert.
Andy: Yep. And then Jean Paul is our, Frenchman who is the playboy.
Pete: He's the playboy who it seems like is in an operation
Andy: when But then he shuts it down. Yeah.
Pete: Yeah. It it's He's like my baby. My baby. The woman comes up with the dog. He's like, okay.
I guess I'm done.
Andy: Yep. Enough of you.
Pete: And then we get we get we go to Germany and we have Eric.
Andy: Yes. Good old Klaus Kinski.
Pete: Yeah. Klaus Kinski.
Andy: Yeah. This is this the first Klaus Kinski film we've actually discussed on this show? If so, that's kinda sad because I know. I mean, he is such a face. Oh, no.
I mean, he was in for a few dollars more.
Pete: Oh, good point. Well, still not enough be given his face. And he is the ex military guy for German ex military.
Andy: The little drummer girl.
Pete: Oh my gosh.
Andy: Crappy Oh
Pete: my gosh.
Andy: Version of little drummer girl. He
Pete: That was terrible.
Andy: So Yeah.
Pete: Yeah. Alright.
Andy: So we have talked about a few. Well, yeah, he's a great face, and, I just I love having him. I just again, I just wanna talk about more of his films because he's just such a such a an actor. But, yeah, it's great to have him as the very grumpy German military guy.
Pete: Yeah. Very stern.
Andy: Yes. Yeah.
Pete: And the guy, like, when things start falling apart, he's the guy who brings the military aesthetic of you will fall in line where aesthetic of you will fall in line. We're gonna get this done. We'll do it on time. I've never failed a mission. Especially when the playboy is like, yeah.
I got better stuff to do.
Andy: Yeah. Or he's kind of like our military team from the league of gentlemen all wrapped into 1, and now he's trying to drive this group like a military operation and they're just not necessarily yeah. I think they kind of they they're fine. They know they have a job to do, then they're doing it. But, yeah, there is definitely some tension, particularly between him and Jean Paul, which mainly seems because Jean Paul just gets to hang around and woo the women, whereas these guys are doing the real work.
Right?
Pete: Yeah. For sure. Yeah. And and and yeah. It just doesn't feel like his job is all that hard, especially when you have Kinski who's wandering the sewers.
Like, that's his job. So let's let's talk about the the actual heist because this is where we get into some of the the the expertise and teamwork themes in the movie and the the, you know, the tests of human ingenuity. You know, can you get past this impassable safe and its accoutrement?
Andy: That safe looked like a transformer, first of all. It was like either that or a Formula 1 race car. Like It was Or maybe it's a Formula 1 race car that converted into a safe.
Pete: Into a safe. That's all it does. It's a car and a safe.
Andy: It is the grand slam, 70 safe system. And this, I it was funny to see that safe because I'm like, is that a real safe? Like, are they using an actual safe that existed, or are they just coming up with something completely nonsensical for the for the film? I don't know. It just looked really funny because it was the vibrant it's like Iron Man's safe.
It's all red and yellow. You know? And it's like, what is going on with this strange safe? But, at the last minute, like, the day before, I mean, they have been testing it, and you've got Greg who has timed his work so well with the safe that he knows he can get it done in the time allotted. And then the day before, that's when they find out, oh, they've upgraded the system.
It's now the grand slam 70, which now actually includes a I mean, all it sounded like, it was basically like a microphone that just picks up sound as that's was that I mean, that's the only addition, really.
Pete: I think that was it. Yeah. Because it didn't appear to be susceptible to vibrations. They're No. Vibrating stuff all over the place in that safe.
They put the safe on wheels and Right. Exactly. Pull it out. Yeah. It was just sound.
Andy: Yeah. It's just sound, which I is fine for the scope of the story to have that added. But it was funny that to to have this new system installed and all it is is basically a microphone. I'm like, well, okay. I guess it's fine.
It's it wasn't big.
Pete: Did you at at any point think because what what they do is that that there's a 2 room situation, right, where there's a giant vault door, and they get that vault door open and the safe is inside the vault. And so what they do is they lift the safe up in the sound treated room, and they put shaving cream on all the wheels of their little trolley device, and then they wheel it out into the other room and close the vault door again. And that's when they start to drill the vault. Did that strain credulity for you?
Andy: No. I actually liked that they came up with something innovative like that. You know, I thought it was kind of fun and clever.
Pete: What's funny is I did too right up into the point where they started drilling because they made too good of a case that this microphone was so sensitive. It was gonna pick up sound. I just felt like I think some of that sound of the drill would have passed through the that giant vault door.
Andy: You know, I don't know. Those doll those vault doors are so big. I'm just kind of I don't know. My assumption was that the way that I read it is that it's it's it's a very sound, deadening, dampening sort of, door that they're separating between them.
Pete: Of all the craziness that goes on, that that is the one thing that pricked my ears up, I think is a testament to how fun the whole sequence is.
Andy: Oh, yeah. It's a blast. I mean, they and they they do a good job of I didn't time it, but it felt real time.
Pete: Right? The like a 30 minute clock.
Andy: They they get a 30 minute clock of these guards when they pass by, and so they know that's all the time they really have. And so they have to with the one guy in the sewer, to kind of, like with the whole key passing back and forth bit, which was fantastic, the way that they use the toilet flush to actually get the key down to him.
Pete: Oh, yeah. So playboy takes the key. He sleeps with the the secretary. And while she's making dinner and he takes a shower, he takes the key out of her purse. He takes it out at, the needs champagne because she breaks a champagne bottle, and he takes the key out, runs across carnival.
Andy: What was perfect is he actually uses a cop to
Pete: help him. To deliver the key across the street.
Andy: I I was like, that is genius because he's they're not allowed to go go into the streets because of the parade going through, and so he asked this cop if he can take this across the street to his friend. Like, that was perfect to have a police officer actually deliver the key over to Klaus Kinski.
Pete: And the police officer does it without much hesitation. Kinski then takes the key to the team. They open the vault.
Andy: Who they have, whisked across the street on a high wire that they've suspended from one building over to the yeah. To the other building.
Pete: Beautiful. And he takes the key. They open the vault and then give the key back to Kinski
Andy: By flushing it.
Pete: Flushing it down the toilet, and it comes in the sewer. And they had previously cut open a sewer pipe in the sewer, so Kinski catches it
Pete: Yeah. In the sewage line Yeah.
Pete: In a strainer. It's so gross. And he takes it back so that Playboy can put the key back in the purse, and that actually becomes important because he puts it on the wrong key ring. Yeah. So we think.
Andy: So we think. Yep. All of that was fantastic. And just great tension, especially when Kinski's in the sewer and then suddenly can't get out because a car is now parked on the grate that he's trying to use. And so then he has to wait for a moment when there's a float over a totally different manhole cover so he can climb out under the float and then
Pete: In the middle of the street.
Andy: In the middle of
Pete: the street.
Andy: Yeah. Right. No. It was, like, that whole part of it was just genius. I loved it.
Pete: Yeah. And the demonstration of, like, parallel lines and where they had time and where they didn't. Right? Because the clock was based on the guys opening the safe, but it turns out Kinski had more time than he needed because he could run around and find more manhole covers, and still be back on the spot right on time to get the guys back up.
Andy: Although barely. Like, he was he was he was hoofing it to get back out, before the guards came by. And that all, gets them into the building. And now there are 2 guys in there. They've got the 30 minutes from the time the guards go by to get into this room and and use the key to get to get the vault door open and then put the safe on these, on a pneumatic lift so they can install wheels, put the shaving cream on, roll it out, shut the door, drill into it, steal the briefcase, and then put the safe back and get get back into a position before the guards peek through the door again just to make sure everything's okay.
And we didn't even mention that they also have to build this, like, crazy pneumatic ladder system because, in fact, the room that the vault is in is full of lasers, and and they have to actually build this this scaffold that goes all the way up to the ceiling and then across the room and then back down to in front of the vault. It's like the fact that they came up with that whole thing was just kind of genius. I I loved the way that this played because it was just it was just craziness every time that they had to do something like that.
Pete: Well and watching I can't remember if it was it was Greg, I think, or Agostino, like, one of them, puts them like, an adult man in some of the most awkward physical positions that I've seen in a movie to date. Watching a guy climb down a ladder upside down is amazing.
Andy: Yeah. That was Greg who had
Pete: to do that. In like a wet suit.
Andy: Right? Right. No. It was like, it was just fantastic. I loved the way that that whole thing played.
Pete: Yeah.
Pete: And then Very rickety ladder too. I did not trust that ladder situation at all.
Andy: I was convinced that there was that there was gonna be some problem with that. But no, it it played fine. And then once they get everything, and the guards are passed by again, now they have to actually get back out to the roof and get, this is when, Eric has to get them back across before the guards come back outside. All very, you know, timed perfectly, but, yeah, it's it's pretty you're unsure. I mean, they they play the tension up, I think, fantastically for that whole heist.
Pete: Well and to that point, it's cut really tightly. Right? Like, there it is it is blocked totally believably, and the way this thing is edited is, I mean, to the very last hair frame by frame to build that tension, and I think it works great all the way up until the last moment when Eric cuts the line and and removes the zipline right as the guards are there. I thought it was great.
Andy: Yeah. No. It's fantastic. And that gets the briefcase into their hands, and then we're still not done because now they have to figure out how to get out of of Brazil. And we've got our 4 men, we've got a briefcase, and now we've got the tension.
Pete: Well and we have a twist because now Mary Anne, the secretary, discovers that her keys are all akimbo. They're not right. And she is the one who races over to the vault and starts and they've already discovered the investigation. Like, she walks in and they're already they've they're already police there. She called, I think Based on her conversation because they they instantly say, who was
Andy: this guy? Like, I think that she had called and notified them so they knew what had happened, and we're investigating by the time she shows up.
Pete: And so here is the first opportunity for the the fork in the road. Right? Like, this is this is what makes the rewatch interesting because the first time you watch this, she is not complicit in the theft.
Andy: Well, I wanna talk about that. Yes.
Pete: Okay. Go ahead. Tell me.
Andy: The way that her story plays with the playboy, she's very cold to him and disinterested, doesn't want anything to do with him for most of the time. Right? And he talks about doesn't like your he doesn't like her haircut. Why do you put your hair like this? It'd be so much prettier in a different way.
The whole thing with, like, why do you have to wear glasses? Like, I was like, oh, here's that glasses trope. You're so much prettier when you don't have glasses on. Right. You know, we have moments where they're warming up, like, when they go up to one of the mountains and are overlooking the city and it's beauty and everything, and they're having nice conversations and it seems like, okay, she's warming up a little bit, but then he tries moving a little too fast for her.
He's like, I just wanna kiss you and she's like, I'm done. I'm out of here. I was like, okay. This isn't working. He actually wants to quit because he's just like, I'm no good anymore.
I am a failure as a playboy. Like, he is he is such a quitter. It's so funny. And then he goes to her house, and she's cut her hair, and she's totally into him. I'm like, oh, she's totally in on this.
Like, I knew from that moment, she's she's part of this. Did you have any suspicions? Because she suddenly was so into him. I'm like, oh, oh, this is a whole plot. She's actually in on this.
Pete: Yeah. I think it was about the same time because it it it starts to occur to you that maybe he's not the one doing the playing. Right? That she's the one who's been playing him all along. And this was all a way to lure him in so that she would be able to flip the switch and out the guys and get them to turn on each other and get turned into the police.
Andy: Exactly. And so I I kind of had a suspicion because then, you know, she's conveniently like, oh, like, when when you have Jean Paul in her place, and he's trying to come up with an excuse to go out so that he can get this key to Eric. Right? And he's just like, oh, I'm out of cigarettes. She's like, oh, I bought you some.
Cigarettes. Look at he's like, oh, oh, great. I have champagne.
Pete: Oh, I have champagne.
Andy: I have champagne. Like, I'm like, this is like she's trying it. She knows. But then she drops the champagne. I'm like, okay.
She is so
Pete: in on this. Out. Right?
Andy: Yeah. I'm like, this is yeah. So it played in a way where
Pete: detracted for you? Can you say it, like, with an eye roll, and I'm like, that I thought it was great.
Andy: No. It is. But I was trying to figure I guess it put me in a place where I I felt like if they were trying to surprise me, the fact that later that she's actually in on it, I I wasn't surprised at all. Like, I knew from, you know, the moment she he opens the door and she's had her haircut and she's into him, I'm like, she's in on this.
Pete: Did you watch this with anybody else?
Andy: No. No. Just me. Me neither.
Pete: But I think had we watched it with, like, our families, I don't I'm pretty sure they would not have got caught this stuff.
Andy: Well and it's entirely possible in 1967 when it was released that I may have not been surprised. It might have been a surprise.
Pete: This is the curse of experience that we're working with.
Andy: We're we've seen so many betrayals over the course of various heist films that I'm you're just kind of expecting any opportunity to be another betrayal. You know?
Pete: Yeah. And I I actually think this worked. When she shows up at the end and confirms everything, she shows up the table with Edward g Robbins, the first time we've seen him in an hour and 10 minutes, and holds the purse down and it's her, that reveal, I think, works well. If you if you are in the middle of a heist movie series and are attuned to twists, I think it plays because I think you can rewatch it and see the patterns, but the first time through, it it's actually looks legitimate.
Andy: Yeah. No. And I I definitely agree. I think if anything, one of those other elements that always, irks me when it comes to rewatchability is when you have that moment where she's by herself and she looks at her keys, She's acting that scene out for specifically the purposes of us, the audience, so that she's, like, confused and, like, what's going on? As opposed to somebody who's in on it.
And that's the sort of, that's the sort of moment that always ends up being a little frustrating on rewatches for me because it's like, well, why is she's by herself. Why is she acting that way instead of how she really would be because she knew what was going on. You know?
Pete: Yeah. Yeah. It, it would've been made, much better, but much more predictable had she like smirked when she noticed the keys were on the wrong ring.
Andy: Yeah. But it does make you wonder, is there a way they could have shot that, or told that part of the story without that having to do the reveal that way, you know? So Yeah. That's that's where that's what it comes down to. So but, regardless, I still had a lot of fun with it.
Like, it doesn't matter so much that like you were saying, the fact that I knew I could pin pretty early on that she was involved in this whole thing, it did didn't really bug me. Like, I was still able to really enjoy the story and just kind of go along with the whole thing. And and to the point where I knew once I knew that she was involved, I'm like, oh, it's her and Edward g Robinson. They're the 2 who are actually trying to do this. Like, I'd I'd pinned the whole thing.
So none of the end was a surprise at all for me, but I still had a blast watching it. I had a great time.
Pete: Yeah. I mean, their betrayal on each other and how easy it was for Eric to just sort of once the police start chasing them and they lose the Playboy and or was wasn't the Playboy. It was, Agostino or no. It was Greg who gets shot in the back.
Andy: Greg gets shot in the head or shoulders In the
Pete: back seat. Yeah. Yeah. They leave him in the in the car and push the car over wait. There's another one that happens first.
They're
Andy: yeah. They're getting ready to push the car over a cliff. But as they're doing that, Eric, who always has kind of hated John Paul, decides this is my opportunity to also take John Paul out, kills him or, like, knocks him out or whatever, throws him into the car, and then pushes it over the cliff. Meanwhile, Agostino is like, holy crap. He's gone mad, runs, and ends up getting caught in the street.
He tries to run to the boat of that woman that he'd kind of fallen for.
Pete: Yeah.
Andy: And he gets, shot as he's running to the dock. And Eric is left there and is trying to make it out, but he sees the car and smiles and starts walking up to the guy. And the guy kills him, takes the briefcase. And that, of course, is Mark who then opens the briefcase, reveals that there's nothing in it, and then he gets caught and killed.
Pete: Yes.
Andy: Which leaves Everyone, every one of them dies. Every one
Pete: of them dies, and she has the diamonds. Yes. How did she get the diamonds? She had
Andy: a brief moment in her office before the briefcase ever even goes into the safe, and they would have known that had they opened the safe. But the safe or the not opened the briefcase, but the briefcase was locked. They would have had to shoot the things off of it. So she had taken all the diamonds, put the closed briefcase or the empty briefcase into the safe. And so she's had them this whole time.
Pete: The whole time, which is kind of, the the epic icing on the case on the the,
Andy: cake. Well and interesting because it does require them like, she couldn't just I mean, she could just leave the country with the diamonds, but they would know it was her. There's no way there's no evidence of anything else happening, and they would have been able to figure out, okay. She must have taken it before it ever went into the into the safe. By doing this whole thing, that is the way that, essentially, she and James figured out, if we do all of this, they will think it's these guys.
Pete: Yeah. Big enough distraction, and they'll think it's a giant crime, and we'll get away with it. Yeah. And, ultimately, they get away with it. Yeah.
Andy: It does make you wonder what the police think. Like, where did the diamonds go? Like, did was there another person? Like, they have to be questioning who else was involved. And I would think because of this be
Pete: a suspect.
Andy: I yeah. Because of this this relationship that she ended up having with this guy, you'd think that there would be I don't know. Maybe it's one of those things of the time because she's a woman, we're not gonna and she's just fallen for this guy. She's smitten and fell for the wrong guy. We're not gonna think that she's involved because she's just a dumb woman.
Like, is that an element of the time, you think?
Pete: Yeah. I think so. And and because they they pair this, the woman that is unanticipated, right, they underestimated, and the retired daffy old English professor from across the street who was never connected to this thing since all the other connections are dead, I I do think they get away with it even though they don't get away with anything.
Andy: Yeah. I think the police will probably always try to figure out what happened to these diamonds. At some point, though, I mean, the professor is gonna be trying to get cash for them. So, inevitably, people might be able to figure it out if the story continued and if they kept it, if they hadn't lost it. The fact that these other people end up stealing it does make you wonder.
They're probably not smart enough to realize that these are this massive diamond hall that was stolen from Brazil. They're probably gonna get caught and blamed for the whole thing.
Pete: Yeah. Right. And poor Edward g Robinson. Right? The our he retired after a career as an English teacher in Rio and used his savings to finance this heist and presumably literally walks away with nothing.
Right? He spent all his money. What happens to him?
Andy: It does make you wonder, like, when when Mark asks him, like, well, how much money do you need? Oh, I'm fine. I've got everything I need to get this thing underway. I just need the people. If he should have said, yeah, you know, give me give me give me $50,000 so I can get this thing off the ground.
Pete: Right. Right. What do we know about Giuliano Montalvo?
Andy: Our director. Yeah. This is an interesting little co production between Italy, Spain, and West Germany that put this together. Giuliano Montaldo, is an Italian director, writer, and actor. I think he's most known for his film that came out before the or a few years after this, Saco and Vanzetti, which was nominated for the Palme d'Or.
He also did a miniseries, Marco Polo, which was very popular on TV. I don't know if I've really seen much of him. In 65, just a few years before this, he wrote and directed the reckless, which won the special, prize of the jury at the Berlin International Film Festival, and that led him to this film. But, you know, he ended up doing stuff, like machine gun McCain with John Cassavetes and Peter Falk and Brit Brit Ecklund, Gina Rollins, again, also nominated for the Palme d'Or. So I think that he ended up helming a lot of films that got him a lot of notice, but, I just haven't seen any of them.
Like, he did a film with Nicolas Cage in 1989, Time to Kill. Like, have you even heard of that one? Time to Kill?
Pete: Yeah. It's not an adaptation, is it?
Andy: Yes. Based on the book Time to Kill.
Pete: Then I not only did have I heard of it, I've seen it.
Andy: The film is set in 1936 when Ethiopia was under Italian invasion, and it was filmed in Zimbabwe.
Pete: I don't remember having a very high opinion of it.
Andy: Nicolas Cage is an Italian, officer. Yeah. I don't know. I just know very little about this one. So
Pete: Interesting. Well, I would never have been able to put a fingerprint on Giuliano Montalvo. I really enjoyed this movie, and it makes me curious to go back and watch some others of his choices. But but I haven't. I'm ill equipped.
Andy: Well, yeah, I'm curious now about, like, yeah, some of these other films that he's that he's made. Like, it seems like the ones to see would be the sacramanzzetti film, the reckless. He did a film called Control in 87 with Burt Lancaster. Yeah. I don't know.
I I'm I'm curious about this guy because I enjoyed this film. I mean, I don't know if I if there was anything specifically in the film that, like, really stood out, but just the pacing of it through the whole heist itself, I thought was very effective.
Pete: Yeah. Me too. What do you think Spain got out of this production? Right? Like, Italy definitely got play in this place.
They went to Italy. They've got an Italian character. Ennio Morricone did the score. They the West Germany got a principal character, and they put a German military person in the thing. What did Spain?
They didn't go to Spain. There are no prominent Spanish actors.
Andy: They did go to Spain. It was I wanna say I could be wrong, but I wanna say that when they when he goes to track down Jean Paul, the Frenchman, that he's actually, like, at a Spanish resort or something where he where he has that woman. I feel like I read that.
Pete: Oh, I did not put that together, and I would not have noted that is Spain. That just felt like French Riviera territory to me.
Andy: Yeah. It's hard to say. I just I wanna say that. I I I can't exactly remember, but I feel like, and I can't find the page that I was looking at those talking about some of the locations because I feel like there were a number of them where I actually think they filmed some of the the heist elements actually not in Rio itself, but in Spain.
Pete: Yeah. That's interesting.
Andy: Well, I suppose it makes sense. You know, if you Yeah.
Pete: If you're gonna co finance a a thing, like, give it a give it a little Spanish twist.
Andy: Yeah. Filming locations, Rio, Barcelona, Rome, New York, and Paris. So they could have used Spain for all
Pete: For the
Andy: heist exteriors. For the the all the streets and everything. Yeah. Interesting.
Pete: It does look uncharacteristically Rio. Like, it doesn't I've I've never been to Rio, but all the the stereotype Rio shooting locations look like the favelas. And that building, now that we say it's possible that that was shot in Spain, looks like a Spanish building to me. Like, that makes sense.
Andy: It could have been. Yeah. It could have been. Interesting. Yeah.
Well, I the locations I thought looked great. And and being a location based film, I felt like they found nice ways to kind of use them to capture just kind of like the the grandeur of each of the locations, you know?
Pete: Yeah. It was interesting that way because he said he worked across the street from this giant Chula jewelry building. And, like, in the beginning when he's leaving, it does not look like where he's leaving is across the street from that giant building.
Andy: No. Yeah. Like, not at all. Well, we do start getting, like, some some of those rough green screen shots, like, when he's at the airport and you got that very awkward looking plane behind him or just awkward green screen.
Pete: Yeah. It's all coming together now in my head where some things might have gone awry.
Andy: Yeah. But, I mean, I thought it was just a really fun film. I I enjoyed the characters, the actors. I mean, you know, again, the 4 are Robert Hoffman, Klaus Kinski, Ricardo Cucciola, and George Rigaud Rigaud. I mean, the the Adolfo Celi is Mark.
I mean, how do our criminals do do the actors, play for you? Do you like what they're bringing?
Pete: Yeah. I did. Because apart from skills, they each brought some really distinct personalities, and and it's it it's fun. I think one of the things that's interesting about this one is having somebody put together a team and then disappear and allow the team to sort of evolve together based on their own personalities and who wants who's enthusiastic about the job and who just wants to get it done for the money and who, you know, who likes each other, who doesn't like the other. I I thought the actual interplay of personalities was written really well.
I thought that was just smart.
Andy: Yeah. Yeah. No. I I really enjoyed the way that these characters played together. They were great.
Just an interesting note regarding our Italian, Richard Ricardo Cucholla as Agostino. He was a very big actor, lots of things, including the Franco and or Sacco and Vanzetti film, but he also would do dubbing work and actually did the dubbing in godfather and godfather part 2 as Fredo Corleone.
Pete: No kidding. Yeah. Look at that.
Andy: Interesting little bit. Even Elliot Carver in tour never dies. Like, he was doing all the way all the way into the nineties. Wow. So It's a career.
That's a career. Keeps him busy. Yeah. It's it's a great group of people. You mentioned the score, Anya Marconi.
You mentioned it last week
Pete: to me that you've been listening to this score much longer than certainly than you've seen the movie.
Andy: The themes are on one of the Marconi albums that I have that is just kind of a whole bunch of different themes of his. So I've heard this theme so often, and, honestly, I didn't even connect it to Grand Slam because I'm used to the Italian title of the song Ad hocni Costo, and I didn't know what it translated to. So I'd heard it many, many times. And then the film started, I'm like, oh, this is the movie. This is where that is from.
And so it's it's a very fun rollicking sort of a bit of music that doesn't necessarily feel carnival, doesn't feel Brazil, doesn't feel like a heist movie, but it's it's a very fun theme all the same.
Pete: Yeah. Yeah. For sure. I like the music a lot. It actually I don't I don't think I pegged it as Morricone right away.
Like, Morricone is one of those composers that has a fingerprint, and this is one that didn't feel like him to me right away.
Andy: Oh, interesting. I guess I I I guess I'm used to it because I knew it came from the score. But when you have the people, you know, singing la la la la la
Pete: Yeah.
Andy: You know, it just it feels like Morricone would do that sort of stuff a lot. So Yeah. But yeah. Well, it's a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it.
Great way to kinda wrap up this round of our heist series. So
Pete: Yeah. I loved it.
Andy: Yeah. Alright. We'll be right back. But first, our
Pete: credits. The next reel is a production of True Story FM, engineering by Andy Nelson, music by Charlie Ryan, Donner and Tai, Yoka Perfignon featuring Denise Ries, oriole novella, and Eli Catlin. Andy usually finds all the stats for the awards and numbers at ddash numbers.com, box office mojo.com, imdb.com, and wikipedia.org. Find the show at true story.fm. And if your podcast app allows ratings and reviews, please consider doing that for our show.
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Pete: Are there sequels and remakes of this movie? Did we get another one? It should be remade.
Andy: Or or sequels. I'd love to see them chasing down the motorcycle.
Pete: Yeah. Totally. Yeah. I wanna I want Edward g Robinson in, like, Liam Neeson type role. Like, the sequel is taken.
Right? Right. And his daughter is diamonds. Exactly.
Andy: Unfortunately, there were there's nothing. No sequels, no remakes. But it's funny because there are other grand slams out there. Just to clarify, this has nothing to do with the 1978 British rugby sports comedy movie. This isn't a remake itself of the 1933 pre code comedy film about bridge tournaments, and it is not related to the short lived 1990 TV series grand slam featuring Paul Schneider and Paul Rodriguez about 2 bounty hunters in San Diego.
Pete: Well, that that explains a lot. Alright. How to do it at the box office? Did you make any money?
Andy: Chalk it up for another bust. I found no numbers of any kind for this budget wise or gross wise. All I found was that it premiered September 28, 1967 in Italy, then February 20, 1968 in the US. But that is frustratingly it.
Pete: And it's kinda hard to find. I mean, where did you where did you end up watching it? Kino? Is that what we decided?
Andy: I watched it on Kino. Yeah. Kino now. Yeah. They've got it streaming there.
So, and they they released a Blu ray of it too so you can you can, you know, pick it up and watch it. But that's yeah. You're right. That is the only place. But, I mean, you know, I remember, like, I think it was I didn't I didn't go back and check, but I think Roger Ebert, when he reviewed this, he loved it.
Like, when he saw this movie, I I think that, you know, 3 out of 4 stars. I don't think he was as much a fan of the ending, but I think that the idea of the way that the heist itself plays, I think, really, caught his attention.
Pete: That goes to show you the power of criticism. If if Ebert loves it and nobody cares, it's not streaming anywhere. It's sort of lost to history. I would have expected it on one of the bigger platforms.
Andy: It's I mean, I think it speaks to the fact that when you look at even on Letterboxd, there are not many people who have seen it. And I think it's it's frustrating because I think in the scope of heist films, this one has kind of been lost to time. And to your point, it would be nice to, you know, see this one, you know, rediscovered a little bit.
Pete: For sure. Well, I loved it. It was great.
Andy: I had a great time with it. So, we'll be right back for our ratings. But first, here's the trailer for next week's movie, kicking off our return to our 1968 crime film series, Richard Fleischer's The Boston Strangler.
Trailer: This is the story of the self confessed Boston Strangler based on Gerald Frank's startling bestseller. It has been filmed where the actual happenings made shocking headlines around the world.
Pete: I want you to coordinate the investigation for the Commonwealth, set up a strangler bureau. I'm not even remotely qualified for this kind of thing. You want the stranglings to go on? That's not fair.
Trailer: Preview audiences have acclaimed this a remarkable motion picture. Academy Award stature. For the indelible quality of this film is that the tension, the suspense, the emotion mount when the camera goes beyond the panic stricken streets of Boston. Beyond the dark corridors of the apartment houses where the strangler silently prowled, beyond the bedrooms of lonely fearful women, into the forbidden corners of a man's mind and soul. Why did 13 women open their doors willingly to this stranger?
The Boston Strangler stars Tony Curtis in a powerful characterization unlike anything he has ever portrayed on the screen, Henry Fonda and George Kennedy.
Pete: These things you see that come into your head and you don't have anything to do about it, now is the time for you to try to make some sense out of them. Face it. What did you see? Women's breasts. Who's?
I don't know. A blouse came off in my hand. Albert, now. Now is the time. Go back.
Trailer: The suspects range from derelicts to Back Bay Boston.
Pete: How many names have you got in here? 500. How many have you scored with? For at least, 2 thirds. In 6 months?
Uh-huh.
Pete: You could have killed any one of them.
Pete: Well, check him out. Check him out, hell. Find out what kind of diet he's on and have it mimeographed for the rest of us.
Trailer: As the suspense builds to an incredible crescendo, you realize that you are involved in one of the most remarkable screen experiences of our time. You will know all there is to know about the Boston Strangler. Why did so many women open their doors willingly? The answers are not what you expected.
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Pete: Letterboxdandy. Okay. We like this movie, letterbox.com/thenextreel. That's where you can find our HQ page. What are you gonna do for this movie?
Is it 5 stars and 2 hearts?
Andy: 2 beating hearts
Pete: And a blue diamond?
Andy: I it's blue, blue moons, pink hearts, orange stars, yellow moons
Pete: Yellow moons. Green clovers, blue diamonds. Moons.
Andy: Oh, pink hearts, orange stars, yellow moons, green clovers, blue diamonds. Blue diamonds. Purple horseshoes, red balloons.
Pete: I think that's what I said. Did I say blue diamonds right off the dome?
Andy: I don't.
Pete: Well, you'll hear it in the recap. You said hearts, didn't you? I
Andy: don't remember.
Pete: No. Two hearts and a blue diamond.
Andy: Okay.
Pete: That's the recipe to success.
Andy: That's the recipe to success. I really enjoyed this movie. I didn't have any of the issues that other people had with pacing or anything. Like, I enjoyed watching this group come together and trying to figure out how they were gonna make it play. I did get a little bogged down with or bogged down is probably the wrong word, but I did like, once I knew that Janet Lee was involved, and and, I was like, okay.
Well, I kind of see where this is going. It took a little bit out of it, but I still found myself really enjoying it. I think 3a half and a heart is a strong place for me for this one.
Pete: Okay. Well, I'm going to trump you, your half star, with that horse patootie. I'm going 4 stars in a heart. I like this movie just plenty. Did it change the way I live my life?
No. But did it take some swings that I thought were fun? And, even even the swings that were expected were fun and done in a way that I thought was was just really entertaining.
Andy: Yeah. Great heist. Yeah. Definitely worth checking out. More people need to see it.
So well, that'll that'll average to 3.75, stars and a heart on Letterboxd. We'll round it up to 4 over at our count at the next reel. You can find me there at soda creek film. You can find Pete there atpeteright. So what did you think about Grand Slam?
We would love to hear your thoughts. Hop into the Show Talk channel over in our Discord community where we will be talking about the movie this week.
Pete: When the movie ends
Andy: Our conversation begins.
Pete: Letterbox give it, Andrew. Does Letterbox always do it? What do you got?
Andy: You excited about yours? I got a 3 star that I thought was, kind of funny. Carrie Norris has this to say. No matter how many pairs of glasses Janet Lee wears, you can't convince me she isn't super foxy.
Pete: Oh, that's nice. Janet Lee appreciates your compliments. I have won a 4 star and a heart from crowds a lot, which I think not only brings up an element that we didn't talk about, but also gives me an idea for another series we need to do.
Andy: And a Halloween costume I know you're thinking about. And a
Pete: Halloween costume. Classy, star studded heist movie with one of Ennio Morricone's wackiest themes and one of Klaus Kinski's sweatiest roles. This heist piece this the heist set piece is up there with the likes of Rafiki and Topkapi. Andy, why haven't we done a series of sweatiest performances in film? I this demands attention.
Andy: It's it's real. It's funny because you read that review of Krauts a lot. I thought you were going with the other Krauts a lot review, which, also he did 4 stars and had this to say, Kinski Kinski's sailor outfit is adorable.
Pete: Kinski's adorable but sweaty sailor outfit. And that's why
Andy: I threw the Halloween costume in there because yeah.
Pete: Oh, see? And you said Halloween costume, and I thought you just thought I was gonna go around trick or treating sweaty. Oh, I see. Yes. We are nailing things today.
Just nailing it. Communication, chef's kiss.
Andy: It's not our fault. Blame it on crowds a lot.
Pete: Crowds a lot has ruined our communication today. Thanks, Letterboxd.