- William Wyler's How to Steal a Million is a rare heist film in that it concentrates more on love and laughs than on stealing. Sure, the film features a complicated art gallery theft involving disguises, magnets, and even boomerangs, but these are all merely excuses to stick Nicole Bonnet (Audrey Hepburn) and Simon Dermott (Peter O'Toole) together in a cramped broom closet for an extended period of time. The idea is that having two such charming and charismatic movie stars playfully fall in love will be enough to keep the rest of the film going. Happily, that idea proves to be completely correct.
- You might say that Nicole and Simon get together over their shared love of art. Simon appears to love stealing it from other people, while Nicole seems unusually interested in which pieces are getting auctioned. As it happens, both sets of interests revolve around Nicole's father (Hugh Griffith), a talented artist with the very bad habit of selling off forgeries as the real thing. This time, Mr. Bonnet's really gotten himself into trouble by lending a faux Cellini Venus statue to a Paris museum. The good news is, it's insured for a million bucks. The bad news is, an expert is on the way to confirm its authenticity. Presumably, they'll be unable to do so since the sculptor was Nicole's grandfather and the model her grandmother. "Naturally that was before she started eating those enormous lunches," Mr. Bonnet comments.
- To say that the relationship between Nicole and Simon gets off to a rocky start is an understatement. In fact, she accidentally shoots him as he attempts to steal one of her father's forged masterpieces. Still, she gladly gives him a ride back to the Ritz that night and has difficulty describing the burglar without referring to him as a "tall, good-looking ruffian with blue eyes." Nonetheless, it would seem that Nicole's sudden engagement to a clueless American businessman (Eli Wallach) would only stand in the way of any romance with Simon. But that's before the big heist, the ultimate goal of which is to remove the forged statue from the museum before anyone can detect the fraud. Simon's insistence on hiding in the broom closet seems a bit gratuitous, but can you blame the guy for falling in love with Audrey Hepburn?
- And without a doubt, the chemistry between Hepburn and O'Toole is the primary reason that How to Steal a Million succeeds. The film's direction is perfectly adequate, especially considering that it was Wyler's fifth decade on the job, but the film is hardly as inspired as some of his earlier work. Likewise, the writing by George Bradshaw and Harry Kurnitz is quite witty, but the entire affair could easily have fallen flat if the film had stuck two lesser actors in the broom closet. Fortunately, it picked two of the most likable stars of their era and supported them with Griffith and Wallach, the latter of whom simply couldn't help but be funny in every role he played. The result is a great illustration of how to steal a lot of fun out of just a little movie.
- Alfred Hitchcock cameos on a magazine cover!
- Soundtrack by a young John(nie) Williams.
