"A Nice Forgotten Surprise"
Directed and Written by Richard Brooks.
Brooks directed (Deadline - U.S.A.(1952), Blackboard Jungle (1955), In Cold Blood (1967), Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977). Excellent Cinematography by Petrus R. Schlömp and Music by Quincy Jones (In the Heat of the Night).
The film stars Warren Beatty (All Fall Down, Mickey One, Bonnie and Clyde, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, Dick Tracy, Bugsy) as Joe Collins, Goldie Hawn (CrissCross) as hooker Dawn Divine, Gert Fröbe (Goldfinger) as Mr. Kessel. Robert Webber (in Noirs Highway 301, Harper, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia and also 12 Angry Men) as Attorney (referred to as Mr. North), Scott Brady (He Walked By Night, Undertow, Port Of New York, The Night Strangler) as Sarge, Arthur Brauss Cross of Iron) as Candy Man aka "Mister Sunglasses" with Robert Stiles as Major, Christiane Maybach as Helga, and Hamburg circa 1970.
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| Warren Beatty as Joe Collins |
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| Goldie Hawn as Dawn Devine |
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| Scott Brady as Sarge |
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| Robert Webber as Mr. North |
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| Arthur Brauss as The Candy Man |
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| Gert Fröbe as Mr. Kessel |
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| Christiane Maybach as Helga |
A heist film. A bank heist. But a different kind of bank heist. There's only a handful of places where your safety deposit box is sacrosanct, no police with a court order can open it.
Opening sequence
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Joe Collins, a bank security expert from the USA employed by Mr. Kessel for the Bank of Hamburg, explains in the film, that his security firm has all the probability statistics on all the types of bank robberies and contingency plans in place. All the types except for the one Joe has cooked up.
Because of the privacy laws, a lot of illegal operations in Hamburg keep their ill gotten money in those safety deposit boxes.
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Joe is masterminding the theft through the use of Joe's two accomplices Dawn and Helga. Dawn is a ditsy ex Las Vegas showgirl / hooker aka "Dawn Devine" who has set up shop in Hamburg as a call girl. Helga is a dancer /hooker who works out of the Club Salambo a Reeperbahn Strip Club / hook shop. Through their tricks they have weeded out the small fry and pinpointed three heavy hitters who fit the bill for Joe's plan and do their banking at the Bank Of Hamburg.
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| The Candy Man first appearance in an obvious reference to "This Gun For Hire" |
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| The Sarge likes straight sex |
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| Mr. North likes to play "fireman." |
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| He pretends that he's on fire and Dawn has to put the fire out... with an obvious subtext |
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| Of course for the film it's a shower from a seltzer bottle rather than a golden one |
Joe's plan has figured out and ingenious way to rob the contents of the safety deposit boxes of the crooks who cannot (because they are crooks) report the theft to the police. It all goes according to plan until it goes Noirsville. Helga slips up, is spotted by The Candy Man spying on him and is killed.
Noirsville
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Richard Brooks slips in some Classic Noir references. The Candy Man character reminds us of Alan Ladd in This Gun for Hire when he feeds his cat. The Candy Man's sunglasses are also maybe a homage to Sam Fuller's Underworld USA. The displayed gold bar in the bank connected with Gert Fröbe is obviously a nod to Goldfinger, lol. The chase through the railyards and the trains at night possibly homages Brit Noir It Always Rains On Sunday and French Poetic Realist Noir Le Bette Humaine. There's even a mention of 14 Hours at one point, lol, intentional or coincidence. There may be more to look for.
Warren Beaty's Sam is just a variation of his John McCabe character from McCabe & Mrs. Miller, and Goldie Hawn is just doing her giggly, silly, groovy hippie chick character we all probably first noticed from Laugh In. It works, adequately as an updated version of the same type of silly, ditsy characters Marilyn Monreo played in Some Like It Hot and The Seven Year Itch or Barbara Nichols for that matter. Scott Brady is great, (and the most impressive) as a more deadly and serious version of Sergeant Bilko, playing a shady black marketeer. Robert Webber is good as the slightly kinked mob mouthpiece and Arthur Brauss is scary as the alienated and obsessed mob hit man / junkie.
This film functions like Hamburg's Naked City. The film is a wonderful archival treasure trove of Hamburg circa 1970s. And if you are a railfan there are some great train sequences throughout. It's two slight flaws are probably the over long chase sequence (though I didn't mind it), and what seems like a acked on "happy" ending (were they thinking of a possible sequel?). 8/10
"God, Guts, and Get-Up An' Go!"
zardoz-1321 November 2013
Warning: Spoilers
Oscar-winner writer & director Richard Brooks of "Elmer Gantry" was a consummate professional at making movies during his 35-year career in Hollywood. "$" exemplifies his accomplished skills as both a writer and director. This nimble, adrenaline-driven, R-rated, heist thriller set in Germany came out during the free-wheeling 1970s when Hollywood could get away with a little gratuitous nudity and a lot of grit. Nobody in this amoral actioneer is entirely honest. Like the characters in Italian westerns, everyone wears shades of gray in various intensities with our heroic couple, Warren Beatty and Goldie Hawn, being a more sympathetic duo than the utterly ruthless villains who display few qualms once they figure out that they've been duped. Mind you, some people may never get past the first 50 minutes as Brooks cross-cuts rapidly between characters and settings like an insane samurai warrior hacking up his adversaries with a kinetic passion. Reportedly, when Goldie Hawn finally took a look at "$," she could make neither head nor tale out of it. After those initial fifty minutes, the action settles down and then takes off like a fireball.
Debonair bank security expert Joe Collins (Warren Beatty of "Shampoo") and his accomplice, goofy call girl Dawn Devine (Goldie Hawn of "Cactus Flower"), conspire to steal a fortune from three sleazy criminals. Las Vegas attorney Mr. North (Robert Webber) and his bodyguard conceal their skim money in the bank. Sarge (Scott Brady of "Marooned") and the Major (Robert Stiles of "Doctor's Wives") keep the profits from their kickbacks and bribes from black market activities in the same bank. A murderous drug smuggler, the Candy Man (Arthur Brauss of "Victory"), keeps loot likewise in the same establishment. Since the local authorities cannot legally obtain access to these safety deposit boxes, the criminals can keep their stuff safely stashed without fear of confiscation. Joe knows the bank and its vault as well as its personnel from top to bottom, and the head of the bank, Mr. Kessel (Gert Frobe of "Goldfinger") loves Joe as if he were his own son. Joe has spent about a year installing a state-of-the-art, 24-hour, seven-days-a-week, security system in the bank. Joe has clocked the police response time to the bank alarms at three minutes through heavy downtown traffic.
During the first half of this swiftly-paced, two-hour thriller, Brooks establishes our heroes, villains, the arena of the action, and the plot. Joe and Dawn are going to hit the villains and take their loot because the villains cannot resort to the police. During the second half, Joe locks himself into the vault and transfers the ill-gotten gains from the safe deposit boxes of the bad guys to Dawn's box. In the third part, Joe and Dawn hit the streets on the lam from the evil drug dealer and the tenacious military guys have figured out that he is the culprit who robbed them. Brooks generates maximum suspense during the vault robbery as the authorities struggle to open the time lock on the vault. While he is trapped inside the vault, Joe times himself so that every minute that the camera isn't aimed at him, he is emptying or filling the safe deposit boxes. The tension and suspense are incredible during these harrowing moments. The pursuit that takes up the third part is pretty incredible. Quincy Jones' Grammy nominated music with Little Richard screaming maniacally on the soundtrack accentuates these larcenous shenanigans, and Brooks snaps up the pace with rapid-fire cutting so you are poised on the edge of your seat throughout the movie. "$" was lensed on location in Germany and the exotic setting adds to the atmosphere. Goldie Hawn is hilarious as a former Las Vegas showgirl that worries about holding up her end of the crime. Beatty is a self-assured man who can get out of any predicament no matter how challenging it is. As the villains, Scott Brady and Arthur Brauss never let our hero get very far ahead of them.
"$" is a top-notch, heist thriller that in the words of one of its villains bristles with a lot of "God, guts, and get-up-and-go!"
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