The Thief Who Came to Dinner (1973)

Director:

Bud Yorkin

Writers:

Terrence Lore Smith (novel)
Walter Hill (writer)

Release Date:

1 March 1973 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Romance

Tagline:

Webster and Laura took everything they wanted ... each other ... and a diamond worth $6.000.000.

Plot Keywords:

Male Female Relationship | Caper Comedy | Beautiful Woman | Accountant | Computer Expert

Cast

Ryan O'Neal	...	Webster
Jacqueline Bisset	...	Laura
Warren Oates	...	Dave
Jill Clayburgh	...	Jackie
Charles Cioffi	...	Henderling
Ned Beatty	...	Deams
Austin Pendleton	...	Zukovsky
Gregory Sierra	...	Dynamite
Michael Murphy	...	Ted
John Hillerman	...	Lasker
Alan Oppenheimer	...	Insurance Man
Margaret Fairchild	...	Mrs. Donner
Jack Manning	...	Tom Preston
Richard O'Brien	...	Sergeant Del Conte
George Morfogen	...	Rivera

Runtime:

104 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

Iceland:L | Finland:K-12 | Spain:13 | Sweden:11 | USA:PG | Australia:PG | Netherlands:12

Filming Locations:

Houston, Texas, USA

Company:

Bud Yorkin Productions

The Thief and Movie with Intelligence and Chess

Ryan O'Neil is one of those actors who, given the right part, can hit it out of the ballpark. Like his con artist character in "Paper Moon", the thief is outwardly a comely young man, a charmer, even a gentleman. That's what thieves are supposed to be. They don't kill people, or use violence (at least these types of thieves never do in the movies!). They have wit, humor, and even a little humility, which is what makes their underlying darker side so much more terrifying, enigmatic, and also intriguing. These thieves don't hold up the corner liquor shops in the seedy side of Brooklyn or ransack cheap apartments in New Jersey. They procure their desired objects from jewelry shops in the upper-crust of downtown Manhattan or the large brick houses of the Brookline area of Boston. This is the only kind of thief O'Neal could swing at with a chance of hitting a homer, and he does.

Webster (O'Neal) is nicknamed "the Chess Burglar" as he begins playing a hypothetical chess game with the police, leaving a chess piece and a move with every robbery. He mainly heists jewels from people who don't really need them, like a modern-day Robin Hood. He does his game, both the robbing and the chess, with deft finesse and surgical precision. The police, unable to figure out who their thief really is, at one point hire a professional chess master to oppose the nameless thief-artist to try and create a profile of him based on his moves. At one point, even the chess master comes to his wits end trying to deal with the chess burglar. You may find that a chess master and cunning thief have more in common than you might have expected...

This is a thoroughly enjoyable movie and certainly one of O'Neal's best performances. (I always thought O'Neal would have been perfect as "The Great Gatsby".) This movie deserves DVD treatment, considering many god-awful Hollywood offerings have been released from this era. (I mean, are there people who would actually buy a copy of Airport 1975 or "The Towering Inferno"?) This is a highly intelligent and yet simultaneously quite entertaining film that does exactly what it wants to do, with enough twists and turns that do not foreshadow a very interesting and unexpected ending. And the script was by Walter Hill who made a career of raising lowlifes to the big screen. Please vote for this movie for DVD release.