$ (1971)

A bank security expert plots with a call girl to rob three safety deposit boxes containing $1.5 million in cash belonging to three very different criminals from a high-tech security bank in Hamburg, Germany.

Director:

Richard Brooks

Writer:

Richard Brooks

Stars:

Warren Beatty, Goldie Hawn, Gert Fröbe

3 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Warren Beatty	...	Joe Collins
Goldie Hawn	...	Dawn Divine
Gert Fröbe	...	Mr. Kessel
Robert Webber	...	Attorney
Scott Brady	...	Sarge
Arthur Brauss	...	Candy Man
Robert Stiles	...	Major
Wolfgang Kieling	...	Granich
Bob Herron	...	Bodyguard (as Robert Herron)
Christiane Maybach	...	Helga
Hans Hutter	...	Karl
Monica Stender	...	Berta
Horst Hesslein	...	Bruno
Wolfgang Kuhlman	...	Furcoat
Klaus Schichan	...	Knifeman (as Klaus Tschichan)

Storyline

Several criminals use safe deposit boxes in a German bank to store large amounts of illicit cash. An employee of the bank learns who they are by means of a prostitute they all patronize, and devises a clever plan with her to steal the money. Now the criminals can't go to the police, but they can try to steal the money back...

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Plot Keywords:

gold bar | scotch whiskey | cocaine | cigar smoking | germany | 

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Taglines:

Count to a million and run

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Genres:

Comedy | Crime | Drama

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Certificate:

R

Details

Official Sites:

Sony Movie Channel [United States]

Country:

USA West Germany

Language:

English German

Release Date:

February 1972 (Austria)

Also Known As:

Dollars

Filming Locations:

Alter Elbtunnel, St. Pauli, Hamburg-Mitte, Hamburg, Germany

Company Credits

Production Co:

Pan, Worldwide

Technical Specs

Runtime:

121 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

One of three cinema movie collaborations of actress Goldie Hawn and actor Warren Beatty. The films are $ (1971), Shampoo (1975), and Town & Country (2001).

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Goofs

"If the pick-lock key had fallen into Joe's pant-cuff instead of the floor, it would not have made a clink." The key could have easily bounced off the floor and landed in the cuff.

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Quotes

[on the telephone]
Sarge: Yeah, I know the line is busy. Find out if Miss Divine is talking, or if the phone is out of order. Hello? Operator?
[hangs up]
Sarge: Damn, Hamburg operators. Why the hell don't they learn English?

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Crazy Credits

The title (that is, the original title "$") appears only in the form of a giant character, as would be used in a sign, being transported by a crane while the other opening credits are displayed in the usual way.

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Connections

Referenced in Ghost (1990)

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Soundtracks

Money Is
Written by Quincy Jones (uncredited)
Sung by Little Richard

User Reviews

Puzzling and exciting

In Dollars, clever bank-security guy Warren Beatty teams with a kooky call girl (Goldie Hawn) to steal from three disparate criminals, who have each chosen to store their ill-gotten gains within the bank's safe-deposit boxes. Beatty's Joe Collins is cool and methodical, and Hawn is a true delight as Dawn Divine, although the movie suffers from a lengthy run time and an ending that seems sort of a meaningless afterthought.

Collins works for a bank in Hamburg, Germany that is on the cutting edge of technological security. Among other things, the bank has - get this! - a 24-hour closed-circuit camera inside its safe, the better to monitor would-be evil-doers. Much is made of this awesome camera. Kind of makes one pine for the days when security cameras were a new thing.

At any rate, Collins and Divine have picked out three nefarious marks - a corrupt sergeant (Scott Brady), a Vegas mobster (Robert Webber), and a drug dealer (Arthur Brauss) - each of whom has deposited dirty money into a safe-deposit box in the bank. These boxes are much as they are today, although the bank employees very pointedly do not get to see what is in them; privacy, you see, is a big selling point for the bank wishing to attract more and more foreign interests.

The plan is to move the monies from the three boxes to Divine's own safety box. Plenty of planning goes into this, and it culminates with a wonderfully tense scene in which Joe, trapped in the safe, attempts the exchange. It's only a matter of time, though, before the various baddies discover what's happened, and there's a long, long chase scene - mostly on foot! - that eats up a chunk of film near the end of the movie.

Hawn is at her giggly, risqué best (this would be during her Laugh-In days), and Beatty stays true to type as the Man with the Plan, the cool cat. I particularly enjoyed how anxious Hawn's Divine is at her own role in the heist - for a phone call she must make, she has her lines written out longhand, and yet she still can only whisper them to the bank's manager, played by Gert Frobe (Auric Goldfinger).

The ending felt like it was lacking something, perhaps some panache or some cohesion. It's almost as if someone woke up in postproduction and realized there was no actual climax and then hastily wrote one in. In fact, after reading a synopsis on IMDb, I wondered if I'd seen the same ending - interestingly, the IMDb synopsis made even less sense than the one I saw.

Finally, there's the issue of the editing and/or direction - the former was too choppy, the latter too rapid. When your movie features an intricate plan, maybe it's best not to rush through every step, forcing your viewers to keep up. Even when we could keep up, it seemed as if some plot elements were missing entirely, leading to many questions left unanswered.