The Boy Who Stole a Million

Maurice Reyna is a bank messenger at a bank in Valencia. His father, Virgilio Teixeira, drives a cab. Until it breaks down. Mechanic Harold Kasket wants ten thousand pesetas for the repairs he's made. Teixeira doesn't have it, but it's a fiesta night, so he should do well. Kasket says no money, no cab.

Back at the bank, Reyna is instructed in the basics of a loan by his manager. Not having any collateral, Reyna simply takes a stack of bills when he leaves for lunch. He goes looking for his father to give them to him. It takes a while, but they notice a million missing pesetas. The police are called in. Soon enough, every pickpocket and similar crook in town is looking for what they imagine is an easy score.

Charles Crichton's movie is a sweet little thing, helped along by Douglas Slocombe's black-and-white camerawork. Or it likely would have been if it had been left alone. The copy I saw had been 'restored' and 'colorized until it looked like a faded hand-stenciled Pathe movie from 1906, full of blotches, flares of color that made the images unrecognizable,and so forth. Only the scene shot in Valencia at dawn looks good, and that looks amazing.