Dishonor Among Thieves: Big Deal on Madonna Street

I’m not quite sure why we all gravitate toward movies about crime rings. Maybe they spice up our humdrum lives by allowing us to enjoy vicariously the thought of operating outside the law. In any case, moviedom is full of memorable crime caper films. Sometimes the crooks get away with murder, so to speak; sometimes they are foiled by their own hubris. In any case, these caper films give us viewers a great deal of enjoyment, as we watch characters doing things we’d never personally dare try.

 One of my absolute favorites in this genre is 1964’s Topkapi, in which a ring of thieves finds a daring way to break into an Istanbul palace to steal a jewel-encrusted dagger. It boasts fabulous location work, an Oscar-winning comic performance by the great Peter Ustinov, and genuine suspense leading up to a twist we don’t see coming. Topkapi was directed by American expatriate Jules Dassin, who of course folded his delightful wife Melina Mercouri into the ensemble cast. Nine years earlier, Dassin had won acclaim for a much darker heist film, the Paris-set Rififi. As anyone who’s seen it will tell you, the heart of this low-budget flick is a deeply suspenseful 30-minute segment in which the central characters, operating in almost total silence, crack open the safe of a high-end Parisian jewelry store. The heist is a smashing success, but from then on things don’t go so well.

 It was partly as a spoof of neo-realist crime films like Rififi that Italian filmmaker Mario Monicelli launched I soliti ignoti, known in Britain as Persons Unknown and in the U.S. by a far more colorful title, Big Deal on Madonna Street. Shot in black & white on the streets of Rome, it captures a milieu where pretty much everybody is up to no good. Here’s one of my favorite early exchanges, one that nicely sets the tone for what’s to come:

 Capannelle: Tell me, do you know a guy called Mario who lives around here?

 Boy playing soccer: There are a thousand Marios around here.

 Capannelle: Yes, but this one is a thief.

 Boy playing soccer: There are still a thousand.

 At the heart of the film is a motley crew made up of ex-cons who are not exactly the sharpest tools in the shed. One is a clumsy thief who keeps getting himself arrested; one is fanatically trying to keep his pretty and unmarried sister (a very young Claudia Cardinale) under lock and key; one wizened old guy can’t resist stealing anything (a loud alarm clock, for instance) that comes his way. Vittorio Gassman, mostly known for dramatic roles, plays a glass-jawed boxer for whom smart thinking only happens with great difficulty. Marcello Mastroianni is a frazzled husband stuck with the care and feeding (not to mention the diaper-changing) of his baby son. Against all odds, they manage to break into an empty apartment that’s supposed to lead them into the lucrative pawnshop next door. So they’re drilling holes in walls, but not exactly the right walls. Which leads to a comic scene in which they pretty much give up their criminal ambitions to enjoy a can of beans in their victims’ kitchen.

 In 1986, director/choreographer Bob Fosse tried staging a Broadway musical version, called Big Deal.  Set in 1930s Chicago, it featured a largely African-American cast and popular songs of the era (like “Just a Gigolo” and “Ain’t We Got Fun?”). Big Deal ran for 69 performances in 1986. It received five Tony Award nominations, with Fosse winning for his choreography. No one has seemed inclined to revive it.