The Italian Job

''The Italian Job'' is a 1969 British comedy caper film, written by Troy Kennedy Martin, produced by Michael Deeley, directed by Peter Collinson, and starring Michael Caine. The film's plot centres around Cockney criminal Charlie Croker, recently released from prison, who forms a gang for the job of stealing a cache of gold bullion being transported through the city of Turin, Italy in an armoured security truck. In addition to Caine, the film's cast also included Benny Hill, Raf Vallone, Tony Beckley, and Noël Coward; the film was Coward's last before his retirement from acting. The soundtrack was composed by Quincy Jones, featuring the songs "On Days Like These", sung by Matt Monro over the opening credits, and "Getta Bloomin' Move On" (usually referred to as "The Self-Preservation Society", after its chorus) during the climactic car chase, which featured Caine among its singers.

The film proved a success upon its release, earning critical acclaim amongst critics for the performances by Caine and Coward, the film's reflection of British culture from the period, and the film's climactic car chase. ''The Italian Job'' became a cult symbol of British filmography and was ranked favourably in the top 100 British films by the British Film Institute. Several elements from the film became symbolic cult features, including the film's cliffhanger ending, and Caine's infamous line from the film.

The popularity of ''The Italian Job'' led to several parodies and allusions in other films and productions, including the 2005 episode of ''The Simpsons'' titled "The Italian Bob", and a re-enactment of the Mini Cooper car-chase in the ''MacGyver'' episode "Thief of Budapest". The film itself was later given a video game adaptation in 2001, before receiving a remake in 2003. A charity event titled The Italian Job, founded in 1990 and held annually, was inspired by the film; , it had raised nearly £3,000,000. Marking the 50th anniversary of the film in June 2019, stunt drivers in red, white and blue Coopers recreated parts of the film's car-chase around Turin at the grounds of Mini's Oxford factory.

Plot

Driving through the Alps, British thief Roger Beckermann is killed when his car crashes into a bulldozer parked in a tunnel by the Mafia, who dispose of him and his car by pushing it into a nearby river. Meanwhile, his friend and fellow thief Charlie Croker is released from prison, reuniting with his girlfriend Lorna to enjoy his first taste of freedom. Leaving her to meet with Beckermann for a job he was planning in Italy, Croker is shocked to meet his widow instead. She insists he continues with her late husband's plans, which he had completed before his death and involves a strategic heist of $4 million in gold bullion from a security convoy intended as a down payment to the Italian government by China for a car factory.

Croker approaches British nationalist crime lord Mr. Bridger for financial backing, while they are serving time in his former prison. Initially unconvinced, Bridger soon offers support when he learns of the heist's target. With help from Bridger's organisation, run by his right-hand man Camp Freddie, Croker recruits a crew of specialists, including Lorna and computer expert Professor Peach – the latter for sabotaging Turin's traffic control system. After finalizing preparations, Croker and his team are summoned by Bridger to a faked funeral ceremony, where he informs them that the Mafia killed Beckermann because of his planned heist, advising them to be careful, but not to return without the gold.

After leaving for Italy, Croker and some of his crew split off from the others while en route to Turin, to avoid raising suspicion. However, the small group soon encounter the Mafia waiting for them in the Alps, led by their boss Altabani, who attempts to dissuade them from their plans and uses construction machinery to destroy the getaway cars they had set aside for an emergency. Despite the confrontation, Croker goes ahead with the heist. His crew infiltrate the Turin traffic control centre later that night, whereupon Peach replaces one of the computer's magnetic tape data storage reels with a duplicate designed to sabotage Turin's traffic control system on the day of the heist. The next day, as the gold arrives and the crew prepare for the heist, Croker sends Lorna to Geneva to protect her and the plan. At the same time, Peach absconds from the crew, and is later arrested for molesting a woman on a tram.

After ensuring the closed circuit television traffic monitoring cameras are sabotaged, the Turin traffic control system begins to malfunction and creates a massive traffic jam. The crew swiftly ambush the gold convoy outside the Museo Egizio as it is stalled by the traffic jam. Subduing the police and moving the van inside the building, they divide the gold between the boots of three Mini Coopers. Most of the crew then escape the building disguised as football fans, as Croker leads the rest out of the city in the Minis as the police move to stop them. Following a set route designed by Beckermann, the crew escape from Turin with the gold, and rendezvous with a modified coach to collect the Minis before they reach the Alps. Once aboard, the group unload the gold, dispose of the Minis in the Alps, and collect the rest of the crew.

As Bridger celebrates with his fellow prisoners and staff back home in England upon hearing of their success, the crew celebrate with beer as they go along the twisting mountain road. However, the coach suddenly loses control and teeters over a cliff, with the gold balancing over the edge. Croker soon contemplates how to save themselves and the gold (which slides further away as he tries to get it), and claims "hang on a minute lads, I've got a great idea" as the film concludes on a literal cliffhanger.

Cast

Production

Ending

According to a "Making Of" documentary, producer Deeley was unsatisfied with the four written endings and conceived the current ending as a literal cliffhanger appropriate to an action film which left an opportunity for a sequel. The documentary describes how helicopters would save the bus seen on the cliff at the end of the first film. In interviews in 2003 and 2008, Michael Caine revealed that the ending would have had Croker "crawl up, switch on the engine and stay there for four hours until all the petrol runs out... The van bounces back up so we can all get out, but then the gold goes over."

In 2008, the Royal Society of Chemistry held a competition for a solution that had a basis in science, was to take not more than 30 minutes and did not use a helicopter. The idea was to promote greater understanding of science, and to highlight the 100th anniversary of the periodic table, on which gold is one of the 118 elements. The winning entry, by John Godwin of Surrey, was to break and remove two large side windows just aft of the pivot point and let the glass fall outside to lose its weight; break two windows over the two front axles, keeping the broken glass on board to keep its weight for balance; let a man out on a rope through the front broken windows (not to rest his weight on the ground) who deflates all the bus's front tyres, to reduce the bus's rocking movement about its pivot point; drain the fuel tank, which is aft of the pivot point, which changes the balance enough to let a man get out and gather heavy rocks to load the front of the bus. Unload the bus. Wait until a suitable vehicle passes on the road, hijack it, and carry the gold away in it.

Locations

The interior of the prison that held Bridger was Kilmainham Gaol in Dublin, Ireland. The exterior, seen when Croker leaves, is HM Prison Wormwood Scrubs in west London. Upon his release, Croker stays at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in Bayswater, London. Denbigh Close, Notting Hill, W11, was used as the location for Croker's home.

The training sessions shown for the Mini drivers were at the Crystal Palace race track in Upper Norwood, South London. The attempt to blow off the doors of the bullion van, which caused its total destruction and produced Croker's line "You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!", took place at Crystal Palace Sports Centre. The Crystal Palace transmitter can be seen in the background. The meeting at the misty funeral was filmed in Cruagh Cemetery, in the foothills of the Dublin Mountains. The office block that doubled as the Turin traffic control centre was Apex House in Hanworth, Middlesex the then head office of the television rental chain Thorn ( DER).

The chase sequences were filmed in Turin, except for the chase through the sewer tunnel, which was shot in the Sowe Valley Sewer Duplication system in the Stoke Aldermoor district of Coventry in the English Midlands, filmed from the back of a Mini Moke. The person on the far side who closes the gate at the end of sewer tunnel is the director, Peter Collinson. Collinson also appeared in the scene on the highway when the ramps get jettisoned, clinging to the right-hand rear door of the coach as the Minis enter at speed.

A portion of the car chase was filmed as a dance between the Minis and police cars with a full orchestra playing " The Blue Danube" inside Pier Luigi Nervi's Palazzo Esposizioni, usually used for the Turin Motor Show (and now a hospital library).

The final escape from Turin was filmed on the road from Ceresole Reale via Lago Agnel to Nivolet Pass (the highway does not lead to France or Switzerland because it is a dead end).

Vehicles

Roger Beckermann's orange Lamborghini Miura in the opening scene is actually two cars. The first was a Miura P400 that was sold as new afterwards. In 2015, it was located and authenticated by classic car expert Iain Tyrrell. The second car, tumbled down the chasm by the Mafia bulldozer, was another Miura that had previously been in a serious accident and was not roadworthy. Lamborghini confirmed in May 2019 that the Italian Job Miura had chassis number 3586.

Gold cost $38.69 per troy ounce in 1968, so four million dollars in gold bars would have weighed about , requiring each of the three Minis to carry about in addition to the driver and passenger. Since a 1968 Mini only weighs , each of these vehicles would have had to carry times its own weight in gold.

The original DB4 belongs today to a private English collection. According to several sources, the "Aston" pushed off the cliff was a Vignale

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