Robbery (1967)

"Money breeds money. Mine must be on the pill."

They don't make heist movies like this anymore. Hell, they don't make movies like this anymore at all. These were the thoughts I had while sitting through a special screening of ROBBERY at The Film Society At Lincoln Center last week. Peter Yates, one of the UK's most influential and important directors, had died earlier this year and Lincoln Center was screening one of his best films, one that is still completely unavailable in any format in the United States.

It is a film of extreme historical importance -- a film that prefigures the explosive craze of 70's crime films, of gritty tough-minded sociological realism and a scaling back of 50's & 60's epic melodrama. It was ROBBERY that brought Yates to the attention of Steve McQueen and it was BULLITT that begat THE FRENCH CONNECTION which begat THE SEVEN-UPS and so on: an endless cavalcade of elaborate heists and careening car chases -- this is their genesis.

Inspired by The Great British Train Robbery of 1963, ROBBERY jettisons the romanticism that other film makers brought to the incident and goes straight to the bone, touching off the film with an elaborate set-up heist that escalates rapidly into one of the best on-location car chases in cinema history:

We are left with more questions than answers at this point. The film, having thrown us in at the deep end, leaves us plenty of time to tread water. It's only with the arrival of crime boss Paul Clifton (played with lived-in gravitas by Stanley Baker) that the film's cards are actively laid on the table. He's putting a gang together to knock over a post-bank holiday mail train worth over 10 million pounds. The film goes into elaborate detail on the set-up: meticulous coordination and planning of routes and maps, exits and entrances; the rounding up of collaborators and drilling them on their timing and duties; the financing of supplies, including shake-downs and pay-offs. No modern film could withstand this level of deliberate pacing but it pays off huge dividends at the end as each element previously hashed over is executed in a thrilling, suspenseful, (and most important of all) plausible manner.

Layering the suspense, of course, is a smart, world-weary Scotland Yard detective (played by James Booth) who pinched one of the gang earlier on but can't make him squeal. He leans on every possible angle and doggedly pursues Clifton and co. at all turns. The film doesn't shy away from the simple truth that one cannot be truly clandestine in one's operations. Cops know who the criminals are and what they are doing, even if they can't prove it. While Booth seemingly gets nowhere near the gang until the very end, his mere shadowy presence is enough to unnerve them, allowing a tightly-coiled spring of a plan to slowly unravel.

It's hard not to over-hype this film, it really has it all: heists, car chases, a prison break, an intense game of procedural cat-and-mouse, and a double-cross romantic sub-plot that actually pays off. How often can a crime film say that? ROBBERY hits all these bases and more, setting a crime film template that has been often imitated but rarely duplicated.

Given its pedigree, it's hard to believe this film has languished as long as it has. The original print I saw Lincoln Center was grainy and faded, one of the only ones remaining. The DVD copies in England are lifted from the television master, compromising the original cinematic vision. Given how inexpensive it is to transfer 35mm to streaming digital, one wonders how, especially with Yates' passing and the subsequent renewed interest in his work, this film can continue to languish. The print I saw won't last much longer and shouldn't be allowed to deteriorate further.

ROBBERY (Yates, UK, 1967)

The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973)

"One of the first things I learned is never to ask a man why he's in a hurry. All you got to know is I told the man that he could depend on me because you told me I could depend on you. Now one of us is gonna have a big fat problem."

THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE is an underrated slice of 70's crime drama about a lowlife busher running guns for the Mob who finds out he's facing jail time with no appeal. Torn between turning snitch and preserving his loyalty and integrity, Coyle moves glacially towards his final decision, while unbeknownst to him, the machinations of others, moving quickly and wily, are setting an unwitting trap from which Coyle himself cannot escape.

Coyle is played by Robert Mitchum, who gives a performance full of pathos and gravitas, accentuating the weariness and wariness of a two-bit loser looking to cash out before it's too late. Mitchum understands that for a character like Coyle, there is no time for melodrama. Check out how he keeps his cool here while dealing with a snot-nose hot shot who thinks he knows better. Coyle's message is stubborn and worn, easily dismissed were it not delivered with just the right note of casual menace:

Scenes like this make the film great as Mitchum brings the weight of his entire film noir career to bear on a single character whose flaws embody the path a man would take to get out of a situation he's remained in too long. Coyle doesn't want to turn snitch but he no longer wants to risk jail and he's too proud to see his family end up on welfare. Family still means something to him, even if he seems a stranger to his own children. Having spent a life unhurried and unambitious, he now struggles to turn those instincts on. Mitchum is smart in making Coyle slow but not stupid. He tries to play the odds, find an angle, give up the hot-shot to protect his mob buddies but it all backfires (as it must, the film makes you feel as if its outcome is inevitable).

In between the film's quieter, character moments, director Peter Yates stages a series of ever-escalating bank heists, scenes that drip with tension as the scenarios heighten and unfold. The 70s was a bank heist decade and these scenes while good are also cold, calculated, almost sterile -- the complete opposite of the inflamed passions of DOG DAY AFTERNOON. You are witness here to the clinical efficiency of the Mob, who treat home invasions and bank robberies as jobs only, no passion just purpose. The way Yates weaves these storylines together as counterpoint is brilliant. We don't quite see the connection between these high-stakes hits and Coyle's bleak existence until it is almost too late for Coyle to escape. He is the bottom layer, the mud on the boot. When it's time to sever connections, he's the one wiped off.

The film makes great use of Boston as both a location and a character, relying on the setting to tell a greater story. You learn more about the tight-lipped Coyle from where he lives and socializes than you do from any exposition of character. This is the seedy underbelly of a decaying society (strip malls, bowling alleys, dive bars, diners) juxtaposed with the shiny surface of downtown Boston, City Hall, and the suburban banks and homes the Mob hits. Two worlds difficult to bridge, and to survive, Coyle would have to bridge them, though he is slow, beaten to the punch by Peter Boyle's malevolently underhanded Dillon, a character rich in seasoned mistrust and opportunism. Where Coyle is steady in his habits, easy to set up, Dillon is sharp, quick to sell-out.

Peter Yates had directed several incredible crime films previously, including both BULLITT and ROBBERY. This, however, may be his masterpiece. A grim slice of 70's understatement that languished for decades before being faithfully and lovingly restored by Criterion. All fans of 70s cinema, particularly of the crime and noir persuasion, owe this film a viewing.

THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE (Yates, USA, 1973)