Once a Thief (1965)

Directed by Ralph Nelson. Starring Alain Delon, Ann-Margret, Van Heflin, Jack Palance, John Davis Chandler, Jeff Corey, Tony Musante, Steve Mitchell.

Ex-con Delon wants to go straight, really he does, but his gangster brother (Palance) and a detective with a vendetta (Heflin) make it too hard on him, so he joins in on a million-dollar heist. Although made with some visual style, there’s nothing here original or inspired enough to persuade interest. Excepting an out-of-her-depth Ann-Margret (playing Delon’s long-suffering wife), the actors do what’s necessary for their roles and no more. Lalo Schifrin’s score gives the movie more of a pulse than Ralph Nelson’s routine scene-to-scene direction. You already know how it’s going to end, so only genre completists or unselective fans of one or more of the cast members need bother. Zekial Marko adapted his own novel for the screen (“Scratch a Thief”, published under the pseudonym, John Trinian).

49/100