When I selected this to follow a comedy, I had forgotten that it was another comedy. I must have known at one time, because I recognize the most famous (and IMO most overrated) moment from a YouTube excerpt. Only after a lot of humor had trickled in did I realize what I was in for. Kinda wish I'd do that more often, because humor is often funnier to me when I'm not primed for it.
Newly freed small-time Cockney crook Charlie (Michael Caine) learns that the Sicilian Mafia just offed his partner in crime (Rossano Brazzi), but that needn't stop him from carrying out the scheme the Mafia opposed. Eventually, he persuades still-imprisoned kingpin Mr. Bridger (Noël Coward, who had one foot in the grave) to lend his financial resources for a heist involving about as many people as Danny Ocean's. They are to engineer an enormous Turin traffic jam, take $4 million in gold from a scheduled convoy, and outmaneuver the police with multiple vehicles. Of course, the police aren't the only threat....
OK, the Mafia don't play as big a role as I made it sound. They don't even show up for the main caper, probably because the filmmakers didn't want to sacrifice lightheartedness at that point. Not that they ever reach for rapid-fire laughs, but there is a certain joy in seeing the "good" guys do a good job, especially considering how badly they needed to practice early on.
Yes, a lot of the gags pertain to, shall we say, limited competence. There's also Bridger being treated like royalty even by the guards, plus his strong patriotism despite repeatedly breaking the laws of his homeland. On the edgier side, there is more raciness than has been allowed a G rating in my lifetime. I would say that the dialog gets clever too, but you have to be more British than me to get it all, which is one reason Americans didn't love the movie upon release.
You may or may not find things funnier if you do the math. To be worth $4 million at the time (why are Brits talking of dollars, anyway?), the gold would have to be much too heavy for those speeding small cars. And a rudimentary sense of physics renders the ending unbelievable. I won't spoil it for you, but let's just say that while the censors wouldn't allow criminals to succeed in the end, the makers wanted enough leeway for the possibility of a sequel (which they almost made).
TIJ is rumored to be the first feature film to use the word "camp" in its gay slang sense, specifically with regard to Bridger's #2, "Camp Freddie." I assure you he doesn't come across as a caricature, nor is his orientation treated as important in any way, but the sheer consistency of his nickname wouldn't go over well today. And if you're looking for diversity, well, by my count, the crew includes one Black guy and one woman.
It's not the most intricate or intriguing heist story I've seen on screen, but at least it's funnier than that other Italian job in Big Deal on Madonna Street. Too bad director Peter Collinson never had another cult hit to my knowledge, or I might check it out.
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