The Italian Job. 1969. UK. Directed by Peter Collinson. Screenplay by Troy Kennedy Martin. With Michael Caine, Noël Coward, Benny Hill. DCP courtesy Paramount Pictures. 99 min.
Still a cult classic after all these years, The Italian Job has some of the best car stunts ever put on screen. It also gave Michael Caine the opportunity to learn from Noël Coward, whom he fondly remembered as “a gloriously unstuffy, unfussy master of comic timing.” Caine relates that “the director of the film, Peter Collinson, had grown up in an orphanage sponsored by Coward—he still called him ‘Master Coward,’ just like a schoolboy—and he had persuaded Coward to take on the unlikely role of the underworld boss who masterminds the entire heist from inside prison…. I, as a small-time crook, had to break into it every time I needed to get my instructions from him.”