The Big Caper (1957)
The Big Caper (1957)
„The Big Caper“ is a 1957 film noir directed by Robert Stevens from a screenplay by Martin Berkeley, based on the novel of the same name by Lionel White.
Having exhausted his share of the proceeds from a recent robbery, minor league hoodlum Frank Harper persuades his boss, Flood, to break into a bank in San Felipe, California. Flood agrees and sends his girl friend Kay with Frank to lay the groundwork for the robbery.
Frank buys a gas station and he and Kay, posing as husband and wife, move into a house nearby. During the next month, Flood recruits a team of specialists for the robbery, including veteran safecracker Dutch Paulmeyer.
Kay enjoys her role as homemaker and tells Frank she’s ending her relationship with Flood. Although attracted to Kay, Frank refuses to compromise his friendship with Flood. Kay suggests Frank buy a second gas station, to go straight and abandon his criminal career. Frank agrees to consider a relationship with her, but only after the bank robbery has been accomplished.
In the following months, Frank and Kay establish a friendly relationship with banker Sam Loxley and his family, Alice and Bennie. Part of Flood’s plan is to create diversionary explosions around the town, which will occupy the police on the night they intend to break into the vault. Flood has hired Zimmer, an alcoholic explosives expert who is also a psychotic pyromaniac, to engineer the explosions. When Zimmer arrives in San Felipe, he moves in with Frank and Kay and Frank tries to keep him away from alcohol.
Kay is summoned to a meeting with Flood. Frank warns her to say nothing about their plans. At Flood’s apartment, Kay encounters other gang members including Roy, a perverted, self-involved muscleman and lookout man Harry, who has brought his slatternly girl friend, Doll. Kay informs Flood that she intends to leave him after the robbery, but asserts that she is not involved with anyone else, and that Frank is loyal to him.
After Flood and the others arrive in San Felipe, Doll tells Flood that she wants a cut of the robbery, prompting Flood to order Roy to kill her. Flood then lies to Harry that Doll left after he gave her some money. Flood goes over the final plans for the robbery, in which Zimmer is to create several explosions at the school and the electric plant, thus disabling the alarms and distracting the police.
On the night of the robbery, Frank and Kay attend an early evening barbecue at the Loxleys’, where they hear a radio broadcast about the discovery of a young woman’s body and realize from the description that it is Doll’s. Kay decides she wants to leave immediately and asks Frank to go with her, but when Frank learns that Loxley’s son is at a pageant rehearsal in the high school, which was supposed to be unoccupied that night, he decides to try to stop Zimmer. However, Zimmer knocks Frank out and blows up a paint factory, then heads to the high school.
Flood and the others enter the store next to the bank and are breaking through the wall to the vault. Frank recovers and goes to the school where he finds the time bomb, and disables it. At the bank, Paulmeyer blows open the safe. Flood returns to Frank’s house with cases full of cash. Frank knocks him unconscious and tells Kay to phone the police. Frank assures Kay that, no matter what charges they may face, somehow they will find a way to be together.
A 1957 American Black & White film-noir crime film directed by Robert Stevens, produced by Howard Pine and William C. Thomas, screenplay by Martin Berkeley, based on Lionel White’s novel of the same name, cinematography by Lionel Lindon, starring Rory Calhoun, Mary Costa, James Gregory, Robert H. Harris, Roxanne Arlen, Corey Allen, Paul Picerni, Patrick McVey, Florenz Ames, and Roscoe Ates. Stevens makes his directorial debut.
This is one of just a handful of feature film credits for Mary Costa. Two years later she achieved screen, and Disney, immortality voicing Princess Aurora in Disney’s animated feature film „Sleeping Beauty“ (1959). Costa was named a Disney Legend in 1999.
The luxury hotel is actually the Hollywood Riviera condominium complex at 1400 North Hayworth Avenue in West Hollywood, built in 1954 and designed by prolific mid-century architect Edward H. Fickett.
Film rights were bought by Pine-Thomas Productions who had renamed themselves as Pine-Thomas-Shane following the death of co-founder William Pine. James Poe was originally hired to do the script. Pine-Thomas-Shane announced they would make the film as part of a three-picture deal with United Artists, the other films ended up not being made, although Pine Thomas made two other films for UA.
In White’s novel, the setting is the fictional town „Indio Beach,“ between Palm Beach and Jacksonville on Florida’s west coast. The film is set in the fictional California coastal town „San Felipe,“ neighboring Oceanside and Camp Pendleton.
Cast:
- Rory Calhoun – Frank Harper
- Mary Costa – Kay
- James Gregory – Flood
- Robert H. Harris – Zimmer
- Roxanne Arlen – Doll
- Corey Allen – Roy
- Paul Picerni – Harry
- Patrick McVey – Sam Loxley
- Florenz Ames – Dutch Paulmeyer
- Louise Arthur – Alice Loxley
- Roscoe Ates – Falkenburg
- Valentin de Vargas – Gas Station Attendant
- Melody Gale – Bitsy
- Terry Kelman – Bennie Loxley
- James Nolan – Police Sgt. Waldo Harris
- Voltaire Perkins – Flood’s Attorney
- Jack Shea – Joe Stancil
- Ray Teal – Real Estate Broker
- Tom Tully – Sam
- Rusty Wescoatt – Plainclothesman Outside Bank
„The Big Caper“ ist ein Film Noir aus dem Jahr 1957 unter der Regie von Robert Stevens nach dem Drehbuch von Martin Berkeley, das auf dem gleichnamigen Roman von Lionel White basiert.
Nachdem er seinen Anteil an den Einnahmen aus einem kürzlichen Raubüberfall aufgebraucht hat, überredet der Kleinkriminelle Frank Harper seinen Chef Flood, in eine Bank in San Felipe, Kalifornien, einzubrechen. Flood willigt ein und schickt seine Freundin Kay mit Frank los, um den Raub vorzubereiten.
