Never a Dull Moment

It’s interesting if you think about it that “gangster” is a Halloween costume. (Yes, Halloween is over, but I’m going somewhere with this.) Sure, there are generic “criminal” costumes, but if you wear a certain kind of suit, people assume you’re dressing up as a criminal from the 1930s. Why is that? Did gangsters as a group really dress like that? Did no one else? And, now that I think about it, is it coincidence that the two groups we think of as wearing pinstriped suits are gangsters and finance bros from the ‘80s? Much to consider, here.

Jack Albany (Dick Van Dyke) is not a gangster. He’s just a working actor. He shoots a pilot for a show that he’s sure is such a turkey it will never see the light of day, but, eh, it’s a living. Then he is rehearsing his lines for the soap opera he’ll be doing the next day—still wearing the suit from his murdered gangster character—when he ducks into a warehouse to avoid what he thinks is a mugger. He is immediately mistaken by young Florian (Tony Bill) for hitman Ace Williams (eventually Jack Elam) and hauled off to the lovely estate of crime boss Joe Smooth (Edward G. Robinson), where he is told about the heist they’re planning.

Frankly, having a killer in on this heist is a terrible idea. Leo wants the guards killed, but why? Yes, okay, to drive the plot. But let’s be clear—killing the guards is a guaranteed escalation of consequences. Having them die even by accident creates a possible death penalty offense if the team is captured. So sure, that’s always a possibility in a crime, but anyone who has survived as long as Joe has knows that you don’t start things out that way. Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead, as the saying goes, and there are a lot of guys in on this heist.

Oh, also, he’s going to have to kill his art teacher, Sally Inwood (Dorothy Provine, the older sister from the Mills/Jones That Darn Cat!), because she walks into the room while they’re looking at a slide of the forty-foot triptych they’ll be stealing and will put two and two together if she has an ounce of sense. Naturally, this adds the subplot of Jack’s having to protect her, which means revealing who he is, which means they are now attempting to get out together. Frankly I want to throw out a little credit to Sally for a desperation plan she has late in the film, because it’s the smartest moment anyone has.

Also Smooth is married, to former starlet Melanie (Joanna Moore, which is almost exactly the name of someone I went to junior high with and if you’re reading, hi, Johanna!), who wants to show Jack all her clippings. I missed if this is because she’s worked out who he is or because she’s just lonely, but I’m inclined from what I did see toward the latter, poor thing. Also there’s another killer in the group, Frank Boley (Henry Silva), who wants to show he’s tougher than Ace who is, again, who Jack is stuck pretending to be. Also also there’s a running thing that never gets resolved where Joe slaps Florian a lot and Florian is stuck just taking it.

It’s an extremely busy movie, is what I’m saying. It’s got some interesting ideas to it; I like that Joe is interested in art and in having a lasting legacy, and an ending that played with that would’ve been better than the ending we get. There’s a moment just before the I hesitate to call it a climax wherein Joe is sitting quietly in the gallery contemplating that enormous painting, and I think that’s the moment in the movie where it could’ve been interesting. Sometimes in movies there’s one bright point at which you could change a bad ending for a good one, and that’s what we have here.

Not that the ending is bad, exactly. It’s just flat. It doesn’t feel sufficient to everything that’s gone before, and I have questions that the movie interested in answering. The rest of the movie is entertaining enough, if not great—the critics savaged it in its initial release—but the ending makes me not interested in watching it again despite its few small charms. Including, yes, Edward G. Robinson, art collector, playing Leo Joseph Smooth, artist and art enthusiast. It’s very sweet. And, no, not on Disney+.