Exhibit B for the 1960s: Gambit, starring Shirley Maclaine and Michael Caine, who give Hepburn and O’Toole a run for their money in the charm department. This time high-society is infiltrated by a dance-hall girl and a Cockney thief, posing as a wealthy aristocratic couple from Hong Kong. Maclaine is hired by a thief Harry Dean (Caine) to impersonate the deceased wife of millionaire Ahmed Shabandar (Herbert Lom) – or rather, a woman who looks like his deceased wife, in order to gain the millionaire’s confidence. Harry’s rather circuitous plot is all set up to steal a priceless statue from Shabandar’s apartment.
I hate to spoil the game with Gambit, so let me just say that you have to experience it from the very beginning and be patient. Maclaine is all but silent for the first half hour; after that she does not shut up. Nothing will goes exactly as planned – Shabandar is far from an easy mark, and Harry’s cred as a proper thief is very much in doubt. The film manipulates audience expectations, letting us know from the start almost exactly what Harry is up to. The tension derives from how it all departs from his original plan. Maclaine proves to be more clever than the thief, a circumstance which drives him crazy. There is also a sweet romance boiling just beneath the surface that complicated matters.
And the heist? Let’s just say that Catherine Zeta-Jones in Entrapment has nothing on Shirley Maclaine’s limber limbs.
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