Peter Collinson’s The Italian Job is a freewheeling, completely unpretentious chase comedy about a gang of British hoods who plan to steal four million dollars in gold from the Italian mafia. Many of the subtle jabs at British patriotism and isolationist attitudes toward the rest of Europe don’t really become apparent until well after its open ending, which literally has the Brits teetering between remaining (and dying) in Europe and fleeing the continent. (The exception to the film’s subtext, of course, is Noël Coward’s marvelously crusty performance as Brit mob boss Mr. Bridger, who espouses the supremacy of the Queen even as he is being held in a definitively laissez faire white-collar prison cell.) Michael Caine plays another good-humored swinger here, and one imagines that the freaky orgies that are obliquely suggested in the first few minutes of The Italian Job probably went directly into Mike Myers’s borrowed-shtick notebook. Collinson seems to relish grouping every detail of the film into threes: secretaries, getaway cars, sexual escapades. He also keeps the logistics of the big heist that makes up the last third of The Italian Job exciting and different. This wasn’t the first movie to take car chases into strange and new environments, but it remains among the more creative ones (the culminating sewer chase is actually quite visceral). The whole goofy package gets its bow from Benny Hill, who goes after “big women” so he can grab a handful of their chunky trunks.
Image/Sound
Kino Lorber offers The Italian Job in a 4K restoration from the original camera negative, available on UHD and HD Blu-rays, both of which look fantastic. Primary hues—like the red, white, and blue Minis used in the central heist—really pop; the rustic greens of the Italian Alps look especially verdant; and the deep blacks of the sewer-bound chase sequence are entirely uncrushed. Fine details of costume and décor are readily discernible. Grain levels look well resolved throughout. Audio comes in Master Audio surround and two-channel mono. The surround presentation nicely opens up the soundscape during the climactic chase sequence, and fully delivers Quincy Jones’s rousing, eclectic score, while both clearly convey the dialogue.
Extras
Included on both discs are two commentary tracks moderated by Matthew Field, author of The Making of The Italian Job, one featuring screenwriter Troy Kennedy Martin and the other featuring producer Michael Deeley. Kennedy Martin goes into the genesis of the story, the development of his script, his differences with certain elements incorporated by director Peter Collinson, and his balanced assessment of the finished film. It’s an articulate, occasionally witty listen that rarely lags. The track with Deeley is a little more spotty, but Field manages to finagle some fascinating details from the producer about the cast and the various locations.
An exhaustive making-of documentary from 2002, titled “The Self Preservation Society,” goes into pretty much every aspect of the filmmaking. Two shorter documentaries, “The Great Idea” and “Getta Bloomin’ Move On,” combine outtakes from the former with stretches of the exact same interview footage, and as such they can get a bit repetitive. Elsewhere, a 2009 featurette on the Minis used for The Italian Job contains some great behind-the-scenes footage. Also of note is a deleted scene, the “Blue Danube” sequence (with optional commentary from Field), that, while wonderful, makes it easy to see why it was excised from the final product. Rounding things out are the film’s original theatrical and re-release trailers.
Overall
The Italian Job is a raucous, riotously funny exemplar of Cool Britannia at its coolest.
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