This is the end of the day. At the beginning of today, I watched The Film-Flam Man. Before I began to write this review, I was jolted when I was reminded of having watched it. I hadn't thought about it for one second for the rest of the day. It's that kind of movie. It's forgettable fun. That's fine. It's a good movie. It has its laughs, and fun cons, but it offers not one thing we haven't seen before, and by before I mean before 1967, not to mention after. I find George C. Scott to be a lot of fun, but only for the duration of the film. He doesn't stick afterward.
As I said, the cons are fun, especially for me, a big big big fan of the con/heist subgenre of movies, but the story is hard to get into it at all. And really, if you can gyp people left and right with complete confidence, then you sound like a good film-flam man, but if the whole town is looking for you because you rampaged a freshly stolen shiny red convertible through it, totaling everything in sight all the way across the community, are you really that good at what you do? I mean, with this kind of recklessness, why are you a con artist? If your getaway is this sloppy and conspicuous, to say the least, what's the point of fooling people? You might as well rob banks and break into houses. But The Film-Flam Man is a comedy, so perhaps that's its loophole.
For more memorable and exciting entries in the heist/con genre in the 1960s, search out these titles: Gambit, Topkapi, Grand Slam, The Italian Job, Ocean's 11, and many others. In fact, check Michael Caine's filmography and look at virtually 90% of what he was in in the 1960s.
As I said, the cons are fun, especially for me, a big big big fan of the con/heist subgenre of movies, but the story is hard to get into it at all. And really, if you can gyp people left and right with complete confidence, then you sound like a good film-flam man, but if the whole town is looking for you because you rampaged a freshly stolen shiny red convertible through it, totaling everything in sight all the way across the community, are you really that good at what you do? I mean, with this kind of recklessness, why are you a con artist? If your getaway is this sloppy and conspicuous, to say the least, what's the point of fooling people? You might as well rob banks and break into houses. But The Film-Flam Man is a comedy, so perhaps that's its loophole.
For more memorable and exciting entries in the heist/con genre in the 1960s, search out these titles: Gambit, Topkapi, Grand Slam, The Italian Job, Ocean's 11, and many others. In fact, check Michael Caine's filmography and look at virtually 90% of what he was in in the 1960s.