Classic Heist Films: An Appreciation [Video]

Lately, I’ve been watching a lot of classic heist movies, as research for a screenwriting project which everyone has already passed on before I even pitched it (a new record, even for me). I wanted to bring some love to this particular–sometimes wildly eccentric but also sometimes strangely consistent–slice of pop culture.

Using my own, arbitrary definitions, I decided the “classic” window extended from the 1950s to the 1980s, when moviemaking shifted from the auteur era to the Spielberg/Lucas “blockbuster” factory. I don’t have a great reason for this distinction, other than a feeling that, in becoming slicker, immaculately paced spectacle-fests, some of the quirky charm I enjoyed about these films went by the wayside. File under: Old Man Yells at Clouds.

One example of what’s fun to me about the old “heisters” is the differing ways they integrate criminal endeavors into the characters’ lives. Unsurprisingly, a few–like Dog Day …