This is yet another caper in the broadly comic style of the classic BIG DEAL ON MADONNA STREET (1958); actually, it's a semi-sequel to Dino Risi's THE TREASURE OF SAN GENNARO (1966) via the presence in both of three incompetent thieves (the movie opens with them drilling through the floor of a building, believing it will lead into a museum but they find themselves inside a prison cell where the hero is currently confined!). Besides, it's one of numerous films in this vein which populated Edward G. Robinson's latter-day career; one further link to an earlier film is the fact that a previous "James Tont" adventure with the same star, Lando Buzzanca which I watched recently also involved a theft from the Vatican (the "St. Peter's" of the title).
Incidentally, the "Operation" isn't the actual robbery itself which, committed on the spur of the moment by Buzzanca in a totally casual manner (making off with Michelangelo's Pieta' statue on a fork-lifter in broad daylight!), is treated almost like child's play by director Fulci (well-known for his anti-clerical views) but rather the ultra-organized ecclesiastical retrieval of the missing item (which, at one point, is even compared to the work of the Mafia)! In fact, we see various priests doing incredible stunts on motor-bikes(!) and such which renders the second half of this patchy offering agreeably irreverent.
Still, there are a few undeniable belly-laughs: when Buzzanca is forced to confess the crime to a priest by his girlfriend (they met during a failed "snatch & grab" attempt and with whom she fell immediately in love, since he happens to be a dead-ringer for her late husband!), we hear the man in the confessional tumbling down from fainting; another is when the trio of crooks are discovered lying about in their hide-out by Buzzanca and a Cardinal (Heinz Ruhmann) the statue is no longer there, so they think that the men had been murdered by Robinson's gang: however, they had only passed out from over-eating (given them in exchange for the Pieta'!), not having had a decent meal in some time
and, in fact, one of them wakes up just in time to burp vigorously and loudly!!; also, during the lengthy climactic chase, a car with two priests inside is bumped into by another vehicle and torn in half!; also, among the parties to set out in pursuit of the thieves, are a group of laid-back and constantly chanting monks who use a derelict truck for the journey
so that, when they finally arrive on the scene, the operation has just wrapped!
Robinson is given a nice role as a former big shot, but who cracked after being beaten up by his own cronies (he now flicks between a semi-senile nature and his former bloodthirsty self!); incidentally, it was rather strange to watch the Hollywood veteran in the presence of scantily-clad female assistant Uta Levka! Reportedly, Fulci was unimpressed by the actor's legacy and seems to have had had little patience with Robinson when the latter couldn't remember his lines (incidentally, the director didn't even have a kind word for his own film calling it "a piece of crap")! Anyway, also notable in the cast is Jean-Claude Brialy, appearing atypically as a speech-impaired Sicilian(!) stud: though married, he uses his dubious skills as crooner to seduce (and, consequently, live off) every rich old lady that crosses his path!
