Le coup

is when each of the crooks get the big surprise in the vault! This movie is one of my favorites. I really liked the pacing, the direction and the plot concept. While Goldie Hawn doesn't really seem quite like a prostitute, she really carries the movie. One particular memorable moment comes when she bathes her hands with money and asks herself if there is some connection between crime and sex. Warren Beatty is also good. I particularly liked Scott Brady's perfect caricature of American chauvinism. Arthur Brauss is haunting and memorable as the sociopath drug dealer. I personally found the long chase scenes in last part of the movie to be out of sync with the rest of the film.

American banking engineer, orchestrating the opening of a high-tech new bank in Germany, conspires to rip-off a gang of crooks and low-lifes who keep their loot in private boxes at the branch. There is quite a long set-up to the protracted chase in this film; luckily it involves a daffy, wonderful Goldie Hawn as a hooker/accomplice to thief Warren Beatty. Hawn is a living, breathing cliffhanger, you never know what she's going to do next. In the middle of the hysteria, there's a beautifully modulated moment where she tells Beatty about a screen-test she did for the movies ("First take, nothing. Second take, I dunno know...tears. Third take, I forgot my own name. And I made it up myself!"). The chase takes up about two entire reels, and it's been edited with hairbreadth timing. I also loved what first appeared to be a twist ending: someone dupes someone else, and then in turn gets duped. It would've been an awesome climax, but there's a weird tag at the very end of the picture (ostensibly to wrap it up with a bow) which is sort of a letdown. It seems to involve none of the participants--only their props!--which leads me to believe this was a post-production/last minute decision. Still, "$" (pronounced "Dollars") is funny, smart, and filmed in a cool, jazzy style that is no longer fashionable but certainly memorable. ***1/2 from ****

"$" from 1971 stars Warren Beatty, Goldie Hawn, Scott Brady, Gert Frobe, and Robert Webber. Filmed in Europe, the story is about a bank security expert (Beatty) who plans on robbing said bank -- but only the safe deposit boxes belonging to thieves who can't go to the police. He's helped by a prostitute (Hawn) who has entertained these guys.

Very good heist film, with the world's longest and most exhausting chase scene I've ever seen. You'll be ready for bed by the time it's over. Warren Beatty is terrific as the cool, self-assured security man who somehow remains calm in the face of adversity. Hawn is a riot as a former Las Vegas showgirl who is a nervous wreck about her part in the heist.

I would only say, at 2 hours plus, it's a little long for what it is. They could have cut as much as a half an hour and been fine.

This movie is sooo 1970! Take charge know-it-all Americans with long hair, James Bond style villains, lots of (for the time) hi tech gadgets, constant cigarettes, big busted bimbos in short skirts and car chases. Endless car chases! Interminable car chases! Impossible car chases! At my age I tend to regard 1971 as my era. Yet it was over 40 years ago and the movies of that time tended to reflect the James Bond culture. But any movie with lots of trains can't be all bad and much of this film is set on trains, in rail terminals and in rail freight yards. It's dated but that in itself can be interesting. Goldie Hawn with her goofy giggle is always a delight and the late Gert Frobe, although a good guy in this movie, will always be Auric Goldfinger to me.

In Dollars, clever bank-security guy Warren Beatty teams with a kooky call girl (Goldie Hawn) to steal from three disparate criminals, who have each chosen to store their ill-gotten gains within the bank's safe-deposit boxes. Beatty's Joe Collins is cool and methodical, and Hawn is a true delight as Dawn Divine, although the movie suffers from a lengthy run time and an ending that seems sort of a meaningless afterthought.

Collins works for a bank in Hamburg, Germany that is on the cutting edge of technological security. Among other things, the bank has - get this! - a 24-hour closed-circuit camera inside its safe, the better to monitor would-be evil-doers. Much is made of this awesome camera. Kind of makes one pine for the days when security cameras were a new thing.

At any rate, Collins and Divine have picked out three nefarious marks - a corrupt sergeant (Scott Brady), a Vegas mobster (Robert Webber), and a drug dealer (Arthur Brauss) - each of whom has deposited dirty money into a safe-deposit box in the bank. These boxes are much as they are today, although the bank employees very pointedly do not get to see what is in them; privacy, you see, is a big selling point for the bank wishing to attract more and more foreign interests.

The plan is to move the monies from the three boxes to Divine's own safety box. Plenty of planning goes into this, and it culminates with a wonderfully tense scene in which Joe, trapped in the safe, attempts the exchange. It's only a matter of time, though, before the various baddies discover what's happened, and there's a long, long chase scene - mostly on foot! - that eats up a chunk of film near the end of the movie.

Hawn is at her giggly, risqué best (this would be during her Laugh-In days), and Beatty stays true to type as the Man with the Plan, the cool cat. I particularly enjoyed how anxious Hawn's Divine is at her own role in the heist - for a phone call she must make, she has her lines written out longhand, and yet she still can only whisper them to the bank's manager, played by Gert Frobe (Auric Goldfinger).

The ending felt like it was lacking something, perhaps some panache or some cohesion. It's almost as if someone woke up in postproduction and realized there was no actual climax and then hastily wrote one in. In fact, after reading a synopsis on IMDb, I wondered if I'd seen the same ending - interestingly, the IMDb synopsis made even less sense than the one I saw.

Finally, there's the issue of the editing and/or direction - the former was too choppy, the latter too rapid. When your movie features an intricate plan, maybe it's best not to rush through every step, forcing your viewers to keep up. Even when we could keep up, it seemed as if some plot elements were missing entirely, leading to many questions left unanswered.