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Usually films located on a place as lovely as the French Riviera, especially Monte Carlo get the full technicolor treatment like To Catch a Thief. But in Seven Thieves director Henry Hathaway opted for black and white because this is a noir and the key here is the plot of the caper and the relationships of the characters.

Expatriate American academician Edward G. Robinson calls on a young protégé Rod Steiger to come over from America to help him heist a casino in Monte Carlo. He's recruited a gang and needs someone he can trust to keep them in line.

Robinson's role is similar to that of Sam Jaffe in The Asphalt Jungle and Steiger it seems is his Sterling Hayden.

That's how it seems at the start, but there's a whole lot more going on here as the characters reveal themselves bit by bit during the planning and execution of the caper.

Coincidentally in the same year another caper film, Ocean's 11 about robbing casinos also came out. But this is definitely not as lighthearted as that Ratpack romp.

What to watch for is the relationships between Robinson and Steiger and between Steiger, Joan Collins and Eli Wallach.

Nicely done little noir classic.

"Seven Thieves" is an average but interesting little "rob the casino" caper, raised a level by the quality of the acting.

Edward G. Robinson stars as "the professor" who masterminds a plot to rob a Monte Carlo casino. For Robinson, this represents his one last chance to make a major score before he cashes in. Rod Steiger plays on old acquaintance from the States whom Robinson tries to recruit in order to complete his team. Joan Collins, looking gorgeous, is the femme fatale and Eli Wallach as Poncho the Sax playing member of the group. Michael Dante, Alexander Scourby and Berry Kroeger round out the rest of the "Seven Thieves". Sebastian Cabot also appears as the casino director.

Robinson in what amounts to a supporting role, is excellent as always. Steiger's method acting seems a little misplaced here, however under Henry Hathaway's direction, he does deliver a good performance. Collins was never more beautiful and performs a couple of provocative (for 1960) dances in a cabaret with Wallach.

"Seven Thieves" is always interesting but contains little in the way of physical action. There are a couple of surprises as well, but I thought the ending was a bit of a let down. Nevertheless, It is still an interesting film to watch if only see the performances of the stellar cast.

Remember "Mission: Impossible"? The TV series, not the movie. It was always fun to watch the team pull off one of their stunts, because they balanced their Rube Goldberg concepts with NASA-quality planning. This movie is cut from the same cloth. It's about a casino robbery engineered during one of the gambling hall's biggest celebrations. The eponymous crooks must work in synchronized unison to fulfill their plan. Unlike the MI series, though, they aren't all quite equally devoted to their mission or, at least not to their particular roles within it. Still, they have a clever series of steps that get more interesting to watch, even as it seems increasingly likely that the plan will succeed.

Along the way, there are some interesting mixtures of personality types, some mysterious backgrounds waiting to be uncovered, and a degree of slipperiness that make it hard to be sure just who we should be rooting for. Indeed, part of the charm of this film is that there are _no_ "good guys," yet we want the thieves to get away with their crime.

A nifty, thoughtful piece, with little action and no sfx (in the current sense, anyway). An added plus for some of us is a pair of fairly sexy dance numbers a 27-year-old Joan Collins does "nearly naked," as her character puts it. She was at her physical prime in this film, but don't underestimate her acting ability. She carries the sole female role with every bit as much mastery as Wallach, Steiger, and the oddly endearing Edward G. Robinson carry theirs. John Beradino (the original "Dr. Hardy" of TV's "General Hospital") has a small role, and Marcel Hillaire appears as more or less the same character he would play dozens of times in TV guest spots for the next few years.

7/10, recommended if you've had your fill of explosions, CGI, or Tom Cruise.

It seems like only yesterday that the gang and myself went to see this SEVEN THIEVES picture. It was playing at our local movie show,The Ogden Theatre at 63rd & Marshfield, here in Chicago. It was a Double Feature with THE PURPLE GANG, a production from Allied Artists (formerly known as Monogram Pictures, a long time resident of Hollywood's Poverty Row.

The advertising stated that it starred "........Edward G.Robinson(Little Ceasar) and Rod Steiger(Al Capone)." Gangster films were enjoying a renewed popularity at that time. AL CAPONE was released the prior year and did okay at the Box Office. Desilu Playhouse had aired the two part "THE UNTOUCHABLES", which led to the weekly series.

Well, my 13 year old mind thought that we were seeing something that would be like 'Little Ceasar Meets Al Capone!" We all left the show giving the 'thumbs up' to THE PURPLE GANG, but not really caring for SEVEN THIEVES. Small wonder, when a bunch of kids see a picture like this that will have a lot of material that was really "TWA"(over our heads).

Well, only a few months ago this former guttersnipe saw SEVEN THIEVES again. This time I understood it, I think.

Billed as "The Robbery That Rocked Monte Carlo!" It is a caper film, and a very good one at that. It has a fine cast, in addition to Mr. Robinson and Mr. Steiger, Joan Collins, Elli Wallach, Sebastian Cabot, Alexander Scourby, et al.

Anyone would enjoy this film. It's well worth seeing, and our old gang would heartily agree.

A so-so caper movie that somehow fails to take off despite a veteran cast and director. There's lots of casino glitz, a sexy Joan Collins, and an inherently suspenseful premise, but the elements never really come together. I agree with the reviewer who thinks Steiger miscast. His is the central role. Yet he's so humorless, his enforcer-leader fails to generate needed sympathy for the caper (I gather director Hathaway was also unhappy with the grimness). In fact, with Robinson's exception, none of the characters is particularly likable. As a result, viewers are not encouraged to engage with the caper, but instead to simply observe it. At the same time, ace director Hathaway films in uncharacteristically impersonal, uncompelling fashion.

Nonetheless, the movie does have its moments. There's genuine tension when the Duc (Hillaire) tries to get Melanie (Collins) evicted from the casino, spoiling the heist. Instead, Melanie does some fast thinking and hangs in there. Then there's the very human last- minute-jitters that threaten to undo the elaborate scheme. But these moments of tension tend to remain isolated instead of tightening into a suspenseful whole, a failing perhaps of the screenplay.

I think there's a reason these heist films were popular during the law-and-order 1950's. The best ones-- The Asphalt Jungle (1950), The Killing (1956)— humanize crime in ways crime features to that point don't. Unlike most crime dramas of the period, ordinary people are seen as able to pool their talents into a cleverly profitable undertaking, at the same time, being daring enough to take big risks for big gains.

Such qualities mirror the kind of commercial initiative ordinarily lauded by popular culture. Of course, heists are also criminal enterprises, but except for the key factor of legality, they show off the combined skills of ordinary people acting in effective and sympathetic light. And just as importantly, as long as it's only a bank or racetrack or casino that gets victimized, well, they can likely afford it. Without that key consideration of who's harmed, the ending of this film would be more morally questionable than it is.

Anyhow, the movie's passable entertainment, and if it fails to scale the caper film heights, at least there are compensations.