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Badly dated heist flick, with Steve McQueen miscast as a bored, wealthy businessman looking for a new thrill. He gets it in the form of a bank robbery he engineers with the did of several others. But soon enough hot on his trail, is a flamboyant, female insurance investigator (Dunaway) and an intrepid cop (Burke). The film reeks of its period (the late '60s), which is fun to a point. Besides McQueen's miscasting (watch for his seemingly endless, very fake laughing fit right after the heist) and Dunaway's hammy, unintentionally laughable acting (and the fact that she is garbed in increasingly silly outfits more suited to a circus clown), former TV director Norman Jewison apparently decided to photograph the whole thing in a herky-jerky, mod style. It was 1968, remember. The result is many harsh transitions from one scene to the next, and Jewison often favors long shots when closeups would have done better. As a result, it is virtually impossible to watch this movie today. Better to check out the 1999 remake. There are also many other heist films worth seeing.

I was never much of a U.K. TV series fan, until I stumbled across this show and "Doc Martin." These two shows now have me hooked. "Bally" reminds me of gentle Irish comedy movies like "Waking Ned Devine." And the nice thing, with "Bally" I have six years worth of episodes to watch. In my home state, Connecticut, we have a huge Irish American population and Connecticut Public Television airs "Bally" episodes at least once a week, which is how I became acquainted with the show. I have since watched a couple of episodes on youtube. I can't get enough of it! You can have "Dontown Abbey." Me, I'll stick with "Bally." I also watch occasional episodes of the various police dramas like "Inspector Morse" and "DCI Banks." But without guns and gun play, they tend t be very dull.