1978 - Directed by Daryl Duke
 Starring Elliott Gould, Christopher Plummer, Susannah York, Céline Lomez, Michael Kirby, John CandyGail Dahms

 I’m not familiar with director Duke, but after hearing a few things about this film from a couple different interweb acquaintances and seeing that Curtis Hanson wrote the screenplay, I decided to give this a look and see what all the fuss was about.  Hanson has been involved in several films I’ve enjoyed, from directing things like 8 Mile and L.A. Confidential (which he also wrote), to providing screenplays for directors like Sam Fuller with films like White Dog, Hanson has had a varied and interesting career quickly becoming one of the first screenwriters I’ve been aware of while watching or seeking out certain films.

 Miles (Gould) is a quiet bank teller who works at a branch located in a busy shopping mall, where the Christmas season has things booming.  Miles finds a note written on a discarded deposit slip as the bank is closing, indicating that someone intends to rob them.  He keeps it to himself as this revelation comes within the same moment that he realizes his co-worker Julie (York) is in the middle of an affair with their philandering boss Packard (Kirby), who has no problem using Miles to keep Julie company while he has to deal with the various family commitments that frequently cramp his style. 

 Miles is able to piece together the robber’s identity when he notes the rather specific style of ‘G’ on the hand-written sign carried by a charity Santa who is collecting donations nearby, casing the bank in plain sight.  Noting that Santa is very  aware of the comings and goings of one certain businessman making his daily deposits, Miles seizes the opportunity to pocket most of the cash deposit in anticipation of the robbery, as the missing cash will be chalked up to the theft.  When the robbery happens as he anticipated, Santa realizes immediately that his haul feels light, growling to give him “the rest of it”, but Miles hits the silent alarm and the robber is forced to flee with only a small handful of cash.

 The police seem slightly suspicious of the timing of Miles triggering the silent alarm (it was the last thing he did rather than the first), but his timid personality seems to satisfy why he’d have been thrown off by the threat of a gun and they seem to lose interest in that line of questioning.  Meanwhile, Harry Reikle (Plummer), the thieving Santa in question, well he grows increasingly bitter about his botched robbery, venting his anger on a young girl in a sauna in a truly bizarre altercation, then he starts tracking down Miles personal information, which is easy since his name and face have been splashed all over the local news as a result of the daring daylight robbery.

 Reikle begins to put pressure on Miles, calling him with cryptic messages and trashing his apartment.  This manages to be perfect timing to ruin the pass that Miles finally makes at Julie after being asked to escort her to the company Christmas party, as Packard doesn’t want his mistress socializing with his wife unescorted. Julie is naturally confused by his sudden reticence (she already has a boob out after all, priorities, man!) and asks him to take her home, leaving their relationship with a chill between them.  Miles has already stashed the $50 grand back at the bank in a safe deposit box, so Reikle’s demands that he hand it over aren’t as easily dealt with anyway, and after finding his apartment trashed in search for the cash, Miles concocts a scheme to follow Reikle to his home, then frame him to be sent away for an unrelated crime with an anonymous tip. Thus, they will never be connected, nor will it connect Reikle to the bank job, but still gets him out of Miles’ life.

 With Reikle out of the picture, Miles is next faced with the task of burying his elderly father. He meets a woman named Elaine ( Lomez) at the funeral, a young nurse who cared for his father in the nursing home and who has come to pay her respects and express how much she enjoyed his father’s company.  The two of them quickly fall into a relationship, but Miles’ life is still complicated by several things, including the money, his feelings for Julie and wondering whether or not Elaine is really who she appears to be.

 The cat & mouse between Miles and Reikle is very entertaining, as career criminal Reikle finds a surprisingly resourceful adversary in the timid bank teller and Miles’ ability to think on his feet is both clever and believable as he adapts to the various complications that are thrown his way.  I really enjoyed what I generally tend to think of as the average conventions of 70’s cinema, specifically the casual attitudes towards sex and drugs.  Hell, the bank manager’s wife happily exclaims “who wants some grass?” at the company Christmas party!  It was also fun to see John Candy in a small cameo as Miles’ co-worker who ends up marrying the new girl (Gail Dahms) at the bank.  What Candy’s character doesn’t know is that Miles walked in on her casually screwing another guy at the Christmas party, a fact that Miles keeps to himself for whatever reason.

 The odd little life-related complications like this aside, the film is a well paced little thriller and well worth a look, I enjoyed it a quite a bit.

 8/10