The Italian Job at 50: celebrating the classic Mini crime caper

The Italian Job was released on the 5th June 1969 and became the 14th most popular British film of that year. The number one feature was Carry On Camping.

For it was the small screen that created The Italian Job's abiding legacy, and throughout the 1970s and 1980s it was a Bank Holiday treat on a par with a revival of The Fast Lady, The Wrong Arm of the Law or Run a Crooked Mile. Generations would to hum along to Self-Preservation Society or marvel at the spectacle of Fred Emney battling with Fiat 500s on the streets of Turin

A further reason for viewing was three prime examples of the Mini Cooper S, even if the ‘G’ registration suffix appeared at odds with the Mk. I grille. When shooting commenced in 1968 the Mk. II was already several months old but according to David Salamone, who played ‘Dominic’, the driver of the red Cooper, the British Leyland Motor Corporation preferred to provide “old models”. The producer Michael Deeley approached BLMC only to encounter a profound lack of interest in a film that was to be distributed by a Hollywood major – “they hadn’t a clue about the advertising potential, even when I mentioned the name ‘Paramount’”.

The six core Minis came in their standard colours and so “they had to be repainted red, white and blue – two of each”- while their appearance was enhanced by bonnet straps and Cibie 'Oscar' auxiliary lamps. Rémy Julienne himself detailed the main alterations, and Salamone remembers how “we fitted sump guards, and the interior was stripped of anything that would have caught on the stunt driver’s clothes. We also removed the back seats but had to keep the front passenger seats for the actors”. Twelve back-up Minis augmented the main fleet.

David Salamone regards the Minis as possessing “superb manoeuvrability” and muses that they would have been able to give a police Giulia TI a run for its money. He entered the world of cinema via his father’s company Blenheim Motors when they supplied cars to the classic heist drama Robbery, which Deeley produced. In The Italian Job Blenheim “provided many of the on-screen vehicles such as the Ford 400E Thames ‘Dormobile’, the Land-Rover and the Daimler DR450 Limousine”.

The other “chinless wonders” getaway drivers were Barry Cox as ‘Chris’ in the white Cooper S and Richard Essame as ‘Tony’ in the blue Mini. “Barry was my friend, and he was actually a butcher. To obtain his Equity Card, he had to appear in another film as a ‘specialist artist’ – you briefly saw him on screen cutting meat! Richard was a model, and at that time he owned the E-Type Roadster 848 CRY. It was nerve-wracking waiting to say your line, and we were all dubbed by another actor anyway!”.

After fifty years, the idiosyncratic appeal of The Italian Job remains undiminished. The early scenes are a ménage of ‘Swinging London’, including a cameo from Simon Dee as a shirt-maker, and the mid-period Carry On ethos of the hotel ‘reception party’. Rossano Brazzi donning a pair of sunglasses at the wheel of a Lamborghini Miura establishes a mood of jet-set exoticism – but within 30 minutes you are in the company of John Le Mesurier, Timothy Bateson and Irene Handl. Deeley believed that such brilliant character performers “brought magic and sparkle” to the narrative. Another familiar face is Robert Rietti as the police chief and to underline the film’s parochial charm, a dilapidated Austin A60 Cambridge falls on the roof of his squad car.

At the heart of the narrative is the deadpan performance of Michael Caine as Charlie Croker, a wide boy who dreams of becoming a criminal mastermind but secretly knows he is out of his depth. His finest moment concerns the inadvertent destruction of a Morris-Commercial LC5 and “You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!” brilliantly conveys wrath and resignation in equal measure.

One of the many achievements of The Italian Job is its sheer polish, despite a budget that was not quite on a par with a typical late-1960s international blockbuster. Salamone recalls “we did not have a vehicle transporter, so friends, my girlfriend and my mother were roped in to drive the cars to locations. I had to take one of the Fiat Dinos from Italy to Twickenham, and because I only just made it to the late-night ferry to Dover, I finally arrived in the studio with minutes to spare”.

Above all, this is a film of the pre-CGI age, from the scene on the Gran di Dio church steps to the chase through the Stoke Aldermoor sewer where the condition of the tunnel wall made it impossible to complete a 360-degree spin. Probably the most famous stunt is the rooftop jump which Deeley described as “ridiculously risky”.

“When it took place, I had a car and a plane on standard-by, for if anything went wrong, the Italian authorities would have held me accountable as the man in charge,” he said.

Devotees of the picture can (and often do) recite the many bon mots of Troy Kennedy Martin’s script such as John Clive’s “You must have shot an awful lot of tigers, sir” and, of course, the closing line – “Hang on lads, I've got a great idea...”

Deeley reflects that “Troy wrote ending after ending, but they were all static. The idea of the coach on the precipice came to me when I was en route to see Bob Evans of Paramount. It also meant the possibility of a sequel although in the event it did not do well in the USA”.

Of the automotive stars, the Miura P400 from the opening scene and one of the two Aston Martins used on screen are both alive and well. Aficionados of fine machinery inevitably notice how the DB4’s hood was painted black and that the ‘Aston’ destroyed by the Mafia is a heavily disguised Lancia Flaminia. 848 CRY is now the property of the motoring author and publisher Philip Porter who thinks “any enthusiast would wince at the treatment of all the cars in the film – it is automotive torture”.

The Roadster was the 12th RHD example to leave Browns Lane, and in 1961 it was “the most active racing E-Type”. It is another mark of how remote 1968 now appears that such a machine could be regarded as a “banger” while “Peter Collinson took a sledgehammer to the Coupe to intensify its damage!”. At the end of the 1960s “848 CRY was probably sold on, and I think some restoration had been done by then”. Today, the E-Type is “always recognised from the film”.

And while all the Minis and the Bedford VAL 14 coach may no longer exist, but they have the rare distinction of achieving cinematic immortality. To even to hear Quincy Jones’s score and Duffy Power’s harmonica is to be transported to Charlie issuing the immortal advice - “Just remember this - in this country they drive on the wrong side of the road”.

With thanks to Michael Deeley, Philip Porter, and David Salamone.

The film’s 50th anniversary is celebrated in Mathew Field’s new book The Self Preservation Society – 50 Years of The Italian Job. https://porterpress.co.uk/products/italian-job-book