Rough Cut

There are a few extreme auteurists who claim that everything Siegel shoots is wonderful, but some of his more recent efforts have been frankly disappointing, few more so than this glossy, shallow comic heist movie. Down and Reynolds are rival jewel thieves, half prepared to help, half to betray each other, as Niven of the Yard tries to bag Reynolds by using the kleptomaniac Down as bait. The whole thing is incredibly anonymous, jokey without wit, and spattered with pointless movie references (to Hitchcock in particular). And to make matters worse, the Ellington tunes on the soundtrack have been turned into pure muzak by Nelson Riddle.