The Hot Rock

was on last night.  I think there was a thread a while back (maybe I started it?) about 70s movies set and filmed in New York.  I have a special fondness for those movies but most of them are dark (e.g. Taxi Driver).  The Hot Rock is a comedy.  A heist picture, basically.   Robert Redford leads a crew of otherwise very Brooklyny Jewishy petty criminals  (George Siegal, Ron Leibman) hired to steal a diamond from the Brooklyn Museum.  The heist scenes are actually filmed in the museum.   Zero Mostel plays the no goodnik con man father of one of the crew members and he eats up the screen as always.  It's just a fun escapist, nostalgic early 70s NY blast.  There's a running gag with Leibman, the "wheelman" of the gang, talking about how he evades traffic problems - "Instead of takin the Belt [Parkway] all the way around, I took Rockaway Parkway, cut over to Eastern Parkway and right to Grand Army Plaza" and so on.  That kind of proud talk about knowing the back roads etc. reminds me of my father.  Of course, the GPS apps have made that kind of street knowledge obsolete.  But Liebman is hilarious.

Hmmm... I thought this was going to be about the Sleater Kinney album.

I like them too

Klinker said:

Hmmm... I thought this was going to be about the Sleater Kinney album.

I'm not alone: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/08/movies/in-the-hot-rock-gems-on-view-before-their-time.html

I recall a movie on TV years ago starring Michael Caine that might have been the UK's version of this NYC film. He and his band of robbers are on the run from the law after a heist, and there were Benny Hill-like scenes of chases and near captures, but I recall being thrown by a somewhat bizarre ending, along the lines of the fate that met Thelma and Louise. Overall, though, liked it. 

I've never seen it but perhaps it was the original version of the Italian Job?

Heynj said:

I recall a movie on TV years ago starring Michael Caine that might have been the UK's version of this NYC film. He and his band of robbers are on the run from the law after a heist, and there were Benny Hill-like scenes of chases and near captures, but I recall being thrown by a somewhat bizarre ending, along the lines of the fate that met Thelma and Louise. Overall, though, liked it. 

great movie

Heynj said:

I recall a movie on TV years ago starring Michael Caine that might have been the UK's version of this NYC film. He and his band of robbers are on the run from the law after a heist, and there were Benny Hill-like scenes of chases and near captures, but I recall being thrown by a somewhat bizarre ending, along the lines of the fate that met Thelma and Louise. Overall, though, liked it. 

Yeah, that’s The Italian Job