William Wyler crafts a delightfully frothy caper backed up by wonderful on screen chemistry between Peter O'Toole & Audrey Hepburn. It seems to me that Hepburn always managed to bond with her Male co-stars, and here the interplay between O'Toole and herself is wonderful. Check out a long sequence of events involving the pair hiding out in a closet, it's gold dusted cinema.

The film's central plot involves Hepburn & O'Toole planning a daring robbery from a Paris museum to keep her art forger Father (a delightful Hugh Griffith) out of trouble, at first the couple are purely business partners with no love lost for each other, but as the story plays out the pair are forced to get along and etc.

The burglary itself is dramatic, attention grabbing entertainment, and it's also the film's highest point, but overall the film as a whole is simply good romantic fun. Also helps that it features a very tidy shift for the finale to further reward the audience for their time spent with the movie. Throw in dapper turns from Charles Boyer & Eli Wallach too, and it's all good really.

Open the wine, sit back and relax with Pete & Audrey. 8/10

While I might be one of the first people to think that this movie wasn't exactly the "deepest" film I have ever seen (as the plot really is very simple),it really doesn't matter since the film is just so much fun. In other words, you can watch it and enjoy this simple and well-made film just for the shear pleasure of watching fine acting and extremely well-crafted dialog. Of course, the acting of Audrey Hepburn and Peter O'Toole was top-notch--this didn't come as any surprise to me. However, the supporting actors really helped this film to be an even better film. Eli Wallach was cute as a rich and eccentric American, but even better was Hugh Griffith. He played the most delightful and watchable crook I can remember seeing in quite a number of years. He actually made being an art forger "cute" he was that funny! My wife and daughter, I noticed, laughed whenever he appeared in the film and my daughter said she loved Griffith's "insane eyes".

Apparently, the old rogue (Griffith) was so brazen with his forging that he loaned a local museum a forged statue to be the centerpiece of a major exhibition! And, when insurance appraisers announce that they want to take the statue off display to appraise it for insurance purposes--and Audrey is afraid they'll discover her father's fraud. So, she uses her ample charms to convince O'Toole to help her steal with fake. That's really all there is to the basic plot, but HOW the plot unfolds is simply marvelous!

In her third and final film with William Wyler, Audrey Hepburn did a most stylish caper comedy in How To Steal A Million. Despite the title being a complete misnomer because it's not about currency, francs, pounds, or dollars, the film is a delightful romp from start to finish.

Things are about to come crashing down around the family business of art forgery that Hugh Griffith and daughter Audrey have been carrying on. A statue of Venus that Cellini supposedly did, but is a forgery that Griffith's father did some years ago is about to undergo some routine tests that were not available years ago. They will certainly disclose that the statue is a fake and while Griffith's business is forging paintings instead of sculpture the authorities might start looking him over as well.

In fact when Hepburn catches gentleman cat burglar Peter O'Toole trying to steal a Van Gogh, she actually lets him go lest the Van Gogh be investigated. Later on she looks him up when she hits upon a plan to steal the 'Cellini' statue from the museum and might have need of O'Toole's skills in such matters.

The caper part of How To Steal A Million is the most fun and I won't say a word about it except that O'Toole hits on a really good idea involving the use of a toy boomerang. The whole caper nearly boomerangs as well as Hepburn and O'Toole have to spend some considerable time in a museum broom closet where they get better acquainted.

That part of the film also calls for Hepburn to get rid of the Givenchy gowns she was known for and wear the simple dress of a museum cleaning lady. Audrey still looks good in that.

Hepburn and O'Toole have some really nice chemistry, a pity they didn't do more films together. Hugh Griffith is a favorite character actor of mine, he has the wildest and most expressive eyes of any player in history. Griffith can do more with one upturned brow than Olivier can with a page of dialog. Audrey and Hugh both appeared in William Wyler films before and received Oscars for their performances, Audrey in Roman Holiday and Hugh in Ben-Hur. Audrey also did The Children's Hour with William Wyler as well.

And looming over all is the city of light, Paris which should have received some billing as well. Then again, that city never gives a bad performance on film.