Yes! Forgot that’s a comedy.
You know, that movie was marketed as a laugh riot, but it’s not. It’s a real downer.
The old men’s lives are so bleak that pulling off a robbery seems like the only alternative to dying in lonely squalor.
And at the very end… well, it’s such an old movie that I shouldn’t bother with spoiler boxes, but here goes:
[spoiler]
Lee Strasberg and Art Carney are dead, while George Burns is in the state penitentiary. Which he figures isn’t really any worse than his life on the outside was. [/spoiler]
Kelly’s Heroes
Kelly’s Heroes and Thomas Crowne Affair have already been mentioned along with The Hot Rock.
I’ll contribute How To Beat The High Cost Of Living. A piece of cinema fluff from the Whip Inflation Now era with Susan St James, Jane Curtin and Jessica Lange as suburban housewives plotting to rob a ball full of money in a mall.
Slither (1973), with James Caan, Peter Boyle and Sally Kellerman. Overlooked but highly recommended.
Rat Race (2001), a semi-remake of Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, directed by Jerry Zucker of the Airplane! Zuckers.
A lot of classic movies have been suggested … quite a few of which I’m confident you’ve seen before. But seriously, if you haven’t seen Quick Change that needs to be at the top of your list, as it sounds exactly like what you’re looking for in the OP.
The Blue Iguana. Little-known but amusing.
I recently had the title song–by the Hollies with Peter Sellers–as an earworm for days.
Actually, I haven’t seen the vast majority of the films posted. In fact, it’d be quicker and easier to list the ones I have.
So I really appreciate all the recommendations. I’ll be getting a ton of these from Netflix/Amzon Streaming/etc and will probably report back.
So far “Hot Rock” is my first one and I’ve got a list of about 15-20 more from there.
The final Marx Brothers movie, one made for television and in which Harpo has a line, was a heist film. But for the life of me, I can’t remember its name and IMDB let me down. It’s only moderately funny, but still, it was the Marx Brothers (or at least three of them).
I’m going to 2nd or 3rd The Hot Rock. I will also mention this is one of a book series by Donald Westlake, all featuring John Dortmunder, the brilliant yet unlucky crime planner. They are all very funny crime caper movies. Another of his made into a funny flick is The Bank Shot, where George C Scott steals a bank.
How about The Great Muppet Caper? It has “Caper” right in the title!
Kind of a reverse-caper movie - Alec Guiness is The Man in the White Suit. He invents a “perfect” cloth which cannot be stained and cannot be torn, resulting in the unions and the manufactuers cooperating in killing the product.
Ooh, how could I forget Skin Game?. James Garner sells Lou Gosset into slavery, over and over again. He sells him, helps him escape, and resells him in the next town. Etcetera.
Another Garner movie - Support Your Local Sheriff. Garner is a con man who somehow gets to be sheriff.
And if you can conceive of gruesome violent horror scenes as comical, then consider Quentin Tarantino’s From Dusk Til Dawn.
Does The Ref count? It’s more about a home invasion after a caper’s gone awry, but it’s definitely a comedy.
I remember seeing this in the late 50s or early 60s. The movie was written by Harpo Marx, but I do not remember him speaking. In fact, the whole movie progressed with NO dialogue at all, until the very end, when, IIRC, Groucho said, “I want a lawyer!”
Oh, come on. The robbery was hilarious!
:shoots clock:
A played-for-laughs con game of a different sort: Waking Ned Devine.