The Biggest Bundle Of Them All (1968)

Under the impression he has money, a group of amateur crooks kidnap a retired mobster (Vittorio De Sica). When their leader (Robert Wagner) attempts to ransom the former gangster, no one wants to pay the money. Infuriated, the ex-mobster talks the inept gang into the five million dollar heist of a train carrying platinum ingots! I enjoy a good heist caper as much as the next guy but the BUNDLE script is as inept as its crew of motley thieves. As directed by Ken Annakin (THOSE MAGNIFICENT MEN IN THEIR FLYING MACHINES), the film is rather flaccid in its execution. There's no wit, no sense of excitement, no style. One sequence is amusing, when Francesco Mule as a dieting chef goes in to rob a restaurant but ends up going off his diet and pigging out on dinner but that's the only time I laughed although I grinned when Edward G. Robinson was doing the Watusi (hey, it's the 60s) with Raquel Welch at a disco. Other than those brief moments, the lush Italian locations as shot by Piero Portalupi (Visconti's BELLISSIMA) is very nice but the annoying Riz Ortolani score threatened to give me a headache at any moment. With Godfrey Cambridge, Victor Spinetti and Davy Kaye.