I Soliti Ignoti (aka Big Deal On Madonna Street) (1958)

A boxer (Vittorio Gassman) steals the plans to rob a safe from a man (Memmo Carotenuto) he served time with in prison. He even gathers together the same crooks and thieves the man was planning to use in the heist. But these are petty small time crooks out of their depth. Direccted by Mario Monicelli, this heist caper is quite amusing. Sort of like Dassin's RIFIFI which came out three years earlier, only this time with bungling crooks and for laughs. But it's not a broad comedy, it's understated in its delivery. The film's movie posters played up the beloved Italian comic actor Toto although his participation is brief (two scenes) but it's the other actors who make the film so delightful, several of them (like Marcello Mastroianni and Claudia Cardinale) in the early stages of their careers. The breezy jazz score is by Piero Umiliani. Remade in 1984 by Louis Malle and turned into a Broadway musical in 1986 by Bob Fosse. With Renato Salvatori, Carla Gravina, Rossana Rory, Carlo Pisacane and Tiberio Murgia.