"You Don't Think I'd Steal Something That Didn't Belong to Me, Do You?" - How to Steal a Million

On this day in 1966, How to Steal a Million premiered!

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If I had to choose one Audrey Hepburn movie to watch for the rest of time, even though Two for the Road is my absolute favourite of her films, I think I'd pick How to Steal a Million. 

It's fun, it's feisty, it's heist-y, and it features one of my favourite screen pairings: Audrey Hepburn and Peter O'Toole. Let's dive in!

IMDb: "The daughter of an art forger teams up with a burglar to steal one of her father's forgeries and protect his secret." 

We open in Paris, in the midst of an art auction featuring pieces from the world-famous Bonnet collection. M. Charles Bonnet is watching as one of his Cézannes sells for $515,000. 

The eccentric M. Bonnet is played by Hugh Griffith, who won an Oscar a decade earlier for his role in Ben-Hur. He chews and spits out the scenery here, and he looks like the kind of guy who'd lock himself in a secret compartment in the attic to forge paintings, but I'm getting ahead of myself... 

Also listening to the auction is Nicole Bonnet, M. Bonnet's daughter. Ladies and gentlemen, introducing Mod-rey Hepburn. She's decked head-to-toe in Givenchy throughout this film, but this may be the only time you don't question her character's ability to afford French couture. 

 

Once she gets home, she heads straight upstairs to find her father: 

...in through the closet and up to a secret room, as one does. 

Nicole's there to scold him, but M. Bonnet is already hard at work on his next forgery: a "long-lost" Van Gogh. He's even scraping dirt onto the canvas to add to its authenticity. "It is van Gogh dirt. I mean dirt from his own neighborhood. I scraped it myself off these old 19th-century canvases." 

M. Bonnet: A nice touch of authenticity, don't you think? I doubt if van Gogh himself would've gone to such pains with his works. 

Nicole: He didn't have to. He was van Gogh.

She tries, futilely, to get him to stop forging artworks (and we learn that it's family tradition for the men to forge artwork), and then looks out the window and spots police cars heading straight for the mansion! 

Never fear though, M. Bonnet assures her that it's only M. Grammont from the Kléber-Lafayette Museum to collect the Cellini Venus for a new exhibition. 

You can see it there, in the background. It's given pride of place, as a French masterpiece, and M. Grammont can't stop thanking him for keeping such a treasure in the country. Goodness knows why M. Bonnet wants to display it all of a sudden, but let's not worry about it. 

Nicole is beside herself as they carefully pack it up...

...and she goes so far as to attempt to smash it to smithereens before they can even get it out the door, to save the Bonnet Family what she knows is coming. It's a very comedic sequence where they all try to stop her and she has to play it off like she was just kidding. 

After M. Grammont leaves with the Cellini Venus, Nicole lays into her father. 

Nicole: Don't you know you can't fake sculpture anymore? It's not like painting. 

M. Bonnet: I know about their so-called tests. 

Nicole: Papa, they are not so-called. They are! One quick whiff of something called potassium argon... and they can tell the age of the stone, where it was quarried, when it was cut, and the name and address of the man who did it. 

M. Bonnet: Why do you suppose I haven't sold it? I was offered recently. It gives me a twinge when I think of it. I was offered $1,000,000. But I won't sell it.

M. Bonnet tells Nicole to be proud of their Cellini Venus. It wasn't created by an over-sexed Italian, he tells her, it was created by her grandfather.

M. Bonnet: Your own grandfather made it, and your own grandmother posed for it. For months she stood without moving a muscle while your grandfather perpetuated her in marble. That was, naturally, before she started eating those enormous lunches.

Anyways, it's another futile conversation, and we learn that M. Bonnet is going to the opening of the exhibition that evening. Nicole, however, is not.

All of Paris's movers and shakers are at the Kléber-Lafayette Museum, including...

...Mr. Davis Leland ("or Leland Davis," Nicole will later say). He's enchanted with the Cellini Venus. Like, obsessively so. We get this extended scene where he's walking around the partition staring at it from all angles.

And then, when he gets into his car, he gets on telephone and tells his secretary that he'll be staying in Paris on business. 

Meanwhile, back at the Bonnet mansion, Nicole's lying in bed, in near-total darkness, reading Hitchcock mysteries. Then she hears a noise. Of course you'd hear a noise in those circumstances! 

We see this figure, cloaked in darkness, skulking around the great room. He heads over to the van Gogh painting and scrapes off some of the paint, putting it in his pocket. But before he can do anything else...

Nicole flips on the light, and she's armed, having removed a revolver from the wall display. 

Imagine those spellbindingly beautiful blue eyes staring up at you...

...and imagine Audrey Hepburn pointing a gun at you. It's almost impossible to imagine, yet here we are.

She's all set to call the police, after a great sequence where she gets the revolver caught in the phone cord and has to unravel it, all the while appearing menacing, until she notices what her burglar was attempting to steal...

Now she can't call the police because she doesn't want the publicity or the fact that the painting is a fake. 

Nicole and the cat burglar banter back and forth for a bit, and she asks him to prove he's unarmed. His reply, "Goodness, no!" before opening his jacket and showing the lack of revolver. She resolves to let him go, though she doesn't know why, and even drops her revolver on the telephone table, but it accidentally goes off and strikes the burglar. 

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They both fall to the floor, Nicole sinking down the pillar and the cat burglar falling flat on his face, but he revives her and says...

"I'm the one that's bleeding!"

We cut to the kitchen, where Nicole is bandaging his wound and he's being a big baby about it. 

Then she offers to call him a taxi to take him home. But he reminds her that his car would still be there and the police might find it there, so she immediately hangs up the telephone. 

So she offers to drive him home in his car. I love that she initially went to the black car in the background but the cat burglar points out that the sleek Jaguar is actually his. 

Cat Burglar: Pretty, isn't she? She'll do more than 150 miles an hour. Useful for getaways, you see.

Nicole: The robbery business must be pretty good. 

Cat Burglar: It's stolen. 

Nicole: I can't drive a stolen car! 

Cat Burglar: Same principle. Four gears forward, one reverse.

I love the banter in this film! Anyways, she makes to get out of the car, but he clutches his arm in pain, so she shuts the door again and starts it up. 

Oh, and did he mention that he's staying at the Hôtel Ritz? "You're a very chic burglar," Nicole tells him.

On the drive she asks him how his arm is, but he clutches the wrong one. She calls him on it, but he says that the infection is spreading. 

Once at the Ritz, Nicole realizes that now she's the one without a getaway car, so the cat burglar instructs the concierge to call her a taxi. "Yes, Mr. Dermott. Right away." 

Now we know his name. Or at least, his last name. He asks her to be a dear and wipe off the van Gogh frame for fingerprints, as he'd forgotten to do it. She plays along.

Nicole: Certainly. Anything else? You wouldn't like a forged passport or some counterfeit money or... You're mad, utterly mad. I suppose you want to kiss me good night.

Dermott: I don't usually, not on the first acquaintance... but you've been such a good sport.

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And then we get the first of many great kisses between Audrey Hepburn and Peter O'Toole. 

She's utterly struck by the kiss, and Dermott has to physically put her into the taxi, telling the driver to take her back to 38 Rue Parmentier. 

Meanwhile, we get this scene up in Dermott's room, where he's examining the paint scrapings he'd collected earlier. What's he up to? 

When she gets back to the house, M. Bonnet fills her in on the night she'd missed, and she has to interrupt a few times before it clicks in what she's saying. 

M. Bonnet: Here, take a sip of this and just tell me all about it. 

Nicole: It was pitch dark and there he was. Tall, blue eyes, slim, quite good-looking... in a brutal, mean way. Papa, a terrible man. Arrogant, ruthless, no sense of guilt or shame... or anything.

She relays that she let him go, helped him get home, even, and then does what Dermott asked of her:

She wipes down the painting before heading upstairs. But first, M. Bonnet has a question. 

M. Bonnet: Nicole. This tall, good-looking ruffian with blue eyes... he didn't molest you in any way, did he?

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The next day, Nicole visits the Kléber-Lafayette Museum to view the Cellini herself. 

And she runs into, of all people, Dermott. M. Grammont is thrilled that she's there, and explains to her and Dermott about all of the high-tech security features protecting the statue, and offers to show them more, but Nicole begs off, and drags Dermott with her when he says that he has the time to stay and chat. 

He wants to talk to her about something important, but she brushes him off entirely. 

Dermott, meanwhile is talking to an art dealer named Desolnay about what he found at the Bonnet mansion and why M. Bonnet would even need to forge artwork in the first place. 

Desolnay: Simon, imagine Bonnet as a young painter. Like many others he copies the masters to learn their secrets. It is his hobby. But over the years, it becomes an obsession. He learned every nuance of light, of color, of shade, of form. He identifies with them completely. When he paints a van Gogh, he is van Gogh. He's Lautrec, Czanne, he's any painter he chooses to be, and that is his motive and also his profit. 

That evening, Nicole is out on a date with Leland Davis. Or Davis Leland. She's suspicious from the start due to a conversation with her father before she left. She'd been telling him about the date, and her father told he's an art collector. 

M. Bonnet: Didn't he tell you that he's got the great Toulouse-Lautrec... from the Bonnet collection

Nicole: Your Lautrec or Lautrec's Lautrec? 

M. Bonnet: Mine, naturally. 

Nicole: Oh, no. 

M. Bonnet: Are you implying that my Lautrec is in any way inferior? 

Nicole: Listen, Papa. He mentioned your name as though it were only vaguely familiar. Not only didn't he mention anything about a collection... he said he didn't like art at all. He suspects something. 

But during dinner, with all the vague discussions, Leland Davis gets called away to answer a phone call. We learn it was Dermott, and that he still has something he needs to talk to her about, but she brushes him off again, saying that if he doesn't leave at once, she'll scream. 

Nicole: Either you leave this table or I start screaming.

Dermott: Yes, I'll go.

Nicole: Choose! 

Dermott: Just tell me where and when we can meet. 

Nicole: Choose! And make it fast! 

Dermott: Remember, Simon Dermott. Room 136, the Ritz. It's urgent.

Anyways, Davis Leland gets back and confesses that he asked her to dinner with an ulterior motive. Nicole's convinced he's about to expose the family, but instead, he admits that he wants the Cellini Venus for his personal collection. 

Nicole is overjoyed. That's likely an understatement, but she's thrilled that they still haven't been caught. "I'm sorry you fell in love with the Venus. She's not for sale. Believe me, if she were mine, she'd be on your doorstep in the morning," she tells Leland Davis, and then kisses him on the cheek for a consolation prize. 

The next morning, thinking they're finally in the clear and can get away with this, an insurance representative from the Kléber-Lafayette Museum shows up with paperwork for M. Bonnet to sign. In order to exhibit the Cellini Venus, they need his signature on insurance paperwork, which he signs. 

Then this insurance representative drops a bomb: there's to be a technical examination of the Cellini Venus and M. Bonnet can be present if he'd like. His signature just authorized it. 

Now their goose is cooked. The technical examination will surely reveal that it's a fake. 

M. Bonnet: We must keep Prof. Bauer from examining the Venus. But how? I've just given my permission. I've not only put my head into the guillotine... I've unloosened my collar and tie so that they can chop it off. At least I can keep you out of this. Leave Paris. I want you to go to America. No, go to the Orient or somewhere. Please, it will be easier for me, I promise you.

Nicole tells him she's not going anywhere, and she comes up with an idea. "What's the number of the Hôtel Ritz?" she asks. 

The next time we see Nicole, she's covered, head to toe in Chantilly lace, and she's waiting for Simon Dermott to show up. His face, when he realizes it's Nicole, is priceless. Watch: 

It's absolutely comical. They begin talking like gangsters and gun molls as she asks him, in a supremely roundabout way, for his help. 

Nicole: Please, no names! You interested in a big-time caper?

Simon: A what?

Nicole: A heist. 

Simon: You mean a burglary. What's the score, baby? 

Nicole: Won't be easy. 

Simon: That's okay. What's the job? I'm in.

Nicole: The Kléber-Lafayette Museum.

Simon: I'm out! Why that particular spot? 

Nicole: The Cellini Venus. 

He doesn't understand why she'd want to steal her family's statue, and asks if it's a publicity stunt. Of course not, she says. It's worth a million dollars. He vacillates on whether or not he'll help her, and they make plans to case the joint in the morning.  

The next morning, at 10am sharp, Nicole and Simon are perched inside the museum with a bird's eye view of the Cellini Venus. When they get down in front of it to examine up close, one of my favourite scenes happens: 

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Simon puts on his special glasses, which allows him to see the statue up closely, and he notices it looks familiar. 

Simon: It can't be!

Nicole: What? 

Simon: Well, for a moment, I thought I saw a resemblance. 

Nicole: Resemblance to what? 

Simon: You and... 

Nicole: That's silly! She's at least 400 years old. 

Simon: I know, but... Where exactly were you in the early part of the 16th century?

Nicole: I don't know, but that's not how I was dressed.

Simon continues casing the joint, finding a small room under the stairs. He measures the lock and keys, which will come in handy later...

...and also pops into the guards room where he tricks them into revealing after-hours procedures, like when the cleaning crew comes in. He utterly terrifies the head guard, played by Jacques Marin. 

After another fun sequence, where Simon buys a few boomerangs and tells Nicole, "I want you to take a long last look at the blue sky, the green grass, the trees and the river, all of which I loathe personally, which is why a juicy stretch in a cozy French prison doesn't bother me at all." 

They go back to his hotel room because he has an idea. 

He hides the paint chips and other investigative pieces into M. Bonnet while Nicole's in the bathroom changing into her disguise. 

Simon: Yes, that's fine. That does it. 

Nicole: Does what?

Simon: For one thing, it gives Givenchy a night off.

He makes her pretend to scrub the floor for a bit and Nicole surmises that he does have a plan. 

Nicole: You do have a plan, don't you? 

Simon: Of course I have. Now listen very carefully. My plan is, on the night of the crime, my plan and I will be curled up in that bed with a good book.

Nicole: Why?

Simon: You asked me why? I ask you why. Why are we breaking into a heavily guarded museum to steal a precious statue which belongs to you? 

Nicole: But I told you why I couldn't tell you why. 

Simon: Not good enough.

She begins to cry, telling him that she'll be in a lot of trouble if she doesn't steal the Cellini Venus, but that she had no right to drag him into this. He tells her not to fake crying, because it won't work. She tells him she's not trying to trick him. He tells her to go back to the bathroom and change out of her cleaning clothes, but his resolve is crumbling. 

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Simon: Go on. Hurry up! And meet me at the museum at 5:30 p.m., sharp. And don't ask me why, or I'll hit you with a bucket!

The next night, just as she's off to meet Simon, Davis Leland (or Leland Davis) shows up. He's going to marry her (hell of a way to get an illicit statue, eh? Rich people...) and won't take no for an answer. So, in order to get out of there in a hurry, she goes along with it. 

Simon's face when she tells him why she was late is absolutely perfect. 

Simon: Where have you been? 

Nicole: I was getting engaged. Come on. This fellow came when I was leaving. He wants to marry me. I didn't want to keep you waiting, so I got engaged to him. Is it all right? Am I on time? 

Simon: Fine. In fact, we have 10 more minutes if you'd like to go back and marry him.

Once inside, they check Nicole's bag, which contains her cleaning clothes, and make a show of visiting the exhibits. Simon natters on about the paintings, saying things like, "Regard the subtle harmony of color."

Then, when the alarm goes off that the museum is closing, they cause a commotion with loose change dropped on the floor, and hide in the chimney until they can spirit into the closet. 

It's cozy, but it's home! 

The guards do their checks, including in the closet, but the two have hidden behind a panel. Seeing nothing, the guard locks the door, effectively trapping them inside. 

Nicole is panicked, but Simon's as cool as a cucumber. Remember, he'd been measuring the distance of the lock and keys. It's a very cool sequence that involves string, a paper clip, a magnet, and chalk, but he manages to get the door unlocked and a way for them to hold it shut during the hourly guard checks. 

Now, there's nothing to do but wait. 

Meet Moustache, one of the guards. If you need a visual representative for 'Honey Badger Don't GAF" in an Audrey Hepburn movie, he's it. He comes out every hour to drink wine he's hidden in the water bucket behind the closet. 

After a fashion, Simon tells Nicole tells her to put on the cleaning clothes. He sets off the alarm for the first time. 

Poor Jacques Marin, every time the alarm goes off, a different French dignitary calls to berate him about the noise emanating from the museum. This time, they woke up the Minister of the Interior. 

Nicole freaks out after the alarm goes off. 

Nicole: I had no right to involve you in this. And if you want to call it off, I... 

Simon: Well, that's a kind thought and I appreciate it, but then... What about Prof. Bauer? What happens tomorrow when he turns up to test your million-dollar baby?

Nicole is speechless.

Simon: It's a fake, isn't it? No long, involved stories at this time of night. Just nod your head, yes or no.

She nods her head. 

Simon: Who carved it?

Nicole: My grandfather.

Simon: Who posed for it? 

Nicole: My grandmother.

Then she asks him why he offered to help, if he knew the whole time that the Cellini Venus was a fake. 

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Nicole: That's why? I'm so stupid. Explain it to me again. 

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Now they can't get over how roomy their closet is, now that they spend all their time making out in it. She accidentally pokes him with her engagement ring, and he kisses her again to "kiss the bride." But then, work is work, so he tosses his boomerang again and sets off the alarm. 

This time, the alarm wakes up the President of France. And Jacques Marin has had it. So he turns off the alarm entirely. 

Simon can't believe it worked, but he nonetheless gets ready to grab it. 

He hides it in Nicole's cleaning bucket, and replaces the Cellini Venus. Then he tells Audrey to hide and wait until the cleaning crew comes out and join them. Wait until the moment of maximum confusion, he tells her, and then scrub in the direction of the guards room.

So she joins the frey when they arrive, trying to keep the Cellini Venus hidden, and turning her engagement ring around so that the light can't glint off of it. 

Moustache is the first one to notice something's wrong. He points out the missing Cellini Venus to Jaques Marin...

...and Jacques Marin knows he's in trouble now. They rush to turn on the alarm and it starts going off. It's mad chaos as the guards are running around everywhere, and Nicole's doing her best to stay hidden. 

She scrubs her way into the guards room, but notices someone's in there. Before she can scream too loudly, the stranger kisses her, and she realizes it's Simon and begins to kiss him back. 

They escape down the back stairwell and off into the night. 

The next morning, M. Bonnet is hamming it up for the press, hanging a black mourning cloth over the Cellini Venus's spot. "I woke up in the night with a sudden premonition. I thought it was something I'd eaten," he tells them. 

He also reveals that he won't offer a reward for it, or actively look for it, as it'd be crass to discuss at a time like this. 

Meanwhile, Leland Davis (or Davis Leland) has heard about the Cellini Venus's theft and wants to get it for himself. DeSolnay doesn't deal in stolen art, but offers to put him in touch with someone who does.

Simon Dermott. He thoroughly enjoys egging Davis Leland (or Leland Davis) on. 

Simon: You realize what you're asking is extremely difficult and dangerous? 

Davis: Yes, I know that, Mr. Dermott. 

Simon: Please, no names. We may be up against some very desperate characters.

Davis: Them? 

Simon: Those. Fortunately, I've a few contacts. In fact, this morning... I made a few inquiries, you know, put out a few feelers. Just idle curiosity.

Davis: You've got a lead?

Simon: Too early for anything concrete. Let's just say I suspect who was involved. 

Davis: Is it, you know, what we're talking about, is it still in France? 

Simon: I think so. I think I can definitely state it's still in France. You realize you might be paying a great deal of money for something you could never exhibit, acknowledge, or even display, not even in your house?

Davis: Yes, I know. I want it! I just want to take it out of the vault, all alone, just look at it now and then. Know that it's mine, that I own it, that I can touch it. 

Simon: One more thing. Do you happen to know the owners, any member of the Bonnet family?

Davis: I've met Bonnet. I know his daughter, too. As a matter of fact, I'm going to see her tonight. 

Simon: Drop her! Don't see her. Don't even telephone her. That's vital! Any contact with any member of the Bonnet family would be fatal. The criminals would suspect a trap.

Davis: But we're engaged. 

Simon: You know, you're a lucky fellow. From what I hear, she's an enchanting girl. What the hell! The world's full of statues. Forget the Venus. 

Davis: No! Listen! I'll do anything you say. I'll give you my word.

Simon:  I'll call you later in the day.

Davis: All right. You'll contact me. Thanks.

Simon: Sit tight. Wait for the call.

Then Davis leaves, and runs into Nicole in the entry way of the Ritz. He won't even acknowledge her, even though she's only trying to return the engagement ring. She asks Simon if she looks funny, he says no. She has no idea why Davis was ignoring her. Anyways, now there's celebrating to do!

Nicole's excited that she helped pull off the heist. 

Nicole: You were the brain behind it, but I was of some help, wasn't I? I mean, we worked well together, considering it was our first job.

Simon: Calm down.

Nicole: I know I shouldn't carry on so... it's all in a day's work for you, but it's my first burglary— 

Simon: And mine, too.

Nicole: —Bringing it off the way we... 

He's not a burglar. He's a private detective with a long, and attractive resume. 

Simon: I'm a private detective, specializing in stolen works of art and in tracing, detecting, and exposing forgeries. I am also an authority on museum security, being a special consultant to principal museums in London, New York, Chicago, Madrid. Even Leningrad. I have degrees in history of art and chemistry and a London University diploma, with distinction, in advanced criminology.

And what's worst, for Nicole, anyway, is that he was in the Bonnet mansion to examine the van Gogh painting when she came upon him and shot him in the arm. 

Nicole's absolutely beside herself with this news, but just then, M. Bonnet appears. Before Nicole can introduce them, M. Bonnet says, "Blue eyes, tall, quite good-looking. A terrible man!" proving that he knows exactly who he's talking to. 

Over the conversation, it transpires that Simon has the Cellini Venus and an interest in Nicole, and that he intends to keep the 'real girl' and rid them of the 'fake one.' Nicole checks on her engagement ring after Simon leaves, and screams when she notices that it's gone. 

We cut to Simon and Davis Leland escorting a wooden box onto an airplane. 

Simon: You will be contacted! Don't worry if it's not in the near future! The code word will be 'togetherness.'

Davis rushes onto the plane with his new treasure, opens it up... 

...and finds Nicole's engagement ring tied around the Venus's neck. Farewell, Davis Leland (or Leland Davis)!

Back at the Bonnet mansion, Simon and Nicole are prepping to leave to get married. Simon and M. Bonnet chat, and Simon tells him that he has to start earning straight. No more forgery, no more selling illicit artwork. He shakes Simon's hand and agrees. 

But then, as Nicole and Simon are driving away, a South American man pulls up again. He'd been by earlier, the morning that the Bonnets found out about the technical examination needed on the Venus, to purchase forged artwork, but M. Bonnet ushered him away.

Now, M. Bonnet recognizes him and welcomes him with open arms. 

Simon and Nicole are watching from their car. Simon's suspicious. 

Simon: Who's that? 

Nicole: Papa's cousin. From South America. 

Simon: You know, for someone who started lying just recently, you're showing a real flair.

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"Thank you!" Nicole gushes, hugging him. 

The end!

To say I love How to Steal a Million is an understatement. It's so utterly charming, and the chemistry between Audrey Hepburn and Peter O'Toole is very visible. I've always gotten the sense that they had a blast off-screen as well; and that maybe Audrey enjoyed filming this. 

This film also reunites Audrey with William Wyler, the director who led her to Oscar victory with Roman Holiday in 1953. 

I've read that she quite enjoyed Peter's line about her cleaning clothes giving "Givenchy the night off," in reference to her long friendship and professional partnership with Hubert de Givenchy. 

TIDBITS:

Want to know more about Audrey Hepburn's jewellery in this film? Read more at The Adventurine! 

Silver Petticoat Reviews calls this one a must-watch if you love art and Audrey Hepburn!

See Paris the way Nicole Bonnet experiences it with this blog post at The Movie District!

Here's a great review from Movies My Friends Should Watch!

Did you like How to Steal a Million? What's your favourite scene? How do you think it hold up against other Audrey Hepburn films? Let me know in the comments!

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I own none of the gifs in this post, but I did take the screenshots from my DVD copy of How to Steal a Million.