Ad ogni costo

Plot synopsis:
Four men, members of a Welsh rugby union club, fly to Paris as part of a weekend outing to see Wales play France in the Five Nations Championship match that will decide the Grand Slam title.
One of the party is funeral director Caradog Lloyd-Evans (Griffith), who briefly served in occupied Paris near the end of World War II. Caradog pays for his son Glyn's air ticket on the proviso that Glyn (Morris) comes on a 'pilgrimage' to find his 'little butterfly' who he spent a short romantic period with during the war. This pilgrimage is successful and although the right place is found, it is no longer the innocent bistro of his youth but one of many strip club joints. Mr Lloyd-Evans mistakes a young girl in the club (who is a spitting image of his 'little butterfly') for the real thing and finds that the girl is actually Odette (Sharon Morgan), the daughter of his old flame. He is (naturally) disappointed but Glyn gets himself acquainted with Odette while Caradog reminisces with his 'butterfly' (played by Marika Rivera).
A quick call to the hotel brings the entire tour party to the club where fun and frolicking takes place led by club secretary Mog Jones (Davies), a retired player whose dreams of playing for his country were never realised. Some locals take exception and a mass brawl starts which ends with the arrival of the police. The whole party is arrested except Caradog (protected by his 'butterfly' Madame) and Glyn (hidden in Odette's bedroom).
Sion Probert plays camp boutique owner Maldwyn Pugh, who is the only one of the main four characters who makes the start of the match, because Mog is still in jail as he was considered the ringleader (the others were released), Caradog has collapsed near his strip club table while Glyn is trying for his own sexual 'Grand Slam' with Odette, taking a rest to watch the game on TV.
Mog is eventually released halfway through the first half of the match, but when he finally arrives at the stadium, there's only seconds of the game left, which Wales lose, leaving Maldwyn without a prized signature from Gareth Edwards and Mog still yet to witness a Welsh Grand Slam triumph. Caradog is found after the match, and Madame thinks he has died, but Odette fires a soda siphon on his face, and the story ends with Caradog warning his son of the dangers of overseas travel.

Tags: murder

Review:
Grand Slam hits it out of the park.
An elderly school teacher (the late great Edward G.
Robinson) employs an electrotech (Riccardo Cucciolla) , a playboy (Robert Hoffmann), a safe cracker (Georges Rigaud), and a military man(Klaus Kinskey) to complete a daring heist of 10 million in diamonds from a vault in Rio De Janeiro.
This crime caper has a good buildup, the heist suitably engrossing.
I could see the end coming (mostly), but that didn't detract much from my overall enjoyment of the movie.
It still remains among the top caper movies that I've seen.My Grade: B+ Blue Underground DVD Extras: Poster and Stills Gallery; and Theatrical Trailer Eye Candy: blink and you'll miss tiny boobies courtesy of Jussara.
SLAM-BANG GRAND SLAM.
This is a truly great caper in the RIFIFI tradition, with plenty of twists and surprises, spectacularly high-tech (for its day) action set pieces and glamorous location work in Rio de Janeiro, Rome and around the world.
Many other capers since THE GRAND SLAM have borrowed shamelessly from it -- ENTRAPMENT being the latest that springs to mind -- but, trust me, this one did it better than the rest all the way to its uncompromising, un-Hollywood ending.
Oh I really liked this movie!!.
What a brilliant caper movie!
Before I go on, though, I need to point out that this movie is a reworking of the movie Rififi (1954)--a French caper movie.
While Rififi generally gets higher marks among critics, I also liked this one.The movie is unusual in that it has such a multinational cast and quite a bit of the movie is dubbed because of this.
However, it was interesting to see Adolfo Celi in the movie.
He was the lead villain in Bond's THUNDERBALL and in this movie his voice is dubbed with a totally different voice and so he sounds a lot different.Now on to what I loved--the complicated and exciting plot.
Also, the acting was great and the characters were well-written--everyone seemed to be at the top of their form.So, if you want a movie about a gang of thieves pulling the ultimate heist and want to see one that's among the best, give this film a try--if you can find it, as it's not exactly a well-known flick.
Perhaps with so many films like it ("Topkapi", "The Killing""Bob le Flambeur" and many others) it just got lost in the process.,.
Sensational Italian heist flick!.
Rififi is a great movie, and like most great movies; it's often imitated, although unlike films such as The Exorcist, Jaws and Alien; the Rififi imitations are usually quite good.
The field is lead by Jean-Pierre Melville's masterpiece 'The Red Circle', but following hot on its heels is this excellent little Italian thriller.
Grand Slam mixes an intricate plot, interesting characters and a bucket load of style and the result is a film that constantly thrills and entertains.
The plot follows the fortunes of a varied group of criminals brought together to carry out a daring robbery.
Schoolteacher James Anders notices a chance in Rio de Janeiro to steal ten million dollars in diamonds and contacts his friend who gets in touch with several specialists to carry out the job.
Aside from the obvious safe crackers, they also recruit a tried and tested womaniser to steal a key from a secretary.
Everything is put into place for the robbery to go to plan, but naturally there are more twists and turns in store for thieves to deal with.Grand Slam is an Italian film but features a host of international talent, including Hollywood performers Edward G.
Robinson and Janet Leigh acting alongside cult stars such as Klaus Kinski, Robert Hoffmann and Adolfo Celi.
The cast comes together very well and it's thanks to the great performances that this film works so well.
Director Giuliano Montaldo keeps things ticking over nicely and the build up to the heist is always interesting.
Naturally given the film's influences; the heist itself is a timed and careful (also wordless of course) affair that keeps the audience on the edge of their seats.
The Rio de Janeiro setting provides some lovely locations and the film does look very nice on the whole.
With the focus being on the plot, you can expect some twists in the tale and Grand Slam certainly does no disappoint in that respect as the film features a great twisted ending that fits what went before it very well indeed.
Overall, Grand Slam is an excellent heist flick that more than does the classic French film that influenced it justice.
" If A Crime is Worth doing, it's worth doing right ".
Throughout the world, men with money and those without have created a game which for all practical purposes will never end.
Those with wealth seek to design a box which will keep their valuables safe.
Hopefully the 'box-makers' will eventually come up with a fool-proof design which will keep the thieves out.
That is the premise of the film called " Grand Slam." Edward G.
James Anders a mild mannered school teacher who after years of research has discovered the 'perfect crime.' for stealing valuable diamonds worth millions.
Secure that he has a fool proof scheme, he visits an old mafia friend, Adolfo Celi is Mark Milford and asks for a special team of professionals.
The men chosen include Robert Hoffmann who plays Jean-Paul Audry a world re-known playboy and suave lady-killer who will meet his match in a cold, dispassionate secretary (Janet Leigh) with a secret.
Klaus Kinski is Erich Weiss a military man who does not quit a job until it's conquered.
Riccardo Cucciolla is Agostino Rossi and George Rigaud is Gregg, professionals in their own right.
Together they accept the challenge of what is a deemed an unbreakable, thief proof safe.
called the " Grand Slam 70 " series.
A film which has become a favorite of many E.G. Robinson fans.
A fantastic crime movie.
I would be difficult for me to say enough good things about this movie.
The Itallians came make a movie like no one else.
This is a very stylistic heist movie.
It co-stars the b movie hero, Klaus Kinski.
The score was done by Ennio Morricone.
This is truly outstanding example of the Itallian crime sub-genre.
All the elements that make a movie of this type entertaining are present in spades: over the top schemes, gadgets, one-liners, and car chases.
I have heard many of Enni Morricone's scores, but the opening piece is one of his best.
Over the past few years, Blue Underground re-released some great, obscure movies.
A dazzler from the 60's; an Italian co-production with location photography in beautiful Rio De Janeiro..
Released in the USA by Paramount as GRAND SLAM in the late sixties, this slickly-made heist film is a first-rate effort exploiting the Jules Dassin classic, RIFIFI.
The all-star international cast is exceptional, with Klaus Kinski being the standout.
One of the best of it's kind, and still enjoyable today.
Ennio Morricone wrote the eclectic score, featuring some catchy bossa-nova tunes to complement the location.
I rented the movie based on several recommendations that it was a superb (perhaps the best) heist movie, including Roger Ebert's remarks in his review of The Score.
I found the movie pace lagged a lot in the middle, and I found the events after the in-bank theft scene unpleasant (the movie as a whole was darker than I had expected).
The main theft scene was well-done, and the technical wizardry of the thieves quite impressive (particularly given the 1967 production date).
I liked a few of the characters, the heist scene, and that was about it.
Several of the characters were eminently dislikable, the Rio culture scenes were irritating, and the movie lacked two things vital to a heist caper: a very tight plot, and a likable cast of characters who make you root for them to succeed.
Without giving too much away, there was one plot element in the last third  of the movie that I found too deus-ex-machina for my liking.
Rent *Sneakers* instead, or read any of Donald Westlake's superb Dortmunder heist novels, for the good stuff..
Rio de Janeiro in the 1960s..
Been spreading the word around the neighborhood about this forgotten cultural curiosity like a virus!
The amount of clichés and stereotypes in this piece make the entire thing hilarious and a good deal of fun to watch.
Rio becomes this absolutely exotic venue, with non-stop carnivals and pageants, strange folk a galore and people who go by the name of "Stetuaka" (?!?!) - believe me, I have been born, raised and lived a good part of my life in Rio and have never, ever known anyone by the name of Stetuaka (played simply by one "Jussara" - may the Almighty bless her whoever she is!).
But, and this is the main point of interest and solely for this I give it a ten, there are some exceptional external takes that give us a very good glimpse of Rio de Janeiro when it was still a breathtaking city and an incredible place to live (and not the violent, crime-infested & decadent urban disaster it is today) - excellent shots from the pre-expansion Copacabana Beach, Downtown, the Pavãozinho Slum and, most amazingly, a still pristine Barra da Tijuca, a very far cry from the horrendous scenario it has now become.
For those of us, who live here or know Rio, a very nostalgic piece, not to be missed.
Oh, yes, almost forgot...there's also some sort of a loosely built plot, about a heist around a handful of diamonds, but that's really secondary, of nil interest..
The Best Caper film ever..
I think this is the best heist film ever made, surpassing its supposed inspiration, "Rififi".
Fast pace, suspenseful and brilliantly photographed, it is a must see for all caper film buffs.
The problem seems that no one seems to know WHO owns the rights to Telecast this film.
It would be great on DVD too..
I yelled at the screen last night.Perhaps this was the first heist film that used laser beams in a vault as an obstacle to thieves, but why did they do it so badly?
The laser beams, which criss-cross the vault like a spider web, are done in an ostensibly clever way: translucent tubing filled with light.
But when the thieves climb over the beams with a fancy telescoping ladder rig we can clearly see the laser beams sagging!
Worse, we can see a connection point where two pieces of tubing were joined.
This kind of sloppy craftsmanship really takes you out of the film.It gets worse.
The safe is rigged with a delicate noise detector.
The sound of a cigarette lighter is enough to set it off.
Lift the entire safe with pneumatic lifts, stick on little wheels, soundproof the wheels with shaving cream (I kid you not), and push the safe ten feet away from the sound detectors.
Then silently push the safe back up the ramp and into the vault (more shaving cream), disconnect the pneumatic lines, cart away your seventy-five pounds of equipment, and close the vault door.
All without making as much sound as a Zippo.This film was co-produced by Spanish, German, and Italian film companies.
Is it possible that in an audience of, say, 100 Spaniards or Germans or Italians, no one made a huge PUK-SSHHH!
sound when those air hoses were disconnected?
Maybe they were better at suspending disbelief than an eight-year-old American.Compare this to the new gold standard for technical competence in that era of film-making, "2001: A Space Odyssey." Although history has unspooled very differently than as predicted in "2001" (no cities on the moon, no manned exploration of other planets), those cinematic predictions were very carefully executed.
If the Americans and British who made "2001" had been as clumsy as the hacks who made "Grand Slam," there never would have been any discussion about the religious or spiritual meaning of that bizarre last act.
Those questions were discussed very seriously in the late 60's (and still are) because "2001" was a believable world where our powers of disbelief remained suspended for 2 1/2 hours.Now, of course "Grand Slam" is just a heist movie.
Does that excuse its technical shoddiness?
When fundamental facts are ignored, the movie is over.
And laser beams can't sag.Maybe this is why the United States was the technological powerhouse of the world in the 1960's.
We cared about getting it right.
Even bad American movies are produced with a technical brilliance that outstrips the stupidity of the above-the-line talent.
And web sites like MovieMistakes.com help keep our standards from flagging.Maybe "Grand Slam" deserves credit for inspiring better films, such as "The Italian Job" two years later.
Perhaps you can insist that "Ocean's Twelve" owes its dancing laser beams to "Grand Slam." But at least in "The Italian Job" when things blow up they go BOOM!, and in "Ocean's Twelve" the laser beams don't sag..
It's a Slam Dunk of a Whopper!.
Janet Leigh, Edward G.
Robinson, and Adolpho Celi, known to American audiences as a Bond villain, star in this fascinating heist film.
Robinson is the mastermind after he's been fired and he goes to a long-standing friend for the right key-men needed for the job: an expert safe-cracker, a demolitions man for the right TNT needed, etc.
But what really blows the viewers' mind, isn't so much what inevitably becomes to each of the gang, but the very last minute's twist ending.
If you love heist films, then find this one first.
Caper flick with Klaus Kinski is pretty alright....
An all too familiar story in our world: A professor with too much time on his hands plots a diamond heist and enlists the help of a New York mobster and a team of nefarious experts who's specialties run the spectrum of various prerequisites for daring jewel capers, such as safe-cracking, etc.
No surprises here- although one member of the team is a professional playboy- and are there really such things?
How does one earn the title of playboy?- who's only job is to seduce the icy secretary with the key to the vault!
You'll probably see the twist coming but they keep their cards close to the vest so there's still a tinge of surprise at the end.
Fans of Kinski will not find a heck of a lot to snicker about as they watch their favorite crazy-friend-of- Herzog plod through another flick he probably just did for money.
While Kinski isn't quite plausible as a hardened military man, he does a pretty fine, straight job in this role.
Good times, all around..
Scenic Crime Thriller With Plenty of Thrills.
"Machine Gun McCain" director Giuliano Montaldo's "Grand Slam" qualifies as one of those traditional perfect heist capers where crime doesn't pay, as in "The Asphalt Jungle," "Topkapi," "Any Number Can Win," "The Anderson Tapes," and "The Italian Job." Furthermore, the mastermind of this audacious thriller is an elderly gentleman who assembles a team of experts to execute his 'meticulous' plan to the letter.
Robinson adds a certain grandeur to "Grand Slam" as a retired school teacher who has spent 30 years teaching in Rio de Janeiro when he hasn't been filming deposits at a diamond company occupying the building across the street from the school.
Formulaic from fade-in to fade-out, "Grand Slam" ranks as one of the better examples of the genre.
This nimble thriller opens with our protagonist consulting the mob in New York City to recruit an international gang that have no criminal records.
Robinson personally speaks to each and then the heist occurs and everything comes full circle back to the mastermind and his moll.
Not only do Montaldo and his writers put plenty of obstacles in the path of the criminals, but he also generates palatable suspense during the robbery.
Cynicism, greed, treachery and surprise sets during the rollicking the second half.Retired history professor James Anders pauses on the way to boarding his jet at Rio de Janeiro airport to listen as young students from a Catholic School serenade him before he flies off to New York City.
In the Big Apple, Anders visits an old friend, Mark Milford (Adolfo Celi of "Thunderball"), who has acquired a notorious reputation as an underworld figure, though armed bodyguards surround him.
Anders goes out to Milford's residence.
Milford and he discuss old times and then Anders presents him with an innocuous 8mm film reel and they watch as Ander's describes his former occupation and the school where he taught history.
Opposite it looms the building for a Brazilian diamond vault.
Milford selects four men—a safecracker Gregg (Georges Rigaud), a gigolo Jean-Paul Audry (Robert Hoffmann), a strong arm man Erich Weiss (Klaus Kinski of "For a Few Dollars More"), and an electronics technician Agostino Rossi (Riccardo Cucciolla) to carry out his plan.
Anders buys each man a lighter that is identical and they use these lighters for their criminal cohorts to recognize them.
Ander interviews each of his accomplices before he vanishes from the action and they perform the crime."Grand Slam" is predictable in the sense that the writers foreshadow the flaws in the plan too well.
Kinski is believable as the never-say-die Nazi and Robinson is brilliant as the professor.
"Grand Slam" is not without irony.
This movie contains a scene that the people who made "Entrapment" must have known about in advance because it so closely imitates the scene.
The vault scene with the infrared light beams that criss-crossed the area reminded me of "Entrapment." The quirky Ennio Morricone orchestral soundtrack enhances the plot.
Lenser Antonio Macasoli, who photographed both "Cannon for Cordoba" and "Guns of the Magnificent Seven," makes everything look impeccably cinematic, even the opening aerial shots around New York City.
The process shots of Robinson in Rio at the airport look abysmal.
Nevertheless, "Grand Slam" is an above-average perfect crime caper with more than enough suspense and surprises.