Old School RomCom

Movies like this one remind me of my elementary school principle, Mrs. Azzara, who used to say, "An oldie but goodie!"

Yesterday evening I caught How to Steal a Million on one of the movie channels. I love older movies and this is one of my favorites. In fact, it's my favorite heist movie. If you've never had a chance to watch it, Netflix it or something because it's a good one. It's a comedy with Audrey Hepburn and Peter O'Toole set in Paris. Hepburn plays Nicole Bonnet, daughter of a master art forger and O'Toole plays Simon Dermott, a character that Nicole catches in her house one night carrying one of her father's paintings, a forgery, of course.

The basic storyline runs like this: After Nicole catches Simon, she shoots him in the arm and then drives him home because she can't call the police knowing they don't have any real paintings to report or have investigated. Meanwhile, Nicole's father has loaned a work to a museum. All good fun until they learn the museum is about the put it through a proper test. So in order to keep her father from going to jail and herself from having to exile to America to avoid scandle, Nicole enlists her burgalar, Simon, to help her steal back the loaned sculpture. Simon, the master thief that he is, agrees to help.

The best part of the whole movie however, is when Simon confesses to Nicole that he knows they're stealing a forgery. Nicole is flumaxed as to why Simon, clearly a master thief, would help her steal a forgery until he tells her that he loves her. He then, of course, kisses her passionately. This whole scene, incendentally, occurs in the broom closet of the museum while they wait for their plan to go into action. Cozy.

The next best part occurs when Simon confesses that he is not, in fact, a master thief. He is however, a master investigator of forgers. He was breaking into Nicole's house in the beginning of the movie to inspect one of her father's paintings when she caught him red handed and mistook him for a thief. Only, you, as a viewer, have done the same thing. It makes it that much more fun and delicious. It's just like when Simon is looking at the sculpture, a copy of Cellini's Venus, and starts to notice a resemblance between Venus and Nicole and he asks, "Say, just where were you in the early 16th century?" She responds, "I don't know but I wasn't dressed like that!" (Venus has a piece of cloth covering her hoo-ha but that's about it) The story line is so unbelievable but lovable at the same time that you can't help but want to keep watching. O'Toole plays his character so beautifully it makes you want him to want you instead of Nicole Bonnet.

It's a romantic ideal I know, but after watching a movie like this one, a girl can't help but wish for a man like Simon Dermott. It's the same thing that happens to me after Philadelphia Story and Meet Joe Black. Obviously there are some definite negatives to each of those love stories that make them less than ideal were they reality, but for the brief moment that is a movie script, they seem perfect. They ellicit the Mr. Darcy sigh. That same sigh I breath every time I finish P&P.

I know, a very cliche blog, but perhaps a little dose every now and again is healthy.

"Run mad as often as you choose, but do not faint!" Jane Austen