n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Any semi-serious movie buff or even casual viewer should be able to see that this film practically screams "Coen Brothers," 30 years before their time. The creepy blond character in "Fargo" is a dead ringer for the creepy blond bad guy in "Once a Thief," right down to the hairstyle. And the general ambiance of many scenes, as well as the ironic plot twists near the end, indicate that this movie was a big influence on the Coen bros, and to some extent, "where they went to school." It should also be noted that though this is film noir, it's also "hip" film noir, a rare breed that includes Larry Moyer's "The Moving Finger" and precious few others of the time. In fact, both these movies were too hip for their time.

I suppose I like the cast better than the film, itself. Heflin, Palance, Ann-Margret, Chandler, and Delon are all watchable. This may very well be Chandler's finest performance (and he was always good at playing bad guys). The story is one we've all seen before, many times, yet the cast makes it worth watching. Ann-Margret might not have been as good as she could have been, but she's not really that bad. Even the scenes involving the little girl work well, and the chemistry between she and Delon is exceptional. The surprise ending is tense and exciting. Too bad there's no DVD of this film. I'd buy it.Johnboy

The beginning of this picture, from the jazzy opening credits and into the next reel or so, is rather engaging. At its best, it is stylish in that French New Wave Meets American Beatnik kind of way, frequent in popular culture of the time. The dialogue is peppered with hepcat slang and frank references to narcoticsand so-called "deviant" sexuality. This is daring stuff for a 1965 release from MGM. Beautiful widescreen black-and-white photography from Robert Burks,who had by then done several Hitchcock films. The steady hand of directorRalph Nelson keeps the picture moving, often punctuated by moments ofunexpected brutality. PC this is not! The story itself is popcorn stuff, perhaps best not explored too deeply, but a great cast helps to enliven the material. Bytoday's standards, the character played by Ann-Margret would never bedepicted in such a fashion as seen here. (At one point, she apologizes afterbeing slapped around.) But hey, she's under the seductive spell of Alain Delon, a Frenchman playing an Italian. No, it's not "The Asphalt Jungle". Neither is it a total waste of time, as it's often described as being. It's a good example of a mid- '60s studio potboiler, capably and professionally (and sometimes artfully)handled by all parties concerned. If your bag lies elsewhere, go on and fetch it, then. I'm rewinding the tape so I'll be ready to watch "Once a Thief" again soon.

Even when it was first released ONCE A THIEF was one of those movies whose cack-handed attempts at hip-ness doomed it to be badly dated within a few years of its release. The opening scene, over which the credits stutter and blink, is set in a jazz nightclub in which a black musician plays a manic drum solo. We are made privy to snatches of conversation that bear no relevance to the plot, held between characters that are never seen again. In many ways this jarring opening sequence is all too symptomatic of the film failings as a whole. The narrative falters badly as an already thin plot is stretched to breaking point to fill 105 minutes of screen time. It's inevitable, therefore, that the story becomes hopelessly bogged down and tedious. Characters such as Luke, Eddie Pedak's (Delon) jailbird buddy (played by screenwriter Zekial Marko) serve little purpose other than to pad out the running time and provide ‘symbolic' signposts to anti-hero Eddie Pedak's downfall and (partial) redemption. Pedak himself is not particularly likeable: he sulks, yells at his small daughter, and repeatedly assaults his wife when the going gets tough. Director Nelson seems to be trying to combine ‘gritty' noir with domestic drama, a strange marriage for anyone to enter into, and ends up making a total hash of both. To be fair, his efforts aren't assisted by an amateurish performance from poor Ann-Margret who is hopelessly out of her depth, her big emotional scene (when hubby Delon returns to a life of crime) is truly excruciating to watch. Alain Delon also struggles to do justice to a dramatic role that proves too complex for his heavily accented English. There are a couple of jewels in the mud, however. The employment office scene holds up well, and John Davis Chandler is agreeably chilling as Sargatanas, possible paedophile and albino henchman to Jack Palance, Pedak's criminal brother. Palance, too, puts in a typically professional performance. Unfortunately, such rare highlights are not enough to hold the viewer's interest, and the movie labours towards its inevitable conclusion with minimal style and zero substance. It is all too sad and obvious from this effort why Nelson, who once showed so much promise (check out REQUIEM FOR A HEAVYWEIGHT and FATE IS THE HUNTER), ended his career directing TV movies.