The Great Riviera Bank Robbery

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The Great Riviera Bank Robbery (1979), is a motion picture written and directed by Francis Megahy. Main actors Ian McShane, Warren Clarke, Stephen Greif, and Christopher Malcolm.

[edit] Plot Synopsis

Following description taken from video release from 1981

Strongly committed to the ideals of a French right wing alliance with links in high places all over the world, Bert (Ian McShane) conceives of a brilliant plan to obtain finances to buy arms in the cause of an eventual political take-over.

The scene is Nice, playground of the rich and indolent. Over a long weekend the vault of a particular bank will be stuffed with francs. And Bert knows a way in.....through a labyrinthine sewer system, a map of which he has obtained from a contact in the town hall.

With colleagues from former fighting days in Indo-China and Algeria, Jean (Warren Clarke) and Serge (Christopher Malcolm), Bert reluctantly has to recruit a band of professional criminals to assist in the robbery. The dangerous elements of crime and passionate politics make for uneasy bedfellows..........The criminals look on the job as merely a passport to money and the good life; they cannot understand Bert's ideological approach summed up as 'without arms....without hatred.....without violence'.

As the job is planned with meticulous and flawless detail, the personality clashes between the two factions become more and more defined.

But the heist goes perfectly and Bert finds more money than he ever dreamed of. There's fifteen million dollars: the biggest bank job in the world.

Though the police are completely baffled at first, the criminal members of the robbery team are soon throwing their money around with reckless abandon. As they are caught one by one, Bert manages to avoid capture but in the end he, too, is cornered.

Even so, he might still be able to offer the police a deal.

[edit] Miscellanea

Two movies were made at the same time that both dealt with the same subject -- a true life event of ex-firebrands using the sewers to rob a bank.

The French version, made by Jose Giovanni, {"Les Egouts du Paradis" = Sewers of Paradise) kept the hero's real name but is rather listless. The "hero" becomes a nice guy, some kind of Arsene Lupin, who visits the old ladies in the hospital.

The English version, which features a better lead (Ian McShane billed as "Brain") and a more honest approach. The characters are fascists (anti communist) and their paramilitary activities are not passed over in silence -- in the French attempt, all they show is weapons in the thieves' den in the country. When they left the vault, a parting message was written on the wall, which said; "we came with no malice; but went in peace".