Grand Slam (DVD)

Often imitated but never surpassed, Grand Slam is a classic heist thriller starring screen greats Janet Leigh (Touch of Evil), Edward G. Robinson (Night Has a Thousand Eyes) and Klaus Kinski (For a Few Dollars More). A quiet yet cunning schoolteacher (Robinson) recruits an elite team of international criminals for the ultimate caper: robbing $10 million in diamonds from an impenetrable Rio de Janeiro vault at the frenzied peak of the city’s Carnival. The planning is meticulous. The crime must run like clockwork. But even if they can pull off the most daring theft in history, are the wildest surprises of all yet to come? Hailed by Roger Ebert as “one of the best heist movies” with a slam-bang twist ending, Grand Slam co-stars Robert Hoffmann (Wake Up and Die), Riccardo Cucciolla (Un Flic), George Rigaud (All the Colors of the Dark) and Adolfo Celi (Thunderball) with taut direction by Giuliano Montaldo (Sacco & Vanzetti) and an ultra-swinging score by the legendary Ennio Morricone (The Good, the Bad and the Ugly).