England Swings: Gambit

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By the mid-60's comedy (as I said earlier) was on the decline and it took a brilliant idea to revive it: Combined the genre with mystery. One of those movies was Gambit. Released by Universal in 1966 the film was directed by Ronald Neame. Ironically, this is probably the only British movie in the 60's that was filmed in Hollywood (it was shot at the Universal sound stage in Universal City). The story begins with Harry Dean (Michael Caine) a British thief who wants to steal a very priceless sculpture and he needs someone to help him. He then chooses Nicole(Shirley MacLaine) a European girl who dresses in Asian clothing.

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Harry thinks she is the right person but looks can be deceiving.

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Herbert Lom plays Ahmad Shahbander-a Middle Eastern oilman who doesn't know he is being robbed by Dean. In case you are wondering the item that Caine's character wants to steal is a bust of Shahbander's dead wife which as he what Lom's character explains, she barred a close resemblence of Nicole.

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I saw the movie last fall and it was good.

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I heard that MacLaine chose Caine because after she saw him in The Ipcress File and not only she wanted him but the film's director Sidney Furie but he wasn't available.

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In Caine's autobiography he explained in detail of coming to Hollywood for the first time to film this movie and that included many stories like meeting John Wayne and going to Las Vegas with Frank Sinatra and daughter Nancy (around the time as he explained, he was to marry Mia Farrow). Fast fact: MacLaine's character doesn't say a line of dialogue until 25 minutes into the movie!