Once a Thief is a 1965 crime film directed by Ralph Nelson, starring Alain Delon, Ann-Margret, Van Heflin, and Jack Palance.
San Francisco. The film opens with two hoodlums breaking into a convenience store in Chinatown and forcing the woman proprietor to empty the register. One, whose face isn't clearly shown but who wears a sheepskin coat, then shoots her to death. They drive away in a Model A Ford.
Cut to Eddie Pedak (Delon), who drives a Model A Ford and wears a sheepskin coat. Eddie is married to a loving and affectionate wife, Kristine (Ann-Margret; Eddie and Kristine may be the most attractive couple of all time), and they have a little daughter, Kathy. Eddie is an ex-convict but he is trying to go straight, and has gotten a job as a truck driver for a company that makes platinum wire.
Eddie has a big problem in the person of Mike Vido (Heflin), a police detective. Vido, who was shot in the gut in a robbery some time ago, is convinced that Eddie was the one who shot him (he only saw the man's eyes as he was wearing a mask). He has made it his mission in life to put Eddie back behind bars. He arrests Eddie for the murder of the shopkeeper but when her husband fails to identify him, Vido is forced to let Eddie go. However the arrest leads to Eddie losing his job, a terrible setback for his little family.
Eddie has a second problem, namely, his big brother Walter (Palance). Walter and his mooks Sargatanas and Shoenstein are a little criminal gang. Walter wants Eddie to take up a life of crime again, and specifically he wants Eddie to help them rob the platinum wire company where Eddie used to work.
Alain Delon's first Hollywood film. Not to be confused with the 1991 John Woo film, the 1996 Canadian TV series Once a Thief, or the 1950 film noir starring Cesar Romero.
Tropes:
- Almost Dead Guy: Eddie goes to the rendezvous to find Mike sitting in a chair with Blood from the Mouth, and a note pinned to his coat from Sargatanas telling Eddie to wait there. Mike manages to get up on his feet before he falls to the floor and dies.
- Asian Store-Owner: A husband and wife who together run a convenience store in Chinatown. The wife is murdered by two bandits, but the husband says Eddie isn't the guy.
- Call-Back: In an early scene Eddie was lying down on the fishing boat when little Kathy closes his eyes, just like how her doll's eyes close when she puts it down. In the end Eddie has died with his eyes open on the pier when Kathy, who thinks it's a game, closes his eyes again.
- Dies Wide Open: How Eddie dies, on the pier at Fisherman's Wharf, after Vido's partner shoots him.
- Downer Ending: Eddie is killed in the shootout, and the film ends with a sobbing Kristine leading their daughter away.
- Drowning My Sorrows: Eddie gets good and drunk after a parade of failed job applications ends with him getting rejected for unemployment benefits because his boss at the wire company incorrectly reported that Eddie quit rather than Eddie got fired. Eddie's binge is followed by him going to the nightclub where Kristine is working as a waitress and violently yanking her out of there.
- Dutch Angle: A variation on this, as the camera image is regularly being pulled and distorted at the corners, during the scene where the two men are robbing the store and murdering the store owner.
- The Film of the Book: Screenwriter Zekial Marco adapted his own 1961 novel Scratch a Thief (published under the pen name John Trinian).
- Four Eyes, Zero Soul: Sartaganas's reptilian creepiness is reinforced by his habit of almost always wearing sunglasses, even when he's indoors.
- Glasses Pull: Sargatanas wears his sunglasses indoors until the scene where Mike reveals that he is planning a million-dollar robbery, which causes him to pull his glasses down his nose and reveal his eyes for the first time.
- Greaser Delinquents: Some stereotypical greasers—leather jackets, slicked-back hair, generally shifty attitude—provide background color by always hanging out on the front stoop of Eddie's apartment building.
- Gun Struggle: The struggle between Eddie and Sargatanas ends with Sargatanas getting shot in the chest. Unusually for this trope, Eddie pumps three more bullets into Sartaganas after winning the Gun Struggle.
- Hiding Behind the Language Barrier: As it turns out, Vido is an immigrant from Italy just like Eddie. Vido lives with his elderly mom, who doesn't speak English. So Vido nods towards Eddie's hidden gun and says in English "Would you mind not blasting me while my mother's in the room?", and they continue their conversation in English, all the while smiling and nodding politely to Vido's mom.
- Inspector Javert: Vido is monomanically devoted to putting Eddie in prison. He seemingly arrests Eddie whenever anyone even vaguely matching Eddie's description commits a crime. He wears the bullet taken out of his gut on a chain around his neck. As it turns out, Eddie did shoot Vido several years ago, but he's been trying to live the straight life since, and he wasn't involved in the murder at the grocery store. Vido's habit of arresting Eddie on a regular basis had caused Eddie to lose several jobs.
- Ironic Echo: Eddie defiantly asks "You got a warrant?" when Vido shows up at his apartment. Later, when Eddie has appeared at Vido's house wielding a gun, Vido says the same back to him.
- Lingerie Scene: Ann-Margret wears a slip in multiple scenes in the apartment, as well as a skimpy negligee while Kristine serves drinks at what appears to be a Bikini Bar.
- No Honor Among Thieves: Sargatanas winds up murdering everyone involved in the heist one at a time except for Eddie, as he tries to get the million dollars for himself.
- One Last Job: Mike says "This is the last job I'm gonna do," telling Eddie that he's going to take his cut of the million dollars and go to Italy. It works out about as well as one last jobs usually do, as everybody dies.
- Pietà Plagiarism: The Asian Store-Owner cradles the body of his wife after she's murdered by armed robbers.
- Would Hit a Girl: Eddie slaps Kristine across the face after he goes to the bar where she's waitressing and finds her wearing a glorified negligee as her uniform.
