MacLaine and Caine Shine in Gambit

The past few days I've been rediscovering cinematic "boyhood" favorites. One that I remembered "liking a lot" was GAMBIT, featured this month as part of a 15 film Shirley MacLaine retrospective on The Criterion Channel. As I watched, I realized  I'd forgotten pretty much everything about this movie in the half century since last I watched it. Ultimately, it was liking watching a completely new movie.  But  oh, what a fun movie it was!

Everything about GAMBIT sparkles, most of all the 32 year old MacLaine. She and Michael Caine (33) are an ideally mismatched team in Ronald Neames' madcap comic adventure.

Art thief Harry Tristan Dean (Caine) finds himself in a Hong Kong nightclub, his eye on mysterious showgirl, Nicole Chang (MacLaine) and hatching a plan of sheer genius; she's going to aid him in stealing a priceless 3,000 year old bust of a Chinese Empress in the possession of Shahbandar (Herbert Lom in a brilliant turn as a Middle Eastern Billionaire), the richest man in the world. Shahbandar spent untold millions for the bust, since  his beloved deceased wife was the spitting image of the Empress. 

The first half hour of the movie we see, through Harry's imagination, his master plan in action, with the silent Nicole looking every inch a goddess/empress and the reincarnation of the Empress. MacLaine - who is seen in the first frame of the film, as the camera follows her through the Hong Kong streets to the club - speaks not a single syllable for in these thirty minutes. In fact, she doesn't even sing along with the showgirls during the big routine. She is perfection. 

Finally, Harry goes to introduce himself to Nicole to make her the proverbial offer she can't refuse.  He is quickly shocked by Nicole's real personality; she's not the regal, mysterious woman he imagined, at all, but rather a wisecracking, mouthy, will never shut up, annoying (but oh, so charming) working girl. 

Regardless, Harry decides to proceed with his "foolproof" plan. Upon arriving in the Middle Eastern country of Dammuz (created just for the film) his plan begins unraveling and everything that could possibly go wrong . . . does. In major ways. 

Maurice Jarr does his usual excellent job scoring the film with a  hodgepodge of international flavors, exoticism and tension. 

Today, the movie can be seen as problematic, on a number of frongs, beginning with MacLaine as an Amerasian/French-Canadian showgirl, and reincarnation of a Chinese princess. a Czech actor playing a Middle Eastern billioniare from a fictional Middle Eastern land, and so on. If, like me, none of that matters a whit, I can't think of a more fun, charming, hybrid heist adventure , comedy than GAMBIT.