Image copyright © by Marcus Trahan

The Light Touch

(1951)

I’m on record as being a big fan of movies about con games or heists. This one is about a plan to steal a famous picture and then sell a copy to a very rich buyer … or something like that. I didn’t really get all of it because there was a problem. It just didn’t really click. There was something missing, some element that should have pulled me in. Damn me if I know what it was, but it just wasn’t working, despite a pretty good cast of Stewart Grainger, George Sanders (who can never utter a sentence without sounding ironic and rather bored) and Pier Angeli, music by Miklós Rózsa, and a screenplay by Richard Brooks who would go on to win an Oscar for In Cold Blood. I dunno. It all sounds like something I ought to like, but we bailed out after about half an hour. Maybe it was just not a good day. I might try it again sometime.