1974 - 11 HARROWHOUSE, a decent to good crime caper film

 This is the followup film for Charles Grodin after his success in The Heartbreak Kid.  11 Harrowhouse is the kind of lightweight comedy thriller that can be difficult to pull off and in this case that seems to be the problem at times.  Grodin plays a low level merchant who develops a plan to pull off a major diamond heist from a company called 11 Harrowhouse.  We are in Rififi territory here with an elaborate heist, split second timing and all the usual tropes of this genre.

Grodin is assisted by his spectacularly gorgeous girlfriend Candice Bergen.  James Mason in an excellent  performance is the low level employee who is the inside man helping Grodin with the heist.  John Gielgud is the the hiss-able bad guy running 11 Harrowhouse, and Trevor Howard in a rather flamboyant performance is the rich man financing Grodin's big caper.  This is a pretty good cast.

This should have been Grodin's big break as an actor, no one knew how to deliverer one liners like him.  However the film apparently tested badly with audiences. Grodin or someone got the inspired idea to add a narration which runs throughout the film.  This device works for about half the film but then becomes kind of tiresome.

 

Overall the film is entertaining with this cast and some of the action elements this is a very good  crime caper.

The film was written by Jeffrey Bloom with Charles Grodin taking an adaptation credit, (probably the narration).  The running time is 95 minutes.