Simon Taylor Full throttle
When it was released in 1969 The Italian Job lost money, and it didn’t start its slow climb into culthood until the 1980s. But according to its star Michael Caine: “It encapsulates the 1960s – the cars, the fashion, the fun and the optimistic attitude that was in the air.” Now it’s one of the most famous films in the English language.
Its 50th anniversary was celebrated at a private showing at the Curzon Cinema in London, attended by some of the people who created it half a century ago. Its producer Michael Deeley, now a sparkling 87, flew in from Los Angeles. Sadly Peter Collinson, its fiery and hugely talented director, died of cancer at 44, but his glamorous widow Hazel was there.
Another guest was David Salamone, the stuntman who drove the red Mini in the film and sourced all of the cars via his father’s garage, Blenheim Motors of St John’s Wood. Dave and I raced karts in the early ’60s, and I hadn’t seen him for 56 years. (He was quick, and I usually only saw him when he lapped me.)
Among the scores of cars used in the film were two Aston Martin DB4 Convertibles. Salamone bought the one that would go over the cliff – “it was a dog” – for £700. They put a bomb in it that was meant to trigger when it was cartwheeling down the mountainside, but it went off prematurely and the Aston was burned out while still at the top. Overnight, Salamone scoured Turin and found a Lancia Flaminia Convertible that was the same colour, and it was bodged up with Fablon to make it look a bit like an Aston. You have to freeze the film as it hurtles into the ravine to tell the difference.
The Miura was two cars, too. The factory lent a new one and found a written-off wreck. Look carefully and you’ll see as it disintegrates on its way down that it has no engine. It’s not clear how many Minis the film used in all, but the sequence at the end when the three were disposed of destroyed 12 cars before the shots were right.
The three red, white and blue ‘heroes’ were Cooper ‘S’s, stripped out inside, with Minilites and big sump-guards. The extreme stunts, such as the leap from one Fiat factory roof to another, were done by Rémy Julienne’s French team and had to be minutely planned. In the sequence in the sewer, the Minis were meant to do a complete vertical circle, but Julienne tried it three times and each time the car dropped onto its roof. The
coach haring up and down the mountains was driven by an everyday bus driver, Fred Toms. Metal sheets were laid on the hairpins and sprayed with oil to get it into six-wheel drifts.
The Curzon evening was hosted by Swissbased top-end dealer Simon Kidston. Outside were parked the actual DB4 Convertible – the one that wasn’t bombed, now restored – plus a Mini and a Giulia police car with blue light and siren. Simon himself looked elegant in a suit he’d had made for the occasion, exactly like the Doug Hayward clobber worn by Caine in the film.
The evening also introduced us to a brilliant new book by film historian Matthew Field. The Self Preservation Society covers every aspect of the film in detail, all the people involved, how it all came together, what went wrong and what went right. Most of the anecdotes are told by the actors and crew themselves, with fascinating behind-the-scenes photographs. We’re told how all the cars, plus the bus, were used and what happened to them afterwards.
In these computerised days, the spectacular stunts we see on film and TV are almost entirely artificially generated. Next time you watch The Italian Job, remember that CGI hadn’t been invented. Every one of those brave stunts really happened – and no rollcages. As Sir Michael says, the 1960s was a time of fun and optimism.
‘The bomb was meant to trigger when the DB4 was cartwheeling down the mountainside, but it went off prematurely’