THE DAY ‘THE THIEF’ CAME TO HOUSTON
This is the latest installment in an occasional series on movies and TV series filmed in Houston.
In 1972, the film “The Thief Who Came to Dinner,” starring then hot-property Ryan O’Neal, landed in town, bringing a splash of Hollywood with it.
The “What’s Up, Doc?” and “Love Story” actor played a gentleman cat burglar who quits his lucrative but boring job as a computer engineer to become the titular thief.
O’Neal’s character, Webster, only steals from the rich and leaves a chess move printed on a card and a game piece at the scene of each crime. He’s quickly dubbed the Chess Burglar by the press. Warren Oates also stars as an insurance investigator hot on Webster’s trail. Austin Pendleton co-stars as the chess editor at the Houston Post.
“We had complete cooperation from the city and police department,” recalls location manager Frank Marshall, who founded the film production business The Kennedy/Marshall Company in 1992. “Back then, it was an economic boost to have a movie shoot in your city and not just because of the money. It raised awareness and put the city on the map.”
Adapted from the novel by Terrence Smith, it was written by
Walter Hill (“48 Hours”) and directed by Bud Yorkin, who had made dozens of films and TV shows. Yorkin is most remembered as a partner with Norman Lear, whose Tandem Productions made some of the top-rated shows of the 1970s, including “All in the Family” and “Sanford and Son.”
Iconic Houston images
Opening scenes were set at computer labs and the parking lot of the Johnson Space Center. The Mecom Fountain on Main Street is seen in multiple shots, as is the Houston skyline.
In 1972, buildings such as One Allen Center, the Tenneco Building (now called the El Paso Energy
Building) and the ExxonMobil Building were among the tallest structures west of the Mississippi River. Those three buildings can be seen in a sequence where O’Neal and Oates are jogging along Buffalo Bayou. The crowded skyline today dwarfs those same structures.
The Wells Fargo Plaza, formerly the Allied Bank Building at 1000 Louisiana, features a character driving to the street from the building’s underground parking garage.
Another scene featuring Oates and Jill Clayburgh (in one of her first roles) starts at the stage door of the Alley Theatre and proceeds to the sidewalk along Texas Avenue. (Larisa Gawlik, the communications manager for the Alley, notes that the play being rehearsed and in performance during the time of filming was “Hadrian VII” by Peter Luke.)
When the camera faces east we see Jones Hall in the background. When the camera faces west, what was once the Albert Thomas Convention Center stands in the block now occupied by Bayou Place. The convention center was named for representative Thomas, who served for three decades in Congress and was considered the driving force behind bringing Johnson Space Center to Houston. A pan of the camera shows the entrance of the Wortham Center was just a parking lot and Jones Plaza an undeveloped grassy knoll.
The Trail Drive-In, which opened in the late 1940s with capacity for 1,000 cars, serves as a backdrop where Webster meets his fences, played by Gregory Sierra and Ned Beatty, both of
RYAN O'NEAL, FROM LEFT, NED BEATTY AND GREGORY
SIERRA STAR IN “THE THIEF WHO CAME TO DINNER.”
whom were just starting their acting careers. The drive-in was already closed and overgrown with weeds and would soon be demolished to make way for construction of Texas 288.
Another scene, where Webster meets the fences, occurs along the Houston Ship Channel.
“We timed that scene so a freighter would be passing in the background,” says Marshall. “I wanted to find locations that would establish where we were, with something iconic in the background that said Houston.”
That also includes a scene where Oates’ car breaks down with the Astrodome in the background.
Row houses vs. mansions
Marshall worked closely with production designer Polly Platt, whom he’d worked with previously on “The Last Picture Show” (also shot in Texas) and “What’s Up, Doc?”
“She was my mentor in movies, she did everything on the movie, the design, the costumes, the colors,” he said.
Another scene took place in front of the St. Vincent de Paul Catholic Church on Buffalo Speedway. Christopher Jones, 12 at the time, was an extra. He can be spotted wearing a red shirt. “My mother, sister and older brother all worked as extras. They rented my brother’s Ford Torino for a week,” says Jones.
In the first of the film’s two car chases, Webster eludes the police while downtown serves as a backdrop. O’Neal can be seen driving up the ramp from Allen’s Landing in a green Mercury Cougar.
The film’s casting director, Gary Chason, recalls how that chase ended where construction was underway for an on-ramp to Interstate 10.
“It was near to the Last Concert
Café (opened in 1949), and I’d never been there before,” said Chason.
In the movie, Webster abandons the car and jumps from an overpass onto a sand pit below, eluding the police.
Another striking shot takes place in historic Fourth Ward. A character can be seen leaving one of the row houses that characterized streets west of downtown along West Dallas Street. The restaurant at the top of the Hyatt Regency is clearly visible, lined up with the center of the road. New buildings prevent that same view today. It’s an important scene in the sense that is shows the contrast of the row houses and the mansions that Webster targets.
“There are a couple of shots that are my very first shots as a second unit director,” says Marshall.
“The first A.D. was a wonderful man named Michael D. Moore, and he became a legendary second unit director in the industry. Because of my experience with him on ‘Thief Who Came to Dinner,’ we used him as second unit director for Spielberg for ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark,’ as well as the other Indiana Jones movies.”
Shiva’s Headband
“The extras were paid $30 a day,” says Chason. He was asked to recruit a band for a large party scene of socialites .
“They wanted a country band. I didn’t know a country band, but I knew of (psychedelic rock group) Shiva’s Headband from when I lived in Austin in the 1960s,” says Chason.
Recalls the group’s leader, Spencer Perskin: “We usually wore T-shirts and cut-offs, but they gave us these shiny silver zip-up suits to wear. They said the costumes had been used on the original ‘Star Trek,’ ” Perskin’s main instrument was a violin, and the band had a few country songs in their repertoire.
Co-star Jacqueline Bisset can be seen wearing a futuristic blue outfit complete with matching headband and arm bracelet, while O’Neal sports a NASA jumpsuit. Marshall donned one of the space-themed costumes as an extra.
Gaining access to large estates was both easy and hard.
“Polly and I became friends with Ellie Fondren; she was very helpful introducing us to folks in River Oaks, but I also knocked on a lot of doors,” says Marshall.
One River Oaks location was the home of Candace Mossler, who was involved in a sordid murder trial, in which she was acquitted, that gained national press in 1965.
“We shot in her house only for one night, but I remember distinctively because she wanted more money on the night we arrived,” says Marshall. “But our lawyers said ‘You’re OK, she agreed to it and let you on her property.’ ”
A major set piece that closes the film was filmed at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston where Webster steals a large diamond. The exterior for the museum was the headquarters of the Houston Independent School District, once located at 3839 Richmond. (A Costco now sits at that address.)
Most of the shooting was at night so the museum could be open during the day. While many of the galleries are constantly reconfigured for new exhibits, Cullinan Hall — which is often used for parties and dinner events — is instantly recognizable.