The Great Riviera Bank Robbery | |
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Directed by | Francis Megahy |
Produced by | Martin McKeand |
Written by | Francis Megahy Bernie Cooper |
Starring |
Ian McShane Warren Clarke Stephen Greif Christopher Malcolm |
Music by | Stanley Myers |
Cinematography | Peter Jessop |
Edited by | Arthur Solomon |
Distributed by | Incorporated Television Company |
Release date
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Running time
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102 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Budget | £364,000 |
The Great Riviera Bank Robbery, also known as Dirty Money and Sewers of Gold, is a 1979 British heist film written and directed by Francis Megahy and starring Ian McShane, Warren Clarke, Stephen Greif and Christopher Malcolm. In the film, based on a real incident in 1976, members of a neofascist group team up with professional criminals to rob the safe deposit vault of a bank in a French resort town.
Bert and Jean are members of a right-wing nationalist organisation closely connected to the Organisation armée secrète. Both are ex-military, and now find themselves on the wrong side of the law in Nice, France. Needing to raise cash to buy arms, Bert, an ex-paratrooper known as 'The Brain', devises a plan to dig their way into a bank vault.
Needing criminal expertise, they persuade some local French gangsters to join them, in return for a cut of the haul. The gangsters' interest is purely mercenary while Bert is at pains to point out that his interest is political. After several nights spent digging through a wall in a sewer, they break their way into the deposit boxes, and try to make their getaway without being caught.
A French film based on the same events, Les Egouts du Paradis, directed by Jose Giovanni, was released the same year.
The film was released on Region Two DVD in 2007.