The original 'Italian Job' featured a memorable car chase with Mini Cooper racers (also featured prominently in 'The Bourne Identity') during a huge, fabricated traffic jam. The new film's producers had 31 production versions of BMW Mini Coopers on set, although you'll only see three of them racing through the streets of Los Angeles.

"What we're doing is keeping the Minis, the character names -- that whole aspect of having a fun ride is still completely in there -- but the story and the motivation and why all of this is taking place is for completely different reasons," Charlize explains. "When you're doing a remake, especially something like this that is such a cult classic in Europe, it's nice to give people the elements they loved in the original but then spice it up with something that they don't expect."

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The car chase in the original 'Italian Job' was voted the 17th coolest movie moment of all time by Empire magazine.

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Also featured in the cast are Donald Sutherland, Mos Def ('Showtime'), Jason Statham ('The Transporter') and Seth Green, many of whom do the driving stunts themselves. "Charlize and Mos and Mark and Jason," says Seth, "they've all learned how to do emergency brake slides and controlled 360's -- those cars are fun."

"I always drive barefoot," the South-African born actress explains while driving in a cherry-red Mini in her flip-flops; "It's just a thing with me, even when I was rehearsing and learning how to drive, they all laughed at me. I live in flip-flops -- my feet don't really like to be confined in anything. I feel safer when I can feel my feet are on top of the pedals and not underneath."

The Italian Job (1968)

Director: Peter Collinson
Starring: Michael Caine, Noel Coward, Benny Hill, Robert Powell
Screenwriter: Troy Kennedy Martin
Running Time: 96mins
UK Certificate: PG
MPAA Rating: G
Rating: 10 out of 10

A perennial favourite on the Best British Films of All Time lists, The Italian Job was not, surprisingly, a hit on release. A poor marketing campaign and international indifference killed it dead. But the small screen proved to be the perfect medium for its steady climb from quirky unknown to much-loved classic. Indeed, it's a film ideally suited to DVD and video, as it has an absurdly high classic moment rate, which will have you reaching for the remote to watch again and again.

Producer Michael Deeley calls it "the first eurosceptic film" and it wears its Rule Britannia heart firmly on its sleeve, from the royalist attitudes of Mr Bridger to the iconoclastic red, white and blue minis (the film's producers were offered massive inducements by Fiat to use Italian cars, but felt that it could only ever be Minis).

As for plot, you can tick all the boxes, as every heist movie staple is represented here. Criminal mastermind Mr Bridger (Coward) is treated like royalty, despite being in prison (very much like Grouty in Porridge) and is approached by former inmate Charlie Croker (a perfectly cast Caine) to back a scheme to steal $4,000,000 in gold from Fiat. This involves an ingenious rigging of the Turin traffic computer to cause the world's largest traffic jam and then the infamous getaway through the alleys, lanes and sewers.

There's an abundance of fast cars ("Is this your car? Pretty car."), the most inept training sessions ever held (the "doors off" scene) and the most quotable dialogue ever. The supporting cast is like a who's who of British comedy: Benny Hill, as the computer boffin who has a troublesome passion for larger women ("Are they big? I like 'em big."), Irene Handl as his sister, John LeMesurier as the prison governer, Sir Harry Secombe as a guard, Robert Powell as one of Charlie's gang, the list goes on...

As Eddie Izzard says, "If you haven't seen the Italian Job, then you probably haven't lived."

Trivia

The car chase is officially the 17th coolest movie moment of all time (according to Empire magazine, May 1999).

Peter Collinson's widow, Hazel, cameos in the scene where the Mafia are having dinner. She's the blonde at the head of the table to Raf Vallone's left. She remembers him as being gorgeous and a terrible flirt.

Coward was so ill that his triumphant Rule Britannia scene had to be filmed in stages, as he could not walk more than few feet at a time.

The prison scenes were filmed at the former site of Mountjoy Prison in Ireland, now a museum, but which had been used as a detention centre for Irish political prisoners prior to independence from Britain. (There is still a working Mountjoy Prison, but it's not the same place). When Charlie's gang discuss their plans in London, they used an office which was downstairs form the home of one Jeffrey Archer, who is also familiar with working prisons.

Theme tune "Get A Bloomin' Move On" (better known as the Self Preservation Society) has now been used in many adverts, including Natwest mortgages and Sainsbury's Blue Parrot kiddies' range.

Film tributes include the Stereophonics video for "Pick a Part That's New", in which they have red, white and green minis, as befits their Welsh nationhood (see screengrabs here), and Kronenbourg 1664, who have redone the church steps scene with red, white and blue Citroen 2CVs.

Links

Italian Job Game now available for PlayStation PS2, XBOX and GAMECUBE consoles.

IMDb: Internet Movie Database entry for The Italian Job.

Fantastic little Italian Job site, packed with images and sounds.

The Self-Preservation Society - excellent UK fan site for the iconic film.

Actor John Clive, who played the garage owner ("You must have shot an awful lot of tigers, sir") has his own website at johnclive.net.

There are two excellent Noel Coward sites: NoelCoward.net and Shari Reese's Sir Noel Coward Page.

Hugely popular in the US, you can get the bare details on the man also known as Ernie, the Fastest Milkman in the West at BennyHill.com.

GameKult - This French language site has a wealth of information on the Italian Job game for Playstation and PC. Highlights include over 100 screenshots and technical drawings, as well as a chance to see the game in action via their "voir la video" facility, which even pre-selects which viewing format best suits your machine.

If you're a Mini owner, you might be interested in ItalianJob.com, the website of the annual rally to Italy which raises money for children's charities.

Steve Dix's Italian Job site hasn't been updated in some time, but it has plenty of sounds and information on the film and the rally.