Cinema: The New Pictures, Dec. 12, 1960

Big Deal on Madonna Street (Cris-taldi-Lux; U.M.P.O.), made in Italy by a little-known director named Mario Monicelli, is a mildly shaggy, fracturingly funny lecture on a subject that nobody since Buster Keaton has really done justice to: How Not To Commit A Burglary.

The burglars in this instance are as amiable a bunch of cabbages as ever put their heads together. One (Renato Salvatori) is a successful baby-carriage thief. Another (Carlo Pisacane) is an old and toothless messenger boy. The third (Marcello Mastroianni) is a no-talent photographer, the fourth (Tiberio Murgia) a fiery Sicilian...

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