Mark Kermode’s Secrets of Cinema TV - Storyville: Smash & Grab: The Story of the Pink Panthers TV - Argentina p1 - Australia p1 - Austria p1 - Belgium p2 - Canada p3 - Caribbean p3 - France p3 - Germany p5 - Ireland p6 - Israel p6 - Italy p6 - Norway p7 - Peru p7 - Russia p7 - South Africa p7 - Spain p7 - Sweden p9 - Switzerland p9 - Turkey p9
It was the bank that couldn’t be robbed, the vault that couldn’t be opened, the security system that couldn’t be hacked. Until they came on to the scene: a crack team assembled by a mastermind, each one a specialist in the field, a master of their chosen art. Mark Kermode’s Secrets of Cinema II: The Heist, BBC 2018
Getting away with it was only half the job; keeping it together was something else. ibid.
The Asphalt Jungle … Dead Presidents … The League of Gentlemen … Ocean’s Eleven … Rififi … Reservoir Dogs … Sexy Beast … Quick Change … Double Indemnity … Bound … Angel Face … Set It Off … Ocean’s Eight … The Italian Job … Inception … That Sinking Feeling … The Big Short … The Wolf of Wall Street … Point Break … Heat … Infernal Affairs … Mission Impossible … The Wrong Trousers … Entrapment … The Great Train Robbery … The Killing … Baby Driver … Good Time … Dog Day Afternoon … The Driver … The French Connection … Night Moves … ibid.
This is the story of the world’s most successful diamond thieves. Storyville: Smash and Grab – The Story of the Pink Panthers, BBC 2013
‘Big and exclusive heists, mostly in Europe ... Bahrain, they went to Japan, they went to Dubai.’ ibid. female rozzer
‘And then finally we had the idea – just hire the shop next door.’ ibid. male gangsta
‘They have committed over 100 robberies around the world and so far eluded capture.’ ibid. news report
The total brought to justice is now 189. ibid. caption
ARGENTINA: Art of the Heist TV -
Argentina was ruled by a ruthless military junta. When the biggest art theft in the nation’s history occurred. Impressionist paintings by some of France’s most famous artists were stolen. For more than twenty years the paintings ... vanished. The hunt for the paintings covered three countries, and was finally resolved in a courtroom in Paris. Art of the Heist s2e7: The Disappeared
AUSTRALIA: Australian Families of Crime TV - Robbery Under Arms 1958 -
Victoria Club Melbourne April 21 1976: Inside the Victoria Club in Queen’s Street, Melbourne, bookmakers and punters are meeting to pay off bets ... Security guards are delivering millions of dollars in cash. Australian Families of Crime s1e5: Dockers and Death, Nine Network 2010 -
The Great Bookie Robbery was Australia’s largest single hold-up. ibid.
First in line for his cut – Les Kane – a member of the notorious Painters and Dockers Union whose reign over the Melbourne underground was at its peak in the 1970s. ibid.
Australia 1865: vast, empty, lonely – a land the size of Europe, a land where gold was to be found. Robbery Under Arms 1958 starring Peter Finch & Ronald Lewis & Jill Ireland & Laurence Naismith & David McCallum & Maureen Swanson & Vincent Ball et al, director Jack Lee
AUSTRIA: Art of the Heist TV -
It was perhaps the biggest art heist of all time. Countless millions of dollars of the finest European art simply seized by the Nazis … Among the booty was one of the most extraordinary paintings of the 20th century owned by a wealthy Jewish industrialist. It was a portrait of a woman be Austrian artist Gustav Klimt. For sixty years the painting’s owners fought to get it back. The battle took them to the American Supreme Court. Art of the Heist s2e1: The Lady in Gold
Gustav Klimt painted Adele Bloch-Bauer in 1907. ibid.
The case had attracted media interest from around the world. ibid.
The Klimts were going up for auction. ibid.
In January 2006 Austrian police began a search of a wooded area outside Vienna. It was a strange place to look for a salt-cellar but it was no ordinary salt-cellar they were seeking, but a solid gold one by Benvenuto Cellini, more than three hundred years old ... worth about £30,000,000 and stolen from Vienna’s History of Art Museum. The thief had been toying with the police sending them anonymous letters and leading them on a treasure hunt with written clues along the way. For three years the audacious thief led the police on a wild goose chase playing hunt the salt-cellar. Art of the Heist s2e5: The Thieving Don Juan
On the seventh floor they found chaos: a window had been broken from the outside. In the centre of the room a glass cabinet had been broken, and it was empty. ibid.
Valued for insurance today at $65,000,000. ibid.
The sculpture was unique, and uniquely important. ibid.