Sightlines · how to watch
How to watch How to Steal a Million
1966 · William Wyler · How to Steal a Million on Sightlines
4 things to watch and listen for on a first viewing, without spoilers, and 4 more once you have seen it. Each names something you can see or hear, the pattern it belongs to, and what noticing it gives you. How these keys work.
On a first viewing
Watch what stays in focus behind the two people talking. (camera)
Wyler holds foreground and background sharp in the same shot instead of cutting between close-ups, so a third thing in the room stays visible while two people talk.
Payoff: The one honest camera style in Hollywood is telling a story about forgers, and it never once cuts away to hide anything. In the reading: puissances du faux. The reading calls this the powers of the false: an honest, uncut image telling a story where you still cannot tell what is real.
Notice how close the forger's studio sits to the salon. (staging)
Trauner designed the Bonnet house as one wall away from itself: a public display room and, just behind it, the room where the fakes actually get made.
Payoff: Every polite conversation in this house happens one wall from the crime that pays for it. In the reading: out-of-field-relative. The reading calls the hidden studio a relative out-of-field: a space the frame never shows but constantly implies is right there.
Watch how easily O'Toole carries himself in every room. (performance)
O'Toole plays Simon relaxed and unhurried, with a slight remove from the people around him.
Payoff: His ease sets the tone for the whole comedy.
Watch Hepburn's exasperation, not just her poise. (performance)
Hepburn plays Nicole as a daughter worn down by years of covering for her father, fatigue built into the performance underneath the glamour.
Payoff: The tiredness is the tell that this is not a caper for thrills. It's a family chore she can't refuse.
The 4 rewatch keys open on this page when you choose "Seen it?".
Carry this in: Watch what's in focus behind the couple talking. Wyler never cuts away, and the honest camera still can't tell you who's lying.