Grand Slam (1967 film)

Plot

A seemingly mild-mannered teacher, Professor James Anders (Robinson), is an American working in Rio de Janeiro. Bored with years of teaching, Anders retires and sets about putting together a team to pull off a diamond heist during the Rio Carnival in Brazil.

With the aid of a youthful friend, now a successful criminal, Anders recruits a team of four international experts to carry out the robbery: an English safe-cracking specialist, an Italian mechanical and electronics genius, a French playboy (whose job it is to seduce the only woman with a key to the building holding the diamonds, the lovely Mary Ann), and a German ex-military man (at the end of the movie it will become clear that Anders' young friend had ordered the German to kill the other members of the team after the job is finished).

The team develops a series of mechanical devices to defeat the layers of protection built within the building in which the diamonds are stored, which also comprises a new "Grand Slam 70" safe system: an alarm triggered by any sound detected near the safe room. Lasers crisscross the entry corridor, and a sensitive microphone listens for sounds while the safe and its environs are secured.

The team successfully enters the safe using a pneumatic trestle to bypass the lasers by crawling over them, and using shaving cream to dampen their sounds. However, the following day the police are alerted by Mary Ann, who has found that the safe key had been temporarily taken, and all the 4 members of the team are killed during their escape.

Anders ends up with the diamonds in a small letters case, sitting in an outdoor cafe...but loses them in the film's last scene to a thief on a motorcycle.

Cast