Movie Review - The Boy Who Stole a Million (1960) a boy takes money from a bank and finds himself being chased across Valencia by the police, crooks and his worried father Movie Review

The Boy Who Stole a Million (1960)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Maurice Reyna in The Boy Who Stole a Million (1960)

The Valencia Job

Its fiesta time and that means there will be a lot of business for Paco's (Maurice Reyna) father Miguel (Virgilio Teixeira), a taxi driver in Valencia. Trouble is when his taxi breaks down the mechanic did this and that and the bill is much to steep for Miguel to pay. Paco, who works as a runner for the town's bank, decides to borrow some money so that his father can pay the mechanic and earn the money back so that he can replace it. Trouble is that not only does an employee of the bank discover that some money has gone missing and calls in the police but various crooked individuals learn about Paco and the money he has on him leading to them trying to find him also. Meanwhile Miguel having met with the police goes searching for his son as well with the help of the mechanic and a lady from a bar.

As an adult watching "The Boy Who Stole a Million" two things came to mind; one of those is I wonder whether at the end of all this Paco will learn his lesson when it comes to borrowing money without asking. The other was how some things don't really change and whilst this movie was shot in Valencia, Spain and released in 1960 I am sure I saw an updated version or at least some thing similar in the 80s when truth be told I would have been roughly the right age for this sort of simple entertainment.

And simple "The Boy Who Stole a Million" well and truly is as after a set up which sees Paco "borrowing" the money to help his father, having pointed out how unfair it is that those who need money can't borrow any, what we get is pretty much hour long chase. We have Paco slipping away from cops whilst the criminals in Valencia, having learned he has a million Pesetas, are searching high and low for him. There is some humour to some of this be it exasperated civilians getting angry at the police to the way the criminals have a network of people keeping an eyes out for Paco across the capital. But truth be told there is little in "The Boy Who Stole a Million" which will take you by surprise although some will enjoy the old footage of Valencia from way back and the cinematography is in fact quite nice with definitely some style about it.

What this all boils down to is that "The Boy Who Stole a Million" is a movie which in truth is most likely going to entertain those who saw it back in 1960 when it was released. But technically there is nothing wrong with it and has a nice little innocent vibe to it as well as a nice look.


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