Tunneling to Nowhere

With Zero Mostel, and a wildly improbable storyline, The Great Bank Robbery seems all set to snipe away at an inviting target--the standard western heist. Unfortunately, amid leathery gags and uninspired parody, the guns jam early and often.

Burrowing parallel tunnels toward an otherwise unassailable bank are a band of crooks disguised as robed members of the Church of the Cosmic Heart and a group of Chinese-American T-men impersonating Chinese laundrymen. The crooks want the bank's liquid assets; the agents want proof that the bank's president has been stashing swag for outlaws. Who will get there first?

As the bogus preacher, Mostel, who has been long applauded as a light-heavy with all the graceful moves of a bantamweight, is restrained from dipping into his repertoire much beyond an occasional grimace and a few eye-pops. His performance is perfunctory; he may well have been bored. Kim Novak, one of his seedy band, wearily remarks of herself at the outset: "Sister Lyda's ass is draggin." Indeed, she bestirs herself only for the strategic seduction of Clint Walker, who has no trouble at all playing an oafish, one-dimensional Ranger. Despite The Great Bank Robbery's pretentious effort, the genuinely amusing western remains an elusive specimen.

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