Main Cast: Ryan O'Neal, Jacqueline Bisset, Warren Oates, Jill Clayburgh, Charles Cioffi
Release Year: 1973
Country: US
Run Time: 105 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG
Plot
Bud Yorkin directed this middling comedy, written by Walter Hill from a novel by Terrence Lore Smith. Ryan O'Neal plays a computer expert named Webster, who alleviates on-the-job doldrums by moonlighting as a successful jewel thief. Webster invites himself to upscale soirees, where he cases out the location and proceeds with his heists. During his adventures, he meets up with Laura (Jacqueline Bisset), a high society woman who teams up with Webster to assist on his heists. Gradually the two fall in love. However, it's not all easy going, since an insurance detective (Warren Oates) suspects that Webster is the jewel thief but he has no proof ... yet. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
D. Michael Moore - First Assistant Director, Bud Yorkin - Director, John C. Horger - Editor, Henry Mancini - Composer (Music Score), Fred Williams - Makeup, Polly Platt - Production Designer, Philip H. Lathrop - Cinematographer, Bud Yorkin - Producer, Audrey Blasdel-Goddard - Set Designer, Tom Overton - Sound/Sound Designer, Arthur Piantadosi - Sound/Sound Designer, Walter Hill - Screenwriter, Terrence Lore Smith - Book Author
Webster McGee (Ryan O'Neal) is a computerprogrammer who abruptly quits his job and adopts a life of crime as a jewel thief in Houston, Texas. He meets Laura (Jacqueline Bisset) at a society function who falls in love with him and then helps him to burglarize several high society members in Houston. Insurance investigator Dave Riley's (Warren Oates) primary focus in the film is to identify Webster as the jewel thief. O'Neal and Bisset ultimately make their escape in a Piaggio Royal Gull amphibious plane.
Webster is not a computer programmer in the novel.
In the novel, Webster meets his love in Chicagoland, where all the thefts and almost all of the story take place.
In the novel, Webster starts the story with a scarred face and broken nose, having been a football star in college (Northwestern). Over the course of the novel, he uses his earnings to finance a set of plastic surgeries to make himself more conventionally handsome. With Ryan O'Neal in the lead, the movie drops this plotline entirely.
