The Thief Who Came to Dinner

Infobox Film | name = The Thief Who Came to Dinner


caption = film poster
director = Bud Yorkin
producer = Norman Lear Bud Yorkin
writer = Terrence Lore Smith(novel) Walter Hill
starring = Ryan O'Neal Jacqueline Bisset Warren Oates Jill Clayburgh
music = Henry Mancini
cinematography = Philip H. Lathrop
editing = John Horger
distributor = Warner Bros.
released = March 1,1973
runtime = 104 min.
language =
rating =
budget =
preceded_by =
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imdb_id = 0070794

"The Thief Who Came to Dinner" is a 1973 comedy film directed by Bud Yorkin and based on the novel by Terrence Lore Smith.

Plot summary

Webster McGee (Ryan O'Neal) is a computer programmer 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.

Production

Actual filming took place in Houston, Texas. Director Bud Yorkin is known for his association with Norman Lear who together collaborated on "All in the Family" and "Maude" for broadcast television.

Differences between the novel and the movie

* 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.