Ryan O’Neill

(On Cable TV, August 2022) As far as 1970s jewel thief movies go, The Thief Who Came to Dinner is about as ordinary as they come. Ryan O’Neill stars as a computer programmer who decides to quit his job after being seduced by jewel thievery, and exchanges his first score for addresses of other places with jewelry stashes. Jacqueline Bisset plays the generic girlfriend role, while Warren Oates completes the main trio as an investigator who develops a fondness for the object of his pursuit. The rest is rather standard material, albeit occasionally convoluted for its own sake. I probably would have enjoyed the result more if I thought more highly of blandy-bland O’Neill and his inexplicable run of popularity in the 1970s. The atmosphere of 1970s Houston is interesting, and the result is quite watchable even if you don’t think much of it. It’s just that the film invites comparisons to other films that don’t work to its advantage—although The Thief Who Came to Dinner works better if your expectations are firmly in check.