Canadian bank caper where the bank teller becomes a silent partner in the robbery and later a silent partner in a murder thats connected with it. Bank teller, Miles Cullen, Elliott Gould, on one afternoon during the Christmas holiday season spots a carbon discarded bank slip with a holdup note written on it. Cullen feels that the note is real when he later sees a Santa Claus in the mall, where the bank that he work for is located at, carrying a placard to help the needy. The placard has the same uniquely written letter “G” that was on the “Holdup” bank slip.
Feeling that a robbery is imminent Cullen keeps the cash transactions that he handles in a separate place until the end of he day when he returns the money to the bank vault. It turned out that Cullen was right when on the next day the Santa Claus robbed him of his cash just before the bank closed but the Santa only ended up with some $2,000.00 in cash and Cullen got almost $50,000.00! Meanwhile both the police and bank officials thinking that it was the bank robber that got away with all the cash. The Robber Harry Reikle, Christopher Plummer, realized this when he saw the news on TV about the bank robbery and to Reikle’s shock it was he not the bank teller who got stiffed. Cat and mouse game that leads from a bank robbery to a murder with bank teller Miles Cullen getting involved in something that was far more dangerous then he thought it would be at first.
Julie Carver, Susannah York, is unknowingly played by Cullen as an innocent bystander with her being used to secured the banks stolen money in a safe deposit box at the same bank so that Cullen can get his hands on it after the dust cleared and the heat was off. Eline, Celine Lomez, is the mystery woman who played both lit fuses, Cullen & Reikle, against the middle and ends up getting burned for doing it.
Nice buildup for the movies suspenseful if not so surprising ending which the audience will see coming by Reikle’s illogical viciousness, that he showed throughout the movie, that ultimately checkmated his intelligence in the final scene.
