Operazione San Pietro

Operation St. Peter's
Original Italian theatrical poster
Directed by	Lucio Fulci
Written by	Adriano Bolzoni Ennio De Concini Roberto Gianviti Lucio Fulci
Starring	Lando Buzzanca Jean-Claude Brialy Edward G. Robinson
Music by	Ward Swingle
Cinematography	Erico Menczer
Release date	29 December 1967
Running time	96 min.
Country	Italy France
Language	Italian

Operazione San Pietro (internationally released as Operation St. Peter's) is a 1967 Italian comedy film directed by Lucio Fulci. Beginning with the title, the film consists in a sort of unofficial sequel of Operazione San Gennaro, a successful heist-comedy film that Dino Risi had filmed the previous year.

The film was co-produced by France, where it was released as Au diable les anges, and West Germany, where is known as Die Abenteuer des Kardinal Braun.

Napoleon (Lando Buzzanca) is a small-time crook with big ideas. In prison in Naples where he is serving time for a robbery charge, he is sprung by accident when a foppish villain calling himself the Baron (Pinuccio Ardia) and his two "numb-skull" cohorts, Agonia (Ugo Fangareggi) and the Captain (Dante Maggio), tunnel under his cell, having lost their way to an expected bank vault. Napoleon escapes with his rescuers through the tunnel, and upon arrival on the outside of the prison, he discovers that the three are flat broke, despite the well-dressed appearance of the Baron. Napoleon swiftly asserts himself as leader of the group by pretending to be a master criminal and suggests that they move to Rome for richer pickings. The four of them are forced to travel to Rome in the back of a cattle truck since they do not have a car.

On the outskirts of Rome, the gang falls in with a seedy crook and gigolo who called himself Il Cajella (Jean-Claude Brialy), who owns a dilapidated used-car lot which Napoleon elects as his gang's hide-out and Cajella as their co-conspirator/protector. At first, Napoleon's renewed criminal activates are unambitious and he is soon caught sealing a woman's purse at a local shopping center. Before the security guards can call the police, Marisa (Christine Barclay) the woman whose purse he'd stolen comes, forward the announces that she knows him and saves him from arrest. Marisa insists on calling Napoleon "Filiberto", as it turns out merely because he resembles her dead husband.

Meanwhile, Cajella encounters the beautiful Samantha (Uta Levka) while cruising for trade at a singles bar mainly populated by wealthy older women. Cajella is unaware that Samantha belongs to a big American criminal named Joe Ventura (Edward G. Robinson). Elsewhere, the increasingly starved gang of crooks attempt to raise money to buy food by conning American tourists by offering them a private view of Michaelangelo's famous Pieta which is currently shielded from dust by a huge curtain during renovations. When a Vatican employee leaves a forklift truck unattended, Napoleon sees away to pull off a job he believes could place him amongst the giants of crime. Napoleon tells the Baron that he will steal the famous statue of the Madonna the Christ from the Vatican. This huge edifice, some 15 feet high and weighing several tons, can be sold a lot of money. To the horror and admiration of his cohorts, Napoleon swathes the statue in a blanket and brazenly carries it on the forklift truck out into the streets of Rome.