Once a Thief is a 1965 crime film directed by Ralph Nelson and starring Alain Delon, Ann-Margret, Van Heflin and Jack Palance.

Ex-convict Eddie Pedak (Delon) tries to lead a normal life in San Francisco with a loving wife Kristine (Ann-Margret), a daughter, and a steady job.

Meanwhile, Eddie's brother Walter, head of a criminal gang, attempts to recruit him for a final heist, offering him $50,000 for one night's work.

Eddie refuses, but he is unable to secure another job or collect unemployment, prompting Kristine to begin working as a waitress.

It becomes evident that Sargatanas and Shoenstein, other members of Walter's gang, framed Eddie for the shopkeeper's murder, and mistrust grows.

Sargatanas and Shoenstein find and kill Walter, and abduct Eddie's daughter in order to trade her for the platinum.

[3] A. H. Weiler of The New York Times wrote that the film was not as good as similar genre pictures, but praised the accuracy of its gangster dialogue: The melodrama may be tough, laconic and filled with a sense of doom, but it is hardly an innovation or an improvement on the gangster-with-a-heart-of-gold fare that has preceded it..... [The screenwriter] provided a generally terse, hard-bitten script whose language sounds like that used by the gunmen, narcotics addicts and hipsters of San Francisco's lower depths.