The Light Touch is a 1951 American crime drama film directed by Richard Brooks and starring Stewart Granger, Pier Angeli and George Sanders.

Art thief Sam Conride (Stewart Granger) steals a Renaissance-era painting on loan to an Italian museum by a Catholic church.

However, Conride stages a boating accident on the way to the rendezvous in Tunis and tells Felix the painting has been destroyed in a fire.

Nonetheless, he accepts Sam's suggestion that they create half a dozen forgeries to sell to unsuspecting art lovers.

On his own initiative, Charles (Mike Mazurki), one of Guignol's thugs, tries beating the information out of Anna, but she refuses to betray Sam.

The original story by famous Broadway producer Jed Harris and Tom Reed was called "Crown of Thorns" and was purchased by MGM in April 1950 for $60,000.

[7] Stewart Granger later wrote in his memoirs he had to make the film or go on suspension: I wasn't particularly enamored of the thought of working with [Richard Brooks] as I had heard he had reduced a small-part actor to tears.

[8]Filming started April 1951 and took place on location in Taormina, Sicily, and Tunis, before returning to the MGM studios for two weeks.

[9] Writer Truman Capote was living in Taorima at the time of filming and persuaded Brooks to place him in a street scene.

[10] Granger recalled, "Making The Light Touch was fairly uneventful and I knew as I made it that it would add nothing careerwise to anybody connected with it.

Pier Angeli was adorable with an anxious mother in attendance at all times and Brooks was his apparently usual, unpleasant self.