Proof that there’s no sense in this world, a movie that glorifies robbers and the mafia and begins with a Cosa Nostra murder of a man driving a lickable red Lamborghini Miura — the first of a dozen amazing vehicles in this auto-lover’s dream movie — is rated G.

“The Italian Job,” starring Michael Caine as the enterprising leader in a gold heist, Noel Coward as his jailed backer, and Benny Hill (!) as an old, perverted computer hacker, is as exciting, smart, funny and wonderfully written, acted, shot and scored as a movie can get. If you saw the 2003 so-called re-make, you missed out on the bang-on simplicity of the original heist plot, as it was apparently more profitable to trade it in for fiery explosions, lust, revenge, canals and helicopters — a boring sugar rush you can get from any furrowed-brow action flick on the shelf.

The movie begins as Charlie Croker (Caine) is leaving prison triumphant, en route to a job in Italy. “I hope he likes spaghetti,” quips an unamused fellow inmate, Mr. (no first name) Bridger (Coward). “They serve it four times a day in the Italian prisons.” Indeed, Croker breathes crime — he’s picked up by a blonde in a black limo she stole from the Pakistani ambassador, orders updated clothing from his tailor (“What did you do,” the tailor snarks, examining Croker’s pre-prison wardrobe, “life?”), tells the garage man he’s been gone for two years collecting bounties by shooting tigers in India as he hands him a wad of bills (“I used a machine gun”) and, after a hinted-at orgy, is met by the widow of his late partner (the man we saw dispatched in the first scene) who hands over a film reel that details, travelogue style, how to carry off a heist of $4 million in gold China is delivering to Turin, Italy: Neutralize the traffic cameras, jam the traffic lights, attack, escape, deliver the gold to a Swiss bank account.

“You’re only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!”

Thoroughly motivated, Charlie takes his beloved crime gear from storage (“Hazel, my lovely, out you come,” he says to his grappling hook) and breaks into a prison toilet to pitch the job to Bridger — a delightfully stuffy, Queen-obsessed heavy who’s treated more as warden than inmate. When he comes around to the caper, he sends Croker to a Professor Peach (Hill), telling him that for the right price, “everybody in the world is bent.” The breathy Peach’s price is, well, sex, of a sort: “Would we wear stockings over our heads?” he asks. When told he wouldn’t need to, he looks crestfallen. “Oh. I’d like that.” But in the ensuing bustle of crash- and explosion-testing cars, gathering drivers, maps of fantastic shortcuts through tiny courts and backyards, and a magnetic-taped Trojan Horse to briefly muddle the Turin traffic system (getting those street-view scenes — clogged ancient roads, the overhead views of packed plazas and the detail shots of drivers spending the jam flirting, fighting, drinking wine and, in the case of a van full of altar boys, rolling dice — is jaw-dropping) and preparing a gaudy, funny cover story for their getaway that relies on blending in with rowdy fans from an England-Italy soccer match, Bridger reminds them of one thing they’ve forgotten — the mafia.

Indeed, throughout the movie, police and international law cause the gang hardly any trouble, coming across as hardly effective, let alone able to react to massive crimes. A fantastic chase scene that deserves watching at least 10 times has Turin’s pitiful police motorcycles and drab sedans sputtering after the gang’s red white and blue gold-laden Minis — through tiny market streets, into the Museo Egizio, into sewers and shallow canals and even onto the under-construction roof of the Palazzo a Vela arena and diagonally down the bumpy steps of the Gran Madre di Dio church during the exit of a new bride and groom (“Good luck!” one of the gang shouts). The mafia, irritated at the crime against “prestige,” only holds back from stopping it at the chilling threat of the 250,000 Italians in England being driven “into the sea” by Bridger.

The failure of the state comeuppance machine isn’t the only twist in what could have been a much more typical action movie (wait until the ending). When asked if his sometimes-dim gang should “synchronize their watches,” Caine sneers, “nuts to your watches.” And when their radio expert, listening in to the police chatter, exclaims, “Ah! How ‘bout that!” there’s a long beat of silence. The other Englishmen don’t speak Italian, of course. The implication that criminals, not wardens, ruled the English prison system is wonderfully pointed: the inmates banging their plates and cheering the puffed-up Bridger’s heist success is a more orderly scene than a typical look at the House of Commons. And with all the dreamy 60s sports cars sent cartwheeling down alpine cliffs by the mafia’s Caterpillar, just one bursts into flames.

“The Italian Job” is an inspiring thrill of a movie, layered with detail, humor and information without being confusing. It’s a marvelous raw-power machine. There’s not a boring or bad-looking second in the entire 96 minutes, and even with that amazingly short running time, the audience is never jolted around with the shallow, made-for-the-trailer, toddler-like “am I entertaining you?” freneticism of the 2003 version. The original movie, like the robbery a clever, masterful feat of vision, organization and ambition, never has to nag us with that question. Like the Lamborghini in the opening shot, the original is a raw-power machine, and a reminder never to settle for the P.T. Cruiser remake.

Ashley O’Dell reviews movies that aren’t in the theater anymore. She lives in North Hollywood, near the In-N-Out Burger.