The Italian Job - Ending

Ending

According to a "Making Of" documentary, producer Deeley was unsatisfied with the four endings written and conceived the current ending as a (literal) cliffhanger appropriate to an action film which left an opportunity for a sequel. The documentary describes how helicopters would save the bus seen on the cliff at the end of the first film. The grateful gang would soon discover that it is the Mafia that has saved them, and the sequel would have been about stealing the gold bullion back from them.

In interviews in 2003 and 2008, Michael Caine revealed that the ending would have had Croker "crawl up, switch on the engine and stay there for four hours until all the petrol runs out... The van bounces back up so we can all get out, but then the gold goes over." The bus containing the gold would crash at the bottom of the hill where the Mafia would pick it up. The sequel would then have Croker and his men trying to get it back.

In 2008, the Royal Society of Chemistry held a competition for a solution that had a basis in science, was to take not more than 30 minutes and not use a helicopter. The idea was to promote greater understanding of science, and to highlight the 100th anniversary of the periodic table, of which gold is one of the 118 elements.

The winning entry, by John Godwin of Surrey, was to: Break and remove two large side windows just aft of the pivot point and let the glass fall outside to lose its weight. Break two windows over the two front axles; keep the broken glass on board to keep its weight for balance. Let a man out on a rope through the front broken windows (not to rest his weight on the ground) and he deflates all the bus's front tires, to reduce the bus's rocking movement about its pivot point. Drain the fuel tank, which was aft of the pivot point; that changes the balance enough to let a man get out and gather heavy rocks to load the front of the bus. Unload the bus. Wait until a suitable vehicle passes on the road, and hijack it and carry the gold away in it.